How many priest changes has your church seen?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Texas_Cigar
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
T

Texas_Cigar

Guest
I have gone back to church for 3 years now. My church has changed priests 3 in the past 3 years. How many priest changes has your church seen? I understand we have a shortage of priests, but what’s the point of moving a priest just to replace him? It bums me out to build a relationship with my father and then he has to leave. BUT. I have a super cool and good Deacon (that will never leave) that always guides my family and I to Christ. But I find myself mentally treating my Deacon like priest. Is that a sin in itself? I’m rambling, back to the original question. How many priest changes has your church seen?
 
Texas_Cigar said:
I have gone back to church for 3 years now. My church has changed priests 3 in the past 3 years. How many priest changes has your church seen? I understand we have a shortage of priests, but what’s the point of moving a priest just to replace him? It bums me out to build a relationship with my father and then he has to leave. BUT. I have a super cool and good Deacon (that will never leave) that always guides my family and I to Christ. But I find myself mentally treating my Deacon like priest. Is that a sin in itself? I’m rambling, back to the original question. How many priest changes has your church seen?
Click to expand...
August 1997 – I moved here. There were two priests, the Pastor (Fr. A) and an assistant (Fr. B) on loan from a diocese in India. Pastor had already been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

1999 – Fr. B goes back to India.

1999 – New Pastor, Fr. C, appointed with Fr. A staying on as assistant.

January 2000 - Fr. A retires to his congregation’s retirement home.

January 2001 - Fr. C is sent to rehab.

January-September 2001 – Several priests take turns spending a month or two ministering to us.

September 2001 – Fr. D is appointed Pastor

September 2004 – Fr. D retires due to illness. Fr. E, who had been a Pastor for another parish but living in our rectory, is appointed Pastor.

September 2008 – Fr. E is reassigned to his former Parish. Fr. F is appointed Pastor.

August 2011 – Fr. F. is reassigned by his religious congregation and moves to the opposite end of the country. Fr. E is named Administrator again.

August 2012 – Fr. G is appointed as the new Pastor.

January 2016 – Fr. G dies. Fr. H, a Jesuit priest from India who serves another parish and lives in our rectory is appointed as temporary Administrator.

July 2016 – Fr. J, a Missionary of Faith priest from India, is appointed as permanent Administrator. At this time I don’t know why he was appointed as Administrator and not as Pastor.
 
Pastoral appointments in our diocese are six years. They are sometimes renewed, sometimes not.

We have had several newly ordained priests come to our parish for a year or two before they are assigned elsewhere. Sometimes it’s a matter of gaining experience (or a particular kind of experience - large, small, rural, urban, etc. etc.) Sometimes people aren’t a good fit and it’s not apparent until some time has gone by. Sometimes the fit is “too good” and people get complacent. 🤷
 
I have seen a dozen or more priest changes; they leave for various reasons, most are not obvious to us. Back in the day, when there were enough priests, and to prevent a parish from becoming “the church of Father X”, the diocese would move the pastors every 5 years and the associate every 2. These days, almost everyone stays put until they are needed somewhere else or retire. Vocations seem to be picking up a bit lately, so we may be in for more changes in the future.
 
pensmama87 said:
Pastoral appointments in our diocese are six years. They are sometimes renewed, sometimes not.

We have had several newly ordained priests come to our parish for a year or two before they are assigned elsewhere. Sometimes it’s a matter of gaining experience (or a particular kind of experience - large, small, rural, urban, etc. etc.) Sometimes people aren’t a good fit and it’s not apparent until some time has gone by. Sometimes the fit is “too good” and people get complacent. 🤷
Click to expand...
This is my experience as well
 
I miss the days of my childhood. The Pastor who celebrated Mom & Dad’s wedding and baptized me and my two siblings was Pastor of our parish from 1928-1958. I think my baby brother was his last baptism. My dad was his altar server for 27 years.
 
Phemie said:
I miss the days of my childhood. The Pastor who celebrated Mom & Dad’s wedding and baptized me and my two siblings was Pastor of our parish from 1928-1958. I think my baby brother was his last baptism. My dad was his altar server for 27 years.
Click to expand...
This was the case with my childhood pastor as well. He came from Lourdes France and built the parish which of course was named Our Lady of Lourdes.😉 My mom and her siblings attended school there,she and my dad and extended family were all married there and I and my siblings,cousins,ect were all baptized and attended school there as well. Things have changed dramatically and I suspect the growth of suburbia over the many years has contributed to that.
 
It completely depends on the needs of the parish and what the Bishop requires. My current parish has had two pastors in 8 years. The current one for 6 of those. We have also had 3 different parochial vicar (each for roughly 2 years). One of the parishes near us has had 2 pastors and three parish administrators as well as two parochial vicar in the same 8 year time period. Another parish just had their pastor of 25+ years retire.

