RC churches won’t be shut
Consultation ends with good news
Plans to close up to nine Catholic churches across the Stirling area have been dropped.
A two-year consultation by the Archdiocese of Saint Andrews and Edinburgh – which includes parishes within Stirling area – looked at the possibility of merging parishes.
Almost 120 public meetings were held during the review and they were attended by over 7,000 parishioners.
Included in the consultation were Holy Spirit and St Ninians, St Margaret and St Mary, all Stirling; Stirling University; St Patrick’s Missionary, Stirling; Sacred Heart, Cowie; Our Lady and St Ninians, Bannockburn; St Kessogs, Blanefield, and St Anthony, Balfron.
Most Rev Leo Cushley, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, said: “If you choose to consult with parishioners and priests, then you have to listen to what they are saying and, in this instance, I was happy to be persuaded by the case that was made to me by many of our people and clergy.
“The fact is, people are very attached to their churches and have expressed a wish in many places to keep them.”
Archbishop Cushley’s decision was delivered in a pastoral letter read at every Sunday Mass across the Archdiocese’s 103 parishes.
The 103 parishes are currently organised into 30 ‘clusters’ or areas, each containing several parishes.
During the consultation, which began in 2015, public meetings were held in every cluster area.
Archbishop Cushley put two key questions to each cluster area, asking how to build viable Christian communities and how the cluster would look if it were to be merged into fewer parishes or even a single parish.
Priests and parishioners were then asked to discuss the proposal before submitting a report of their deliberations in 2017.
Archbishop Cushley added: “The first thing that I picked up from the meetings I attended, the reports, and subsequent meetings with the clergy too, was the attachment of many, though not all, to their local churches.
“The second thing that consistently came through was the willingness of priests and people to pool limited resources at a local level into larger, more sustainable Catholic parishes that can better evangelise their communities – this includes a willingness to merge existing parishes.”
Plans now being drafted following the consultation could mean that there will be fewer parishes but with many retaining a number of their existing churches.
The revised plans could also mean not every church may expect to have Mass every Sunday, with some parishioners possibly having to be prepared to travel to other places of worship.
It’s expected that final decisions will be taken in the next few months following a final consultation with the Archdiocesan Council of Priests.