Cluster expanded to include Boone County churches
Greene County Catholics didn’t get the news they were hoping for when the Sioux City Diocese on Thursday published the final draft of its Ministry 2025 plan.
Not only is St Brigid Church in Grand Junction being moved to oratory status, but St Columbkille Church in Churdan will also become an oratory*. St Columbkille parishioners had not previously been told their church was being considered for a change in status.
The possible change in status for St Brigid has weighed heavily on Grand Junction residents as they face the closure in May of the Intermediate School.
In addition to the change of status for two of the three Greene County cluster churches (St Joseph in Jefferson being the third), the cluster is being expanded to include Boone County. St Joseph in Jefferson, Sacred Heart in Boone, and St Malachy in Madrid will comprise a Greene/Boone cluster. St John in Ogden will become an oratory.
According to Fr Jeff Schleisman, pastor of the Greene County churches, St Columbkille is one of five churches in the diocese that were not named in the first draft for oratory status but are now named in the final draft.
St Brigid was named in the first draft. The parish council and parishioners had an opportunity to advocate for their parish to the Ministry 2025 committee.
Schleisman said the five parishes added to the list will have a similar opportunity to petition the committee, but that process will work through the larger new cluster. He will provide more information about the process at this weekend’s masses.
The Ministry 2025 plan will go into effect this summer for most parishes. According to Fr Schleisman, the Greene/Boone county churches will have an extra year before the changes go into effect because of its large geographic size.
The intent of Ministry 2025 is to “use limited priestly resources as wisely as possible while creating and sustaining vibrant parishes,” the diocesan newspaper “The Catholic Globe” explains. It is expected that by 2025 the Sioux City diocese will have only 31 working priests; the plan calls for 31 clusters.
However, plans call for the Greene/Boone cluster always to have two priests, Fr Schleisman said. Fr Jim Bruch serves St Malachy. He is eligible for retirement but has said he will stay in active ministry for another few years and he will remain in Madrid. Fr Randy Schon is at Sacred Heart in Boone. There are no immediate plans to reassign either Fr Schleisman or Fr Schon. There will be three priests in the cluster until Fr Bruch retires.
The next step is to develop a Greene/Boone leadership team that will create a strategy for the churches going to oratory status and to plan for mass schedules and other details. Under the 2025 plan, the cluster may determine that some churches named as oratories instead be closed all together.
Parish priests had already seen the final draft but were requested not to share it with their parishioners until it was published in its entirety in “The Globe.” “Leadership wanted people to see the whole plan, not just how it affected just them,” Fr Schleisman said. He made brief comments about the plan at last weekend’s masses and alerted people of the Jan. 12 publication. “It was hard last weekend not to be able to tell the details, but to try to prepare people,” he said.
Last weekend he said only that the cluster would be expanded, and he said that some parishes named for oratory status would remain open and other churches named to stay open would go to oratory status.
Also going to oratory status are St Joseph in Lohrville and Fr Schleisman’s “home” parish, Holy Family in Lidderdale.
*Oratories are a place of prayer. They do not have weekend masses or programs like religious education or faith formation. Only the building exists, and although it can be used for weddings, funerals, or other special events, it no longer functions as the home of a parish.
