The Catholic church in the region is shrinking.
Some parishes across the region here are closing or merging, the result of a priest shortage, demographic changes and shrinking budgets, Patricia Montemurri of the Detroit Free Press reports.
Several familiar parishes will get new names or close under the plan. That means many bittersweet memories for longtime parishioners.
At St. Gregory parish in northwest Detroit, where plans call for the church to close, an alumni mass was held Sunday. A tentative proposal, yet to be formally approved by the archdiocese, calls for St. Gregory and St. Benedict of Highland Park to close and merge with Madonna parish at its Detroit site, served for many years by Father William Cunningham, the late co-founder of Focus: HOPE.
A parish in northern Oakland County, Divine Mercy in Davisburg, is closing seven years after it opened in a school gymnasium. With the recession and its aftermath, the population expansion that parish backers believed would materialize has not. Its pastor has been assigned to another parish. The parish bulletin says Divine Mercy’s last mass is June 23.
Mergers and closings are the result of a years-long process, Montemurri writes.
