Msgr. Pope on Parishes in Changing Communities

"For my first assignment as a priest I was sent to a large parish located in a suburb just inside the Washington Beltway. At the time it was flourishing, with four well-attended masses each Sunday. The people there loved their parish and spoke with devotion of the former pastor who, though he had died a dozen years before, loomed large in the memories of both Church and neighborhood. He was from that generation of pastors who had an almost kingly status. He stood 6'4" and his physical stature was matched by his personality. He was so strong a leader and had such a booming voice that people swore you could hear him from outside the Church when he preached. Parishioners loved or feared him; city/county officials respected him and knew that little would be politically feasible without his support.

"When I arrived, the congregation consisted mostly of older families headed by World War II veterans, many of them retired. They had worked at blue-collar and white-collar jobs, government jobs and industrial jobs at the nearby Navy Yard. They were proud and remembered the sacrifices it had taken to build the parish 'after the War.' Indeed, the parish was one of those 'factories' we used to build. The grammar school, a three-story solid brick structure, had once been filled with 1500 children. The church seated over a thousand and in the halcyon days of late 1950s and early 1960s the rectory housed five priests; the convent was built for 25 religious sisters and was full. Right next door was the high school, staffed by another religious order. In all, the parish stretched two blocks along the main street of that town. Thousands moved through its facilities each day.

"But by the time I arrived in the late 1980s an era was ending. The demographics of the neighborhood had already begun to change in the early 1970s. . . ."

In a recent commentary, Monsignor Charles Pope (pastor of Holy Comforter-Saint Cyprian Parish, Washington, DC) reflected on why it is important for parishes to meet the challenges of changing demographics and on how they may do so.

To access Msgr. Pope's complete post, please visit:

Community in Mission: The Parish Church in a Changeable Community: Some Basic Requirements for Survival (1 FEB 16)