When Father Jim Matthews looks around St. Lucy’s church on Gifford St. in Syracuse every Sunday, he sees more full pews than he did five years ago, but he might be the only priest in the area who can say so. The banner hanging out front might help explain why. It says “Sinners Welcome."
According to the Catholic Diocese of Syracuse website, the diocese is currently closing 40 churches over a three-year period, and Matthews’ church is picking up many of the people left without a parish. St. Lucy’s absorbed St. Andrew the Apostle Parish after Bishop James Moynihan announced its closure last January. “[St. Andrew’s] parish has been pretty much devastated,” Matthews said. “Some just stopped coming to church, others are going to Protestant churches… It’s a desperate situation."
Fr. Linus says the main cause of the decline in membership is cultural. Whereas 80 years ago, religion was a staple in a person’s daily life, today’s generation is less involved and less enthusiastic. He says after the 1920’s, the United States had a decline in the amount of religious interest that continued through the rest of the century. “People in their 30’s 40’s 50’s, there is so much more going on in their lives than there was 30 years ago,” Fr. Linus said, “There are so many attractions and distractions that the less than winsome aspects of life, the intangibles, have caused a change in attitude.” Fr. Linus says the combination of this change in culture and increasingly busy lifestyles has moved church to the bottom of most people’s priority list. The decline in Sunday attendance has resulted in a decrease in many churches’ revenue. Since a large portion of a parish’s income is based on donations from its parishioners, many Catholic churches are seeing a steady decline in available funds.
St. John the Baptist Church on Court St. in Syracuse, for instance, spent $400,000 last year on basic utilities and payroll for church offices. In an interview with the public affairs program CONNECT, Father Jon Werner of St. John the Baptist said if revenue doesn’t come up, his parish could close within the next five to ten years.
Fr. Matthews says St. Lucy’s is experiencing a similar problem. “We’ve lost a couple of organizations that were contributing to our parish,” he said, “We’re down significantly overall.”
Fr. Linus of Syracuse University says the second reason for the church closures is the failing economy. “The economy is very poor in this area, Central New York, and New England also” he said. “So people are moving out of the area. They’re going south.”
According to a study by the Manhattan Institute of Policy Research, people who are leaving New York State have a 13 percent higher average income than those who are staying. The state is left with a lower average income, which worsens current economic conditions. Still, no matter how rich or poor a person living in New York is, a church can’t survive without a priest.
Fr. Linus says the third main reason for the decline in the number of churches in the area is due to the decline in the number of priests available. He says the number of priests in the Syracuse Diocese alone has gone from 400 in 1970 to 100 in 2008. One of the reasons for this decline is the Catholic Church’s policy of celibacy, Father Matthews said.
“The religious hierarchy refuses to recognize that celibacy doesn’t work,” he said. “Celibacy leads to a lack of priests and they have to close churches.”
Celibacy is not as important to American Catholics as it is to the religious hierarchy. In a poll conducted in April 2009, by Zogby International, less than a fifth of people asked said that it was “very important” to keep priests celibate.
In fact, priests are experiencing the same changes in culture that parishioners are. During the early 20th century, seminarians were taught the most literal translation of the Bible. However, the Second Vatican Council, a voting group of the Catholic Hierarchy and a nonvoting group of other Christian representatives, changed the focus of religious education to adopt a more modern approach during the 60’s.
“[The new form of education] was meant to engender a certain spirit into our faith life as opposed to a legalism…,” Father Linus said. “But that spirit demanded something of us that were not equipped to use. We weren’t taught how to take personal responsibility, we were taught ‘you do this and you do that,’ and when it came to our faith life, it was all the harder to develop that personal responsibility.”
Protestants, who make up the largest group of religious Americans, allow their priests to marry, but have also seen a decline in church attendance. A National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago reported in 2004 that the Protestant faith is “vanishing.” Weekly church attendance was 32.1 percent in 1990-1993, but decreased to 30.3 percent in 1994-2002.
Islamic Mosques and Jewish Synagogues are also experiencing changes in demographics.
Magda Bayoumi, board member of the Islamic Society of Central New York, says funding for the Society has decreased by 40 percent because of the state of the economy. “The Rabbi Charles Sherman of Temple Adath Yeshurun, right, in Syracuse shares a similar concern. When asked what the most pressing issue his institution is facing today, he simply replied, “Money, money, money.” He continued, “I think the challenge really pressing the local synagogue is that you’re very dependent on what happens with the rest of the Syracuse economy. If there were jobs here, our membership would be soaring. We’re just not.”
Like the Syracuse Catholic churches, the Mosques and Synagogues are seeing a change in their congregations, but for different reasons.
To try to replace the aging generation, Rabbi Sherman says Temple Adath Yeshurun is trying to make the institution’s services more available. Sherman says ignoring the problem could make it worse. “Instead of retreating, we’ve gone the other way: we’ve become much more proactive and much more assertive and aggressive.”
Chelsea Damberg, a sophomore Policy Studies major at Syracuse University, attended a Baptist church throughout her childhood in Downingtown, Pennsylvania.
“When I was younger I thought everybody went to church,” Damberg said. “Now that I’m older I definitely see less people going. I feel like I’m in the minority.” Damberg says she no longer attends church.
Evangelical churches, however, have been the exception to what appears to be a declining emphasis on religion in the United States. With changes in the economy and the modern interpretation of religion, evangelical churches have become more popular because of what Fr. Linus calls a more “user friendly religion.”
The spread of evangelical mega-churches (churches that have at least 2,000 active members) across the country is evident in New York State. According to USAchurches.org, a site with the major church listings, of the nine largest mega-churches in New York, seven are evangelical. For instance, The Believer’s Chapel in Cicero boasts 1,500 weekly worshippers and 40 acres of land that holds three worshipping centers, its website says.
Evangelicals are successfully combating the issue of a “bored” younger generation. The website for Abundant Life Christian Center, a mega-church in East Syracuse with more than 2,500 weekly parishioners, says, “The most exciting place for kids should be at church, so we want [our program] to be a highlight in the life of every child, every week.” The church offers videogame nights, a religious podcast, and a youth group that “numbers over 200.”
Fr. Linus agrees. “The revitalization of our religion is going to have to happen on a one by one basis,” he said. “You can’t wait around and say ‘what is Father going to do about this? What is the Church going to do?’ But what is the church? The church is the people, and that’s who should be doing something about it.”
St. Andrew’s is not alone in Onondaga County, and not alone in the United States. Father Linus DeSantis of the Syracuse University Catholic Center, above, says there are three reasons for the national trend of church closures: a change in culture, a weakening economy, and a shortage of priests.
number [of members] has reduced, but not as much as the money has reduced,” Bayoumi said. “We’re getting almost half of what we used to get a few years ago.”
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