Joliet — Five churches and two Catholic schools in Joliet and Crest Hill will be closing while five more churches will remain open but be consolidated into larger, combined parishes under a restructuring plan announced by the Diocese of Joliet on Thursday.

The announcement comes after a year and a half of work by the diocese to conduct a “targeted restructuring” campaign aimed at reducing costs for the diocese, which is facing decreasing attendance, staffing shortages and mounting expenses from aging facilities.

The five churches that will be closed are St. Bernard, St. Anthony, St. Jude, Sacred Heart, all in Joliet, and St. Anne in Crest Hill.

Due to the consolidation of their respective churches, St. Jude School and St. Paul the Apostle School will also close at the end of the 2023-24 school year. A new combined school will reopen at the St. Paul the Apostle site in fall of 2024, welcoming students from St. Jude alongside students from the existing St. Paul the Apostle.

The church closures and combinations will bring the existing 16 parishes in the Joliet Deanery down to seven.

Historical Decisions

In an October 2022 statement announcing the restructuring initiative, Bishop Ronald A. Hicks compared the restructuring to pruning a tree so it continues to bear fruit, calling it “necessary, but not easy.” In the announcement of the closures, he returned to that comparison.

In a statement posted on the diocese’s website Thursday, Hicks said the changes are a moment of “great historical significance in that the Joliet Diocese has never undertaken a project of such magnitude” and that the restructuring is “deliberate, proactive, and anticipatory” for the future of the Deanery and based on facts.

Hicks went on to state, “As missionary disciples, we should all desire a Church that is thriving, growing and following the Gospel. In other words, everything we do as a Church needs to be about the salvation of souls. Most Catholics want to see a Church that is focused on the mission of Jesus Christ and not on the preservation of our buildings.”

He added that “at the end of the day, I do not want us to be viewed as a diocese that buried its head in the sand or kicked the can down the road. Instead, with deep faith in God, we are pruning some of the structural branches, so that our Church can continue to produce great fruit.”

Closings and consolidations

In the official statement released by the Diocese of Joliet, it was explained that the consolidations will take place within the three geographic parish groupings established in 2022.

Group One consisted of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, St. Joseph, St. Bernard, St. Mary Magdalene, and St. Anthony, all in Joliet.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel will remain its own parish and will not be altered. St. Joseph, St. Bernard, St. Mary Magdalene, and St. Anthony will be combined into one new parish with two worship sites. St. Mary Magdalene will serve as the main parish church while St. Joseph will be maintained as a secondary worship site.

Parish Group Two contained St. Paul the Apostle, St. Jude, St. Patrick, Sacred Heart, all in Joliet and St. Joseph (Rockdale).

Following the restructuring, all five parishes will combine into one new parish. St. Paul and St. Patrick will serve as the new parish’s worship sites, while St. Joseph (Rockdale) will be maintained as a mission under the supervision of the new parish.

St. Paul the Apostle School will absorb the the students from St. Jude School under a new name, according to the diocese. The new parish will also retain Sacred Heart’s African American liturgy and community outreach program and will expand its Hispanic ministry by including more Spanish language masses and sacraments, according to the diocese.

Group Three includes the Cathedral of St. Raymond in Joliet — the diocesan seat —, as well St. John the Baptist, St. Mary Nativity, Holy Cross, all in Joliet, and St. Ambrose and St. Anne, both in Crest Hill.

The Cathedral of St. Raymond will remain unchanged “for the time being” as will its affiliated school, the diocese said, but it will also begin work to expand its Hispanic ministry and Spanish language offerings.

St. John the Baptist will remain in its current configuration, until if and when the Franciscans are no longer able to sufficiently manage and staff it, the diocese plan states. At that time, it will be absorbed by St. Raymond and a decision will be made determining if it will remain as a secondary worship site or be closed.

Holy Cross Parish will become a mission under the supervision of St. Mary Nativity Church. St. Mary Nativity’s church and school operations will continue unchanged, the diocese said.

Holy Cross church will be able to continue offering Polish language masses, Polish school, and other Polish language ministries, according to the plan.

