MPR: Closing a Church Community

Closing a Church Community
By Art Hughes
June 26, 1998

A small catholic church in Winona County celebrates its last official Mass June 28. The 122-year-old Immaculate Conception Church is the only remnant of the town of Oak Ridge. Church leaders are dissolving the parish because population in the farming community is dwindling. But many remaining church members say the congregation has the vitality to hang on. They say closing the parish does harm well beyond the church doors.

WHILE THE SOFT BRICK OF OAK RIDGE'S IMMACULATE CONCEPTION CHURCH quietly bulges and crumbles, the nearby cemetery thrives with well-maintained rows and gravestones. It's a symbol that's not lost on Father Edward McGrath who came to Oak Ridge four years ago. He says the congregation is barely sustaining itself as members die off. McGrath, whose family history is rich with clergy, says the church doesn't have the critical mass of people it needs to go on.

McGrath: I'm the first priest in my family to close a parish. I don't take that easily. It's not a matter of pride.

McGrath says the parish has no potential for growth, is not financially viable, and is inactive in religious education and outreach. His insistence on closing the church earned McGrath the ire of many long-time church members who see him as an outsider who doesn't understand what's best for Oak Ridge. But McGrath says those who blame him for the closure don't recognize the changing reality of rural Minnesota in which once-small family farms consolidate into bigger and bigger farms - a force that also guides how rural schools and churches change.

McGrath: Rural Minnesota is a really strongly controlled culture, and that is its death knell. Or its life if its converted - and that's the pastoral challenge. To change it and bring it to life in a new way.

What's best for Oak Ridge is difficult to pinpoint, mainly because it doesn't exist anymore. The town, founded by Catholic immigrants from Luxembourg, once included a post office, a general store, and a livery. Now the church stands surrounded by soybean and corn fields. The building is the only link to the community once called Oak Ridge, says SueLynn Kronebush, a 19-year resident and church member.

Kronebusch: I like the smallness. I like the closeness. I like knowing all the kids. Watching all the kids growing up - those are really neat things.

The time after Sunday Mass, Kronebusch says, is when residents talk to each other about family, business, and school. She says the 30 or so families that go to Oak Ridge now isn't a significant decline from when the parish was founded. Kronebusch says had Father McGrath believed in the church, its members would follow.

Kronebusch: Do I think he did the best for Oak Ridge Church? No, I don't. Personally I think he came knowing he was going to close Oak Ridge Church down so he didn't let himself get attached emotionally. And if he did let himself get emotionally attached, he wouldn't be closing it right now.

The Winona Diocese stretches across southern Minnesota from the Wisconsin to the South Dakota borders. Fewer than two dozen parishes have closed since the turn of the century, seven of those since 1990. Last year four Winona priests retired while only two were ordained. Retired Bishop George Speltz of the St. Cloud Diocese was baptized in Oak Ridge Church 86 years ago. He says the dwindling numbers of Catholic priests means smaller parishes are in jeopardy.

Speltz: There are only so many priests to go around, and if you have a thousand people go to Mass in a pretty large town, they would get the priest. A town of 50 would not. It's a question of numbers.

Organizers of the last Mass this Sunday say they expect more than 300 people. They're renting a canopy and loudspeaker since the tiny Immaculate Conception holds just over 100 people in its pews. And while regular masses will end, Father McGrath says he'll celebrate occasional feast-day services with the residents of Oak Ridge.

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