Why Parishes Close - a Case Study of Scranton, PA

The parishes of the greater Scranton area were born out of an era that seems too long ago for anyone to remember, and yet the actual distance in time is rather short. Eighty years ago, the greater Scranton area of Northeastern Pennsylvania lived and breathed coal. Coal mining was the industry par excellence, and that meant that there would have to be coal miners. Immigrants from all over the globe found there way to Scranton and its surroundings, and they signed themselves up to dig rocks out of the ground for less money than it was ever worth. There were people from Ireland, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia, and every region of Italy. It was like a small Brooklyn.

Many of these people were Catholic. That meant that they had large families (in general), and that, in this predominantly Protestant country, they were vigorously attached to their faith. For the first two generations, that worked just fine. There were enough people with enough devotion to have a church for every ethnicity in every little town in the ten mile radius around Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. Having that many people meant not only parishes, but convents, and schools, and societies, and processions.

Skipping eight decades to the present day, one can see immediately that this is no longer the case. The coal industry busted, and suddenly people were without work, and without a way to get work. Young graduates took their skills and left the area, to a place where they would be useful. Older parishioners, many of them former miners, continue to stay devoted to their location and their parishes. This, however, was truly a matter of fighting the tough fight, since the numbers were decreasing, and the people were aging, which soon meant that the numbers would be decreasing for an altogether different reason.