Christmas and the Parish Next Door

Christmas is ten days away, and across Pittsburgh, Catholic churches are preparing. Choirs are rehearsing. Nativity scenes are going up. Parish staff are printing programs and adjusting Mass times.

But fewer of those churches exist than did ten years ago.

The "On Mission for the Church Alive" reorganization, which the Diocese of Pittsburgh launched in 2018, merged dozens of parishes across our six-county region. Buildings that had served as spiritual homes for generations — baptisms, first communions, weddings, funerals — were consolidated or closed. For many Catholics, the parish they grew up in is no longer their parish.

I understand the financial and demographic realities. I'm an architect — I know what it costs to maintain a building, and I know what happens when the people who use it can no longer sustain it. The diocese faced genuine challenges: declining Mass attendance, aging infrastructure, fewer priests.

But consolidation is a tool, not a strategy. And tools, used without a larger vision, can do as much damage as good.

What concerns me is what happened after the mergers. In some cases, the merged parishes found new life — new energy, new programs, new sense of community. In other cases, people simply drifted away. The parish that was supposed to absorb them felt unfamiliar. The drive was longer. The community they knew was scattered.

Christmas makes this loss visible. The midnight Mass that used to draw hundreds to a neighborhood church now happens somewhere else — or doesn't happen at all. The annual Christmas pageant, run by the same families for decades, has no stage.

I don't say this to be sentimental. I say it because community is not a nice-to-have in the Catholic tradition — it's essential. The Church is not a corporation optimizing its footprint. It's the Body of Christ, and every limb matters.

CCOC's focus group on Lay Oversight of Diocesan Functions, coordinated by attorney Greg Harbaugh, has examined how major diocesan decisions — including parish mergers — are made, and whether laypeople have meaningful input in those processes. The answer, too often, is that we don't. Decisions are made, then communicated. The listening happens after the fact.

This is exactly the dynamic the Synod on Synodality is trying to change. Not to take decisions away from bishops, but to ensure that the people affected by those decisions have a voice before the decision is final.

If you're attending a Christmas Mass this year at a parish that's different from the one you grew up in, take a moment to notice what's been gained and what's been lost. And if you feel that something important has slipped away, know that the feeling is shared — and that doing something about it is not disloyalty. It's love.

Merry Christmas, Pittsburgh. The light came into the world in a humble place, among ordinary people. That's still how it works.