Vocations crisis forces Jesuit withdrawal from parishes

BY SIMON CALDWELL
THE SOCIETY Of Jesus has announced its withdrawal from three parishes because of dwindling vocations.
The Jesuits plan to pull out of the Sacred Heart, Tisbury, Wiltshire, within the next two weeks. The move will also spell the end of a 350-year presence at All Saints', Wardour, Wiltshire, which is served by Jesuit Fr Joseph Duggan, the parish priest of the Sacred Heart.
The Jesuits have also announced their withdrawal from the Sacred Heart in Blackpool, Lancashire, by next Easter, on the 150th anniversary of their presence there.
The decisions come amid a vocations crisis which means the Jesuits will have just 70 priests of working age in Britain by 2010 if decline continues at its current rate.
There are now about 200 Jesuits working in Britain and about another 30 British Jesuits working in Guyana, South America, and South Africa.
The Blackpool parish is home to a community of five priests and a brother. The priest and superior is Fr nis Blackledge, the press officer of Bishop Patrick O'Donoghue of Lancaster.
In both Wiltshire and Lancashire the parishes will be handed over to the control of their dioceses and staffed by secular priests, The Jesuits have not announced their plans for their serving priests.
Fr David Smolira, the British Jesuit Provincial, said in a letter to parishioners in Blackpool that the time had come for the Society to reassess it commitments and reorganise its ministries in the light of changed circumstances.
"We must do so while taking full account of the significant reduction in our numbers over the last 30 to 40 years," he said.
"The Society of Jesus is essentially a missionary order, going where the needs are greatest and where the work is not being done by others.
"When we had a larger numbers of priests and brothers in the Province we were able to put down roots and have a certain amount of stability.
"Now that our numbers are less and the needs are, if anything, more, we must reexamine our commitments and reorganise our work so that we can best deploy our resources in the service of the Gospel."
Bishop O'Donoghue later issued a statement in which he thanked the Jesuits. "Their mission was a huge success and their influence felt throughout the whole of the North West," he said.
"The news of their imminent departure has come as a great shock to all of us. Of course, we had known of their fewer numbers and the stretching of their resources but 'withdrawal' was far from our thoughts."
Bishop Declan Lang of Clifton thanked the Jesuits in a public statement. "They ministered to the Catholic community through difficult and sometimes dangerous times," he said. "We owe them a great debt of gratitude."
Fr Duggan will be replaced by Canon Thomas Atthill, the Dean of Salisbury.