St. Ambrose and St. Anne will combine into one parish with St. Ambrose serving as the parish church, and St. Anne will close.

Next Steps

According to FAQs released by the diocese following the announcement, current pastors of the existing 16 parishes will be asked to select parish transition teams of three to six people from their congregations, which will begin meeting with diocese officials to discuss transition plans.

These plans will include logistical measures as well as meetings and events for parishioners to promote unification.

The pastors of the two new consolidated parishes will be announced in March and their assignments will officially begin with the start of the church’s new fiscal year on July 1, 2024, the diocese said.

Priests who are not selected as pastors will be reassigned to other churches at that time, as will deacons from closing churches.

Operations at the parishes will continue as usual through June 30, including the scheduling of baptisms, weddings, first communions, confirmations, and funerals, however no services will be scheduled beyond June 30.

Closing parishes will need to contact couples who have already scheduled weddings beyond June 30 to discuss arrangements, the diocese said.

All parishes will be encouraged to hold final, closing masses before June 30. New mass schedules will be determined by the new pastors and transition teams and will be implemented after July 1.

Along with finances and staff, religious education programs will be combined between merging parishes, though classes can be held at multiple worship sites. Specific details will be determined by the transitional committees and the new pastors at the churches.

Staff from all merging parishes will be welcome to apply for positions at the new consolidated parishes.

Parish ministries at combined churches will also be merged into new, larger operations. While specific leadership roles will be determined by the committees and pastors.

Decision-Making Process

This announcement comes after more than a year and a half of planning, and a month of consideration on the specific recommendations, which were delivered to Hicks in December.

After first making cuts to its own office staff, reducing it from 99 to 70 members in the summer of 2022, the diocese hired a consulting firm to evaluate the 16 parishes of the Joliet deanery and divide them into three groupings by geography.

“Because of the density of the Joliet deanery, we decided to do it all at once,” Maureen Harden, director of implementation for the targeted restructuring committee, told the Herald-News in October. “This is the only urban area in the diocese, and there are 16 churches within about four and a half miles of the cathedral. It’s unsustainable.”

Harden’s committee was created by the diocese to examine the finances and demographics of these groupings and come up with suggestions for how to best consolidate the parishes. Factors taken into consideration included regular mass attendance numbers, available priests and staff, sacramental numbers, parish finances, and the condition of parish facilities.

Four possible scenarios were eventually created, ranging from conservative with minimal changes to “very bold” plans which would cut the number of parishes in the diocese in half. Those scenarios were presented to parishes in September and October 2023 to inform the community and give parishioners an opportunity to provide feedback.

A second committee was also created to evaluate the deanery’s four Catholic schools to determine which should remain operational or how they could be combined. The configuration announced in January was one of the more “bold” restructuring options.

Reducing the number of parishes was deemed a necessity by the diocese because of increasing costs and decreasing parishioners and priests.

In a PowerPoint on its website explaining the lack of sustainability of the deanery’s current configuration, the diocese said the 16 churches needed at least $8 million in repairs over the next decade, a benchmark deemed impossible to meet with the churches’ current finances, some of which are operating at a deficit due to consistently decreasing church attendance, part of a larger, nationwide loss of interest in organized religion among younger generations.

The diocese, and the church as a whole, are also facing a shortage of priests to manage parishes. The Diocese of Joliet has gained 10 parishes and lost nearly 200 priests since 1970 and only two new priests were ordained in the diocese in 2022. The lack of new incoming clergy had already led to four priests in the Joliet deanery each serving as pastor for two parishes simultaneously, something that was taken into consideration when making consolidation choices.

The consolidation of parishes will streamline church operations and create a need for less support staff, thereby reducing parish budgets.

It is not yet clear what will happen with buildings that will be permanently closed by the restructuring initiative. There are no plans to sell any decommissioned church buildings or diocese property.

Resources, belongings, and third-party debt held by shuttered parishes will be assumed by the new absorbing parishes. The diocese said it will encourage transition teams and new pastors to incorporate sacred items and art from closed parishes into their facilities to create a sense of unity.