LA CROSSE — The number of Roman Catholic parishes in Chippewa Falls will be reduced from three to two, while three parishes on the eastern side of Chippewa County will merge into one under a plan accepted by La Crosse Diocese Bishop Jerome Listecki Thursday.

The plan, a response to a priest shortage in the diocese, would alter the traditional structure in which a parish is contained in a single building. In a new “umbrella parish,” a parish community would consist of two or more church buildings.

In Chippewa Falls, Holy Ghost Parish would become a “liturgical satellite” of Notre Dame Parish. St. Rose of Lima in Cadott and Sacred Heart-St. Joseph in Boyd would become liturgical satellites of Holy Family Parish in Stanley.

The satellites would continue to have Sunday liturgy, sacraments would continue to be administered there, and the Blessed Sacrament (the consecrated Communion bread) would continue to be kept in those churches on a permanent basis. Catechism classes would also be held at the satellite centers.

However: weekday Masses would be optional, and the seat of governance including the parish office would be at the parish center, which would also be the site of the Rectory (the priests’ residence). There would be a single parish council and finance committee organized through the parish center.

The plan is a long way from implementation, and although Listecki’s official approval of the plan Thursday sets it in motion, what was announced is not new, according to Holy Ghost Pastor Fr. Edmund Doerre. Plans were unveiled to the Catholic laity more than a year ago, and a meeting on the reorganization held at McDonell High School was well attended, Doerre said.

He expects that parishioners at Holy Ghost will be concerned about the future.

“There was concern when they first heard about it. That concern has been there for a while,” Doerre said.

The parish centers in the Chippewa Deanery, which consists of all of Chippewa County, would be at St. Paul’s in Bloomer, Notre Dame and St. Charles in Chippewa Falls, Holy Cross in Cornell and Holy Family in Stanley.

Sacred Heart in Jim Falls would be a liturgical satellite to Holy Cross. St. Peter’s in Tilden would continue to be a satellite of St. Charles and St. John’s in Cooks Valley would be a satellite of St. Paul’s.

St. Bridget’s, which currently shares a pastor with Holy Ghost, would become a satellite of St. Olaf’s in Eau Claire.

Listecki explained that the plan is in response to a shortage of priests in the diocese, which will have its number of parishes reduced from 165 to 75 under the plan.

In his 38 months as bishop of the diocese, Listecki said after a prayer service attended by priests and laity at the Holy Crosse Diocesan Center, he has held funerals for 26 priests but ordained only five.

“One can see we’re not replacing priests at the pace demanded,” Listecki said. “We needed to do this now, or we will be forced to make decisions out of a crisis mentality.”

The pastoral plan, developed by a committee over two years and presented to Listecki in June 2007, will not immediately be implemented.

A new committee will now consider protocols and strategies for implementing the plan. Listecki said they’ll be considering issues such as how a reconfigured parish could be named or what to do if one of the parishes has more debt than the other.

Doerre said nothing will change in the short term at Holy Ghost, which will continue as an independent parish, probably well past his own retirement.

“I expect it’s way down the line before there’s no priest living here,” he said.

While the priest shortage was the main motivation for the plan, the committee also looked at such factors as populations shifting from rural to urban areas and pew counts that indicate about one-third of the diocese’s 202,000 Catholics attend Sunday Mass.

The Rev. David Kunz, director of the pastoral planning committee, said church members will have to get beyond the mindset that the only person who can minister in the church is a priest.

“It is a challenge for us to learn how to work together in a way we have never had to work together before,” said Kunz, pastor of Mary, Mother of the Church.

Listecki described this moment as a historic time and said the pastoral plan represents a “collaborative and creative effort.”

“The way I envision this is it forces us to look outside the parochialism we’ve embraced,” he said of the coming together of parishes.

For a lexicon of terms used in the diocese’s pastoral plan: http://www.lacrossetribune.com/news_pdfs/pastoral_plan/lexicon.pdf

For the full list of 75 parish centers in the Diocese of La Crosse: http://www.lacrossetribune.com/news_pdfs/pastoral_plan/plan.pdf