Even during the best of times, we Jews tend to lead the league in anxiety. We worry about the Middle East, about some of our shrinking synagogues needing to merge in order to stay alive, about antisemitism, about the soaring number of interfaith marriages.
But we’ve never seen such vivid evidence of religious tsuris around here as what the archdiocese of Baltimore is going through right now.
As the Baltimore Banner reported the other day, the archdiocese has formally notified area Catholics that the number of parishes in the city and parts of Baltimore County will be reduced from 61 to 23 and the number of worship sites cut back from 59 to 30.
By any arithmetic, it means the closing of dozens of churches across a metropolitan area where the first U.S. diocese was established in 1789. Many of these churches are old neighborhood parishes whose histories go back more than a century and whose parishioners have attended services for decades.
Adding to their pain, the closures are scheduled to take effect Dec. 1, just weeks before Christmas.
Why the sudden changes?
According to the archdiocesan website, the closures are based on changing neighborhood populations, financial troubles within the church and dramatic declines in mass attendance.
Some of these troubles are familiar to a variety of religious faiths across Baltimore and much of the country.
As Jews observe Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, synagogue crowds dramatically mark the difference between the High Holiday season and regular weekly Shabbat attendance.
Area churches can make those same attendance differentials.
In a letter to local Catholics, Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori said that it was “not an easy time.”
But archdiocese officials have maintained that the closures are not related to some high-profile troubles within the church.
Three years ago, facing lawsuits from survivors of childhood sexual abuse by priests, the archdiocese filed for bankruptcy. This was the same year that the Maryland Office of the Attorney General filed a 456-page report alleging decades of past abuses by more than 100 members of the clergy.
The closing of so many area churches marks not only a cultural sea change in a city where the archdiocese held enormous power for decades. It will also have visible effects on scores of neighborhoods, much as synagogues mark the identity of Jewish communities.
A former Baltimore Sun columnist and WJZ-TV commentator, Michael Olesker is the author of six books, including “Journeys to the Heart of Baltimore” and “Michael Olesker’s Baltimore: If You Live Here, You’re Home.”
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