Monumental Meltdown: Detroit's Death Knell

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You hope what’s not true?

That membership is falling and churches need to merge with other parishes and become one new one? Our church did that years ago. Nothing new. Nothing liberal about it. Just practicality.

Less people going to mass, fewer priests, building deteriorating. What other solution would you suggest?
 
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StudentMI said:
All of it. I know that clustering and all that isn’t explicitly liberal but knowing how this archdiocese is run and by whom, I hope this isn’t true.
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Again, you hope what Isn’t true? That clustering is going to happen?
 
That the numbers haven’t declined, that the people in charge of the clustering and selection of who remains won’t be who they say it is and so on. I know I’ll be switching parishes if the one I go to merges with the neighboring one lol.
 
How could the numbers have not declined? They have declined in most places. I wouldn’t think the numbers haven’t declined for Detroit.

Switching churches because they merge… it’s not the end of the world. It has worked out pretty well for our parish for the most part. The alternative is closure of churches completely.
 
Well, you have to take it with a grain of salt. Look at the source. 🤨
 
Detroit’s population has declined from 1,850,000 in 1950 (fourth largest city in the U.S. behind New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles) to the current 670,000 (23rd-largest city in the U.S.). Losing 64% of the population means church mergers/closures are inevitable. It’s demographics, plain and simple.
 
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Detroit in general has been a declining, crumbling wreck for years. Clustering parishes is the least of their worries. If I lived there I’d be worrying about stuff like getting my garbage collected and not getting killed by criminals due to lack of police response.
 
I don’t think calling it a meltdown or the death knell is correct. It is exaggerated and pointless. What will happen in Detroit is the same thing that has already happened in other areas.

The sky is not falling.
 
Glennon_P said:
Detroit’s population has declined from 1,850,000 in 1950 (fourth largest city in the U.S. behind New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles) to the current 670,000 (23rd-largest city in the U.S.). Losing 64% of the population means church mergers/closures are inevitable. It’s demographics, plain and simple.
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The Archdiocese of Detroit covers a lot more than the city of Detroit itself. Some of the surburban communities in Southeastern Michigan are flourishing and growing.

I’m no fan of Church Militant but to pretend this doesn’t say something bad about the state of the church in the Midwest is self-deception
 
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RolandThompsonGunner said:
I’m no fan of Church Militant but to pretend this doesn’t say something bad about the state of the church in the Midwest is self-deception
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Exactly. That was my reason for posting this.

Unfortunately there will be anger as well over thriving parishes having to ‘help’ languishing parishes. And eventually the question will come up “well why wasn’t the Church evangelizing and gaining more members? I thought the whole point of this Unleash the Gospel thing was to evangelize and get more members? Why did I donate to it?” Nothing good will come of this.

Is it inevitable? Yes. Doesn’t mean it’s gonna be the rosy picture the Archdiocese is trying to paint it as. We’re just going to have to become the smaller Church Benedict proposed.
 
StudentMI said:
We’re just going to have to become the smaller Church Benedict proposed.
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I’d like to read what Benedict said or wrote about this. Could you please point me at an article or document?

IMO the silver lining might actually be a poorer church.
 
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