Excerpt from the 5/14/2006 Bulletin

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Over the next year or two, the Diocese of Cleveland will be involved in stage two of the Vibrant Parish Life (VPL) process. Stage one began a couple of years ago when there were interviews and questionnaires, a process of finding the strengths and needs of each parish. Each parish received a report of its own results and all the results were turned in to the diocese to find some common threads. In looking at these, this next stage was developed.

Stage two calls on every parish to spend some time discerning its position among and relationship with other parishes. This is to be done with the purpose of proposing possible parish clusters. All of these proposals will be examined and the best ones will be initiated. At that point, we will become part of a parish cluster, which will be a major factor in the future of our parish.

Clustering is a growing idea in the dioceses of the United States. Its aim is to find ways for parishes to share their strengths and find help for their needs. It is growing because of the growing shortage of priests and religious and because of the growing cost of providing the needed ministries in every parish. It is projected that by the year 2015 (the year I would retire from active ministry if all would go normally), there will be more parishes in the Diocese of Cleveland than active priests. I cannot imagine what it would be like to have only one priest in a parish the size of St. Charles or Holy Family (6,000 households each). We have about 1,200 households.

Ministries are becoming more diverse and involved. Some of them require specialized personnel. There are new needs surfacing all the time. Some old needs have become more complicated. (It would be a joy to be able to afford a business manager to coordinate our buying and repair work.) Very few parishes have the resources, human or material, that are needed for today's ministries.

And so, we have the idea of clustering; several parishes working together to determine the best ways to meet their needs, each offering from their strengths and pooling their resources. Each cluster would form a plan for the foreseeable future and the parishes would begin implementing it.

We've already seen some of this on a limited basis. We work together with OLA and Ascension and Annunication on a pre-Baptism program. Each parish offers the program once every four months, making it available throughout the year. We have also worked with Ascension and Annunciation on a PSR program.

Many people hear the word clustering and begin to think of closed schools or parishes. No doubt that will happen in some places of the diocese. In Bishop Pilla's vision of this, it would only happen at the decision of the people of that particular community. (We do not yet know what Bishop Lennon's views on this will be.) The directions that clustering can take us are diverse. It might be two or three parishes sharing the salary of a manager or teacher who would work at each parish part-time. It might be a greater sharing of parish programs and personnel. Once the cluster is formed, those parishes will work together on ways to share strengths and meet needs.

It will be easier for this area of the diocese to cluster than for some others. Our parishes are relatively close to each other. In rural areas, the churches may be a 45-minute drive from each other. In central city areas, there may be very few material resources to share. Big suburban parishes may find very little need to cluster because they "can do everything" they need.

This is a time of hope, needing vision and generosity. Keep it in your prayers and be willing to share as we enter the period of discerning our cluster.