CNA Staff, May 23, 2024 / 14:08 pm
The Archdiocese of Baltimore announced this week that more than half of the parishes in Baltimore’s historic city core will close or merge as part of a major pastoral planning process.
The final plans, announced May 22, will see 61 parishes at 59 worship sites in Baltimore City and some nearby areas of Baltimore County reduced to 23 parishes at 30 worship sites.
“These decisions, while difficult, are made with an eye toward a future goal of hope," Archbishop William Lori said in a video message, saying the plan was put together, “guided by the Holy Spirit,” with an eye to helping the parishes prioritize announcing the Gospel and helping neighbors in need.
The many Catholic churches in Baltimore City were built to serve “a surging population that’s now lost hundreds of thousands of people,” the archdiocese says on the website for the initiative. From a high of 1 million people in the 1950s, the population in the city stands at fewer than 570,000 people.