I was recently talking to my spiritual director about how priest rotations happen. He said a number of things go into it. Parochial Vicar are generally rotated through an assignment every year or two. This is to get them familiar with different type of parishes. Once they gain experience he said that they can be rotated based on the need of the parish. This need is not strictly based on what parishioners want, but based on the assessment of the Bishop. He said the Bishop will sometimes rotate in a new pastor for 3 years or so to clean up problems at a parish. The intent is that they would not stay long and can be the “bad cop” to root out any “thorn bushes” that have grown. He said those bushes often grown in parishes where the pastor has been there for ages and does not want to damage relationships if he sees problems. The “bad cop” pastor fixes the problems and tills the soil for the next long term priest who tends to be more gentle. In other cases it can simply be that the parish and priest are not a good fit. Generally the parishioners will never know the full reason why.
 
Jeanne_S said:
This was the case with my childhood pastor as well. He came from Lourdes France and built the parish which of course was named Our Lady of Lourdes.😉 My mom and her siblings attended school there,she and my dad and extended family were all married there and I and my siblings,cousins,ect were all baptized and attended school there as well. Things have changed dramatically and I suspect the growth of suburbia over the many years has contributed to that.
Click to expand...
Also quite relevant is the decrease in the number of priests.

The parish in which I grew up was in a rural village. It originally served all 3 other neighbouring villages but as those grew new parishes were erected to serve the population. By 1968 there were 4 different village parishes each with its own Pastor as well as a town parish with a Pastor, a Vicar (the word we used in French for Assistant Pastor), and sometimes a third priest in residence.

Fast forward to today and, instead of 6 or 7 priests, there is one priest who serves all 5 parishes (these are unilingual French parishes). In fact, when I was back home recently I was given to understand that all of the village parishes were going to be suppressed and the town parish would be renamed and absorb all the territory. There would then be 1 parish with 5 different churches (for now, all but one of the churches dates back the early 1900s). At this time the parish with the newest church has Mass every Saturday at 4 pm., and the other 4 take turns having Mass at 7 pm on Saturday. No Sunday Masses at all during the summer.

There is another similar set up of English parishes, also featuring one town parish (same town), 1 city parish 26 Km away, and 4 village parishes (different villages from those above). The town parish has Mass every Sunday at 9:30 so the faithful of the town still have 2 masses to choose from but the villagers are limited to one Mass per month in their church and then have to go elsewhere. One English village parish celebrated its last Mass yesterday. Their church is being closed and decommissioned bringing the number down to 5.

None of the above parishes has a daily Mass, not one.
 
We’ve had nine Priests in the past two years, but we’re a Dominican Parish with one Pastor and three or four Parochial Vicars/Assistant Pastors who all live in community. 😛

My favorite parish in Florida, where my parents live, has had the same Priest since something like 1985.
 
Over the past 2 years I’ve been at my parish, one priest was moved out and replaced by somebody else. He was the rector for the school so I never saw him anyway.
 
To the OP, I have not been here that long but the priest has never been replaced, he has been here decades.
Usige said:
I was recently talking to my spiritual director about how priest rotations happen. He said a number of things go into it. Parochial Vicar are generally rotated through an assignment every year or two. This is to get them familiar with different type of parishes. Once they gain experience he said that they can be rotated based on the need of the parish. This need is not strictly based on what parishioners want, but based on the assessment of the Bishop. He said the Bishop will sometimes rotate in a new pastor for 3 years or so to clean up problems at a parish. The intent is that they would not stay long and can be the “bad cop” to root out any “thorn bushes” that have grown. He said those bushes often grown in parishes where the pastor has been there for ages and does not want to damage relationships if he sees problems. The “bad cop” pastor fixes the problems and tills the soil for the next long term priest who tends to be more gentle. In other cases it can simply be that the parish and priest are not a good fit. Generally the parishioners will never know the full reason why.
Click to expand...
A question for Usige, in keeping with your vein of thought, does that mean ‘problem’ parishes have a lot of turnover?
 
I’m a new convert, we’ve just had one at the church I usually attend. It didn’t go well for me, I have social anxiety and it made it very difficult for me to be comfortable again. We recently got an assistant pastor (we didn’t have one before) and he seems nice I just met him yesterday.
 
Casilda said:
A question for Usige, in keeping with your vein of thought, does that mean ‘problem’ parishes have a lot of turnover?
Click to expand...
Depends on if you mean turnover of priests or people in the pews.

I only know of two specific instance where the priest told me they were asked to go in an clean up specific problems. In both cases a number of parishioners ended up leaving.

When I’ve seen high churn in the pastors I understand it to be a combination of things. The parish with a number of changes near me I believe to have been a combination of things. Part of it was not having enough experienced pastors. One of the ones that was there for a year just did not get along with anyone in the parish. I understand he disowned the parish council and constituted a new one and then wanted to disolve it also. At some point the bishop has to balance what resources he has against the parish needs. In certain cases it might take rotating a number of priest to find that balance.

Now this is all said based on not being a priest, but simply on talking to a number of priests on how they are assigned. I have been interested since my diocese is look at something similar with deacons, where they might not stay at their home parish, but rather might be shuffled every so often based on the needs or parishes in say a 30 mile diameter area (likely based at the deanery level).
 
Thanks everybody for your answers. I just wanted to see if it was just my church that sees a high Priest rotation. 🙂
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top