'We cannot ignore the realities we face': Peoria diocese to reduce number of parishes

The Catholic Diocese of Peoria has announced official plans to merge many of its parishes and close some church buildings, whittling down the number of congregations from their current 156 to 75 over the course of the next three years.

Rev. Louis Tylka, bishop of the Peoria diocese, said in a video released Saturday that a combination of declining membership, aging priesthood and fewer resources forced them to make difficult decisions regarding many parishes across their territory, which stretches from the Quad Cities in the west to the Champaign and Danville areas in eastern Illinois.

"The world we live in today presents many challenges for us to propose the gospel in a compelling and impactful way," Tylka said via video. "We cannot ignore the realities we face. We find ourselves with fewer people, fewer priests, fewer resources and a greater responsibility to respond to the call the gospel anew!"

The moves are being made as part of the diocese's Growing Disciples plan, designed to help ensure its future through reorganization of its many parishes. Plans began in 2022, shortly after Tylka became Peoria's top Catholic official, and have continued over the greater part of the last two years through surveys and meetings of Catholic communities.

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Explaining the changes

Tylka spoke to the Journal Star on Sunday. He said many factors went into the merging of the parishes, such as pre-existing relationships between multiple groups, allocation of resources and the data provided on how many people were attending them. All of those were combined to determine the ideal merger situation for each of the affected parishes.

Tylka pointed out that while the number of parishes will decrease, the number of church buildings will remain the same, as some merged parishes would continue to have their buildings in service.

"We're still going to have 129 churches," Tylka said. "We look at each situation and what factors led us to ultimately make the decision that I made and how do we best apply that. It's why there's a difference – each is unique – to figure out which is better, whether it's a complete closure or (just) a merger, and even if it's a merger, how is it best to handle that based on what parishes are being combined?"

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As for the movement and shifting of pastors and priests, Tylka said that considerations of that sort aren't new, since there's movement at parishes every year. He said that it was merely a coincidence that all of the shifting took place while the long-standing reorganization plans were made official in the Peoria diocese.

"This time around, because of the changes that we foresaw, we were able to be much more proactive and strategic in placing priests than simply (being) reactive because we need to find a priest to take a parish that we've been trying to bolster and maintain," Tylka said.

The overall goal, Tylka said, is to try and reshape the focus of the diocese towards being more vibrant and more involved in their communities while they ensure their stability through an uncertain future.

"We're not trying to just reorganize so that we can continue to do the things we're doing," Tylka said. "We really want our people and priests to focus on our mission that Jesus (Christ) gave us to go out and make disciples. We want people to become evangelizers. We want them to really reflect upon how it is they're called to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ in their hearts, lives and communities."

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Catholic Diocese of Peoria announces reduction of Illinois parishes