Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Boston, formally accepted a major reorganization plan on Thursday that would group the archdiocese’s 288 parishes into about 135 clusters and assign each a team of priests, staff, and lay leaders.
O’Malley said the church in Boston and nationwide had reached a crossroads after years of declining Mass attendance and diminished participation in parish life. The impetus for the new plan is “a new evangelization,” he said, reaching out to inactive Catholics and bringing them back to church.
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Warning: without its own finance council, a parish does not exist. Canon Law, Canon 537. Like the first "Reconfiguration" plan of 2004, this is an institution-centered plan, not an outreach to Catholics, inactive or active, in their faith. Less employees, less opportunity to serve on parish pastoral councils, "finance councils", more centralization. This plan does not respect the value of lay people supporting their own local parishes through works and contributions. The bottom line is that parishes will close and be sold off, though slower than the last time to attempt to avoid collective action by smaller parishes placed in the "collaborative".
last sentence should read "attempt to avoid collective opposition" by smaller parishes place in the collaborative. See outstanding vigils and canon law appeals from 2004's "Reconfiguration", 8 years later.
So which cluster gets the pedophiles?