It is the Archdiocese-wide initiative to consider the big questions of revitalization and reorganization for a local church that spans some 1,411 square miles and includes nearly six million people across Illinois' Lake and Cook counties.
At the heart of the deliberations is the drastic decline in the number of Chicago's Priests which makes parish and school closures or mergers, or even a total restructuring, almost inevitable.
The Chicago Archdiocese is one of the nation's largest. Depending on the statistic cited, it's either the second or third biggest in the country, behind Los Angeles and rivaling New York in both size and Catholic population.
Spanning 1,411 square miles over the two most populous counties in northeastern Illinois, it stretches along the shores of Lake Michigan from the state's eastern border with Indiana to its northern border with Wisconsin.
Archdiocesan statistics show that the Archbishop is responsible for 346 parishes that serve 2.2 million Catholics, with some 30,000 baptisms a year and more than 1,600 Masses celebrated each weekend. The territory includes 193 elementary schools, 46 cemeteries, 36 secondary schools, 15 hospitals, four colleges and universities, two seminaries and two houses of formation.
The Archdiocese reported total assets in 2015 of $353 million, including the value of its landholdings and investments, and had nearly $19 million in cash on hand.
Yet, like many Dioceses across the country, Chicago has faced significant changes in population and use of Catholic institutions in recent decades.
Parishes that were once vibrant, pivotal parts of their communities are now not as central. Many of Chicago's parishes were set up in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as ethnic enclaves, each acting as a home base for different immigrant communities in the city.
The Pastor was more or less a city councilman, advising new immigrants on how to get jobs or put their children into schools. The parish was so vital to its surrounding area that locals, even non-Catholics, would describe where they lived in the city not by the name of the neighborhood but by the name of the Church.
But after World War II, many of the immigrants' children moved out of the city and their traditional enclaves for the suburbs springing up to the city's north and south. The people who moved in were often not of the same immigrant community and not Catholic.
Decades later, many of the parishes still exist but with decreasing numbers of Mass attendance and weakened impact on their wider communities.
Changes in parish use have occurred alongside a drastic decline in the number of archdiocesan Priests, which has fallen from a high of 1,264 in 1980 to 766 at the beginning of 2015.
With the average age of the Priests now 61, the archdiocese is projecting that by 2030 there may only be some 240 priests to serve those 346 parishes.
To address the changing landscape, Cardinal Cupich launched his Archdiocesan-wide revitalization and reorganization program in February.
Called "Renew My Church," a nod to the words St. Francis of Assisi is said to have heard Jesus say to him about a small church in rural Italy, the initiative is first placing Chicago parishes in "groupings" to undertake joint evaluation of and planning for the needs of Catholics in their local areas.
The process, expected to take several years, will likely lead to a number of parishes closing or merging with their neighbors. The Cardinal and his staff have sought to reassure Catholics that nothing has been predetermined, holding consultative meetings with Archdiocesan riests, parish personnel and other invested groups.
His Eminence wants the process to be open-ended and focused on asking broad questions about how the church can plan to use what resources it has to better serve the communities it is in.
The Cardinal said the decision to reevaluate the Archdiocese's overall structure was simply necessary because of budgetary realities.
Beside the $40-million yearly budget shortfall Cupich inherited, the Archdiocese had also been subsidizing its schools to the tune of $16 million a year and its parishes to the tune of $7 million.
Many of the Archdiocese's assets are landholdings or properties, or are already dedicated to some sort of mission activity.
The Cardinal put it bluntly. "We're going to go broke if we don't do something," he said, adding: "We're not only going to go broke, we're also going to not do the mission."
Mentioning the funds being used to subsidize the parishes and schools, the Archbishop said he isn't averse to dedicating such resources, but, "I want to make sure that we're doing it for parishes that really are going to be vibrant, vital, and sustainable in the future."
"I think that if we do not have this process, we're only going to continue to spin our wheels," he said. While the Archdiