SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) - The Roman Catholic Church plans to merge several parishes in eastern South Dakota and create a new parish on the south side of Sioux Falls due to a decline in priests and changes in population.
Twenty-three parish mergers will occur July 1. A tenth parish will be added in Sioux Falls to handle population growth. The net result will be a drop from 141 parishes to 119 in the Sioux Falls Diocese, which stretches across 35,000 square miles east of the Missouri River.
The changes are necessary to protect the health of priests pressed into covering large areas, said the Rev. Paul Swain, bishop of the diocese.
“We can’t just continue to add on responsibility to diocesan priests,” he said. “It sounds negative, but in the long haul, I think it’s going to be healthy. We’re not letting things simmer. We’re dealing with it.”
The changes follow years of study and eight public meetings around the diocese this year. Swain said his office also received hundreds of written comments via letters, emails and website submissions, according to the American News.
Membership in the diocese has fallen from about 130,000 in the early 1990s to about 118,000, according to the Argus Leader. That has led to some shrinking rural congregations.
“From the perspective of those churches, fewer and fewer people are there to carry on the work,” said Philip Thompson, professor of Christian heritage and systematic theology at Sioux Falls Seminary.
Swain said the goal of the reorganization “is to have vibrant, vital parishes that can serve people in our times.”
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