ADRIAN – The jury still is out on how the shortage of Catholic priests will impact the Diocese of Lansing, which includes 10 parishes in Lenawee County. But Bishop Carl Mengling is taking a proactive stance with the appointment of a coordinating commission to see how the problem might be addressed.

The commission, a follow-up to the 1999-2001 diocesan pastoral planning process, started meeting in January, said Michael Diebold, director of communications for the diocese.

‘Right now, the commission is working on the process it will use to evaluate the 97 parishes in the diocese,” he said.

No plans have been made to close any of the parishes, Diebold said. Whether that happens will depend on criteria determined by the commission, possibly this summer.

National statistics from the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University are testimony to the decline in priestly pursuits. In 1965, there were 35,925 diocesan priests, compared to 28,702 in 2005. Religious order priests numbered 22,707 in 1965 and 14,137 in 2005. Ordinations have dropped as well, with 994 priests ordained in 1965 and 454 in 2005. CARA statistics for parishes without a resident priest numbered 549 in 1965 but climbed to 3,251 in 2005. Conversely, the Catholic population surged from 45.6 million in 1965 to 64.8 million in 2005.

The most recent numbers published by the Lansing diocese in January show 86 active diocesan priests, 12 religious order priests and 11 priests ordained in other dioceses serving in churches, hospitals, retreat centers and schools throughout the 10-county diocese.

Diocesan priests are ordained by the bishop of their particular diocese while religious order priests answer to the provincial superior of their community. In Lenawee County, members of the Toledo-Detroit Province of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales serve in three parishes as well as in the campus ministry program at Siena Heights University and the chaplaincy for the Adrian Dominican Sisters. Diocesan priests serve four parishes in the county.

Three priests, pastoring the three largest parishes in Lenawee County, weighed in with their views on the clergy crisis recently, revealing three distinct views. The Rev. Robert Schramm, pastor of St. Mary of Good Counsel in Adrian, is a member of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales religious community. The local parish is close to the hearts of the oblates, Schramm said; an oblate has pastored the parish for 30 years. He has served at St. Mary’s since July, replacing the Rev. Tom Helfrich, who moved to a campus minister spot at Siena Heights University.

Schramm, 65, has been a high school teacher and also worked for the Diocese of Saginaw when it was experiencing some parish closures. As delegate for the late Bishop Ken Untener, he had to assist in helping 11 east side parishes make a survival plan.

‘That was the toughest two years of my life,” Schramm said. ‘We ended up merging five of those 11 parishes into one parish. It became St. Simon and Jude.”

After five years working as associate director of Weber Center on the Adrian Dominican Sisters campus, Schramm returned to St. Simon and Jude, this time as pastor.

‘The (Saginaw) diocese was really having problems,” he said. ‘There was an acute shortage of priests. There were three oblates, two sisters and a lay person who were responsible for five parishes. After a while, it was pretty frustrating. You were always on the move, you never got an opportunity to know anyone.”

Schramm has been acclimating to the pastoral life with few problems, although it has been a hectic transition. St. Mary’s has 1,100 households and typically 600 to 800 people each weekend at one of its four Masses.

The parish has an active Hispanic population and the Sunday afternoon Mass is in Spanish. St. Mary’s also has a parish administrator, Rick Bayes, which has helped Schramm tremendously. He has a good network of lay people on staff who are willing to lend a hand. Still, it can be a challenge to be a full-time pastor.

‘When I want to get away, it’s tough to find someone to sub,” Schramm said. ‘I’m fortunate to have (the Rev. Louis Komorowski) living here but it’s tough to ask him to do four Masses. Being a parish priest is challenging at any age, but even more so the older you get.

‘But, St. Mary’s is a wonderful parish. I love it here.”

In his more than 30 years as a priest, Schramm said the biggest challenge has been the current shortage of priests.

‘More and more parishes are being served by a ‘circuit rider,’” he said. ‘It’s not a terribly satisfying ministry. The centrality of the Eucharist is in jeopardy.”

Schramm said from a fundamental standpoint, the Eucharist is the heart and center for Catholic Christians.

‘Without some miraculous intervention or change in church practice, we are going to get to the point in some parishes where the Eucharist would be celebrated once a month instead of every Sunday,” Schramm said.

Already, there are some parishes where ‘Word and communion services” are the norm. Schramm points to how much the world has changed just in the last century, and said the church needs to look at its direction as well.

‘Maybe the church needs to look at who we’re ordaining as priests,” Schramm said.

The Rev. Daniel Wheeler, 57, pastor of St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Tecumseh, has been a diocesan priest more than 25 years, 19 of those in Tecumseh. In addition to his full-time responsibilities at St. Elizabeth, he also is the parish administrator for St. Dominic’s in Clinton. The Rev. Paul Ruddy, a retired Oblate of St. Francis de Sales, is the sacramental minister for the Clinton parish.

‘Right now, we’re not really impacted by the priest shortage – we have coverage,” Wheeler said.

Compared to the Archdiocese of Detroit, which recently announced its strategic plan for merging and closing parishes, Wheeler believes the Diocese of Lansing is in a much stronger position, in part because it has fewer churches and a smaller population. Still, there are some differences between the church 25 years ago and the church today. He pointed to additional services that need to be offered in parishes and require staff, such as youth ministry and expanded religious education programs.

And where many parishes had an associate or additional priest, that’s much rarer in today’s church. Wheeler said the challenge of serving the people is among the greatest facing priests and the diocese today. He sees a correlation between the rise in ordained priests in other countries compared to the U.S.

‘We haven’t faced a shortage here; it hasn’t changed quite as much as in other areas,” he said. ‘But it will be coming. So far, we’ve been fortunate enough so that we have enough priests. Larger parishes outside of our region are relying on associate priests or parochial vicars from other countries and that’s where I think you will find the next wave of associate priests will be coming from. Twenty years ago, those associate priests were coming from the U.S.”

The Rev. David Hudgins, pastor of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Adrian, said the clergy crisis provides an opportunity for people to become more active in their parishes, to be participants and share their expertise in a variety of areas. At 37, he is one of the youngest priests in the diocese. He first came to Michigan from Montana to attend the University of Michigan, where he earned his master’s degree in social work. He was ordained five years ago and came to St. Joe’s two years ago from St. Thomas Aquinas parish in East Lansing. Compared to St. Thomas, St. Joseph’s is a pretty small parish, with 710 families, or about 2,000 people. Like St. Elizabeth’s, there are three Masses celebrated each weekend.

‘It’s a great opportunity in a lot of ways,” he said. ‘It’s a gift for the people. It’s been an American paradigm that the ‘father’ or clergy does it all in the parish and the people just come to Mass and sit. So, this is a time for them to step forward with their gifts.”

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