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Seen in Lexington, Kentucky
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I’m going to say something that shouldn’t be controversial but will be. If you are a Christian, you can support border control and immigration being legal vs illegal. You CANNOT celebrate deportations and get off on the cruelty, and be a real Christ follower. Period
Archbishop Duffy says that the discernment about whether to merge the dioceses will involve those affected. Even involving those affected would be an improvement over simply imposing restructuring from on high. However, I think that the clergy, employees and laity in general should be more than involved in such a decision. I think that they should be the primary ones making the decisions. After all, they are on the ground and know the situation, they built the churches and parishes in general, …
My unpopular opinion on this is that most people (particularly laypeople) ought to be left out of the decision to merge/close parishes and dioceses.
Most laity are less than worthless to have in these discussions. They typically have little clue about the sustainability of their parishes (sacramentally and/or financially), have the greatest amount of sentimental attachment, and are thus generally delusional in their expectations. The people who are most vocal and up-in-arms about closing a parish are typically the ones who have no idea just how dire and unsustainable their parish’s situation is. They’ll stand in front of bulldozers, protest the bishop’s office, and write to Rome, but never bothered to give $10+/week in the collection for the past 15 years. They’ll draft dream proposals of how they can miraculously “raise funds to save the parish” but never significantly gave or volunteered for years while the parish annually runs in the red.
This is 95% of parishioners on a parish roll, and they’re better off not being involved in bogging down discussions. I can only imagine this even more true at the diocesan level.