Church in rural Utah, upstate N.Y. shares similarities
Dr. Charles Robinson Special to the Intermountain Catholic
My wife, Kathy, and I got a glimpse of the future of the Catholic Church in rural America, especially in places like our diocese in Upstate New York. It is bleak indeed, unless we can get more vocations and more committed lay ministers.
We recently traveled through a number of the national parks in Utah, Arizona and Colorado. One night, we stayed in Kanab, Utah, a great small town. On Sunday, we went to Saint Christopher Catholic Church there. We found that there was not a Mass, but a Sunday Eucharistic service. A deacon led the service, with his wife as the lector. There were probably 50 in attendance, and few youth. About half were visitors.
One might expect such small numbers due to the prevalence of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in that region. But the deacon said that even they have much trouble keeping their youth and finding good leaders.
The deacon pointed out that this was one of six mission churches served by a pastor, two deacons and a nun. The home parish in Cedar City is 105 miles away and serves an area of 21,000 square miles. A mission might have a priest celebrate Mass one or two Sundays a month, with services led by the other religious on other Sundays. The deacon and his wife, later that Sunday morning, had to drive 80 miles one way to celebrate another Sunday service. That’s true dedication to the Church.
The Diocese of Salt Lake City serves the entire 85,000 square miles of the State of Utah, much of it being the sparse rocky land of the Colorado Plateau. It has 49 parishes, 19 missions, 73 active priests, and 58 active deacons (with 19 bilingual deacons in training). Salt Lake City as the diocesan See sits in the far northwest corner of Utah.
According to Monsignor Colin F. Bircumshaw, vicar general and vicar for clergy of the Diocese of Salt Lake City, about 80 percent of their Catholics live in the urban area (Ogden, the greater Salt Lake City area, and Provo/Orem) along the Wasatch Front, which as an area also holds most of the population of Utah. Their diocese has a very fine Lay Ecclesial Ministry program, like our Commissioned Lay Ministers Program. They try to make sure every parish, even the larger parishes in their urban centers, have lay men and women well trained to lead "Sunday Celebrations in the Absence of a Priest" (SCAP) services in emergency situations, but where ordained (permanent) deacons are available, the lay ministers defer to them.
Like their diocese, our See in Ogdensburg sits in the northwest corner of our diocese. Our diocese covers 12,000 square miles, much of it being the wooded and sparsely populated Adirondack Mountains. The bulk of our population also exists along a narrow rim within 30 miles or so of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River, with our largest cities (Watertown and Plattsburgh) at its western and eastern edges. We have 102 parishes, seven missions and 24 Oratories with 76 active priests (assisted by 20 or so retired priests), 70 deacons and 833 commissioned lay ministers, plus 119 professed religious. However, we are projected to only have 40 active priests 10 years from now.
Excepting the fact that the Utah diocese covers an area seven times larger than ours, it has many similarities with ours. We are both very rural dioceses with impressive natural wonders, but with only a smattering of urban centers. Catholics in our diocese form 21 percent of the nearly half million people in our area. Catholics are 9 percent of the 2.7 million Utah residents. Both dioceses have almost the same number of priests and deacons, but one cannot help but note that their one home parish in Cedar City covers almost twice the area of our entire diocese!
Another similarity is that both dioceses are fortunate enough to have a large number of lay ministers (commissioned or ecclesial) who have all undergone an extensive training period. They are vital to the continued health of our Church here in the North Country and in Utah. The deacon in Kanab sent me a special plea to invite vocations to the Diocese of Salt Lake City in such a spectacular region. (I hasten to add that the same need for vocations exists in our own spectacular area of the country.)
The deacon said that the mainstay of St. Christopher’s has been its Knights of Columbus Round Table. We were greeted by the Knights at the church door and treated to coffee and rolls by them afterwards. One 30-something parishioner had just received his First Degree the week before. That would not have occurred without the presence of a Round Table.
The Parish Round Table Program was designed to have a Knights of Columbus presence in parishes and missions that are not able to support a full council. It is an easy and effective way for Knights to better serve their individual parishes, their priests, and to be the force for visible Catholic action through works of charity in their community. The Round Table representatives are members of the sponsoring council, and are members of that parish or mission.
The deacon was a member of the Knights and proudly wore his K of C name badge to the brunch. When he found out that Kathy and I are Commissioned Lay Ministers, he immediately invited us to move out there permanently to work with him and his pastor. We will not do that (although sorely tempted!), but it does point out the great benefit that our diocese and theirs gains by having well-trained lay ministers.
Through prayer, vocations, more Knights of Columbus Parish Round Tables and more lay ministers, we need to figure out how to keep our Church vibrant and growing in rural areas like the mountains of Utah and our own Adirondack Mountains. It is a tall task (pun intended), but with God’s help, we will succeed.
Dr. Charles Robinson is State Secretary, NY Knights of Columbus State Council; Commissioned Lay Minister, Diocese of Ogdensburg, N.Y.; and parishioner, Church of the Visitation, Norfolk, N.Y.
© Copyright 2024 The Diocese of Salt Lake City. All rights reserved.
Stay Connected With Us