The Diocese of Crookston in Minnesota announced that seven parishes will cease celebrating Sunday Mass in the coming months due to factors including a shortage of priests, lack of young people in religious formation, and trouble finding parish volunteers.
“The decision to stop having Sunday Mass at a church is amongst the most difficult decisions that have to be made,” said Bishop Andrew Cozzens of Crookston in a video announcement.
“The parish church, as we know, is the center of life — the center of our faith life for so many people, often for generations,” he said. “Itʼs the place where we most frequently live our relationship with God. Itʼs the place where the Mass is celebrated, especially on Sundays.”
Four parishes in the Northeast Deanery of the diocese, including St. Francis Xavier in Oklee, St. Ann in Goodridge, St. Philip in Falun, and St. Mary in Badger, will celebrate their final Sunday Masses in August and September.
In October, parishes in the Northwest Deanery, including St. Mary in Euclid, St. Joseph in Oslo, and St. Francis of Assisi in Fisher, will hold their final Sunday Masses.
While the parishes will soon halt Masses, Cozzens explained the diocese has “not yet decided the merging of these parishes, nor have we decided anything about the future of the buildings.”
“Demographics” was a deciding factor, because throughout the diocese “the population has been decreasing,” Cozzens said in the video. “There are fewer and fewer family farms” and “schools have been combined.”
“When these churches were built, there were often many large farm families throughout the area. Now itʼs not the case,” he said.
“Some of these parishes have no young people in religious formation, or at least very few. Some have trouble finding volunteers to keep the parish going, relying on only a few dedicated parishioners,” he said.
The lack of priests in the diocese is another factor.
In a letter to the faithful, Cozzens explained the diocese continues “to experience a shortage of priests” and “there are limits to the number and locations of Masses they can celebrate on any given weekend.”
“We must ensure that they can provide sustainable pastoral care and remain true spiritual fathers to the communities entrusted to them,” Cozzens wrote.
“Suffering and death are real parts of our lives as humans and as Christians. And if your parish is going to cease having Sunday Mass, it feels like a death because it is,” Cozzens said.
“The pain is real, and itʼs a sign of how much you love your faith and how much your parish matters to you,” he said.
Discernment process
The bishop explained that the diocese came to the decision after undergoing “an extensive process.”
The diocese created committees made up of “at least three representatives from every parish, totaling more than 20 people” who “worked hard to discern and pray about how we might use our limited resources to fulfill the churchʼs mission,” he said.
Members of the Diocesan Planning Commission also worked to discern the best pathway to advance the mission of the Church.
“When parishes become too small, itʼs impossible to support a mission-centered parish life. We cannot do outreach. We cannot support opportunities for growth and faith and evangelization,” the bishop said.
Due to these reasons, the group made the recommendation to halt Sunday Masses at the parishes, which the bishop accepted.
“And I believe that although we have reached some difficult decisions, the Holy Spirit has guided this process,” he said
The bishop also offered a message to Catholics in the diocese “who are not losing Sunday Mass at your parish.”
“You have a special responsibility to show love to your neighbors. You can honor the sacrifice these others are making for our common faith. You can let them know that they are not alone and walk beside them in their grief,” he said.
“You can be the hands and feet of Christ by reaching out to them, and you can help us to form a new community in your church building as you invite new members to join you,” he said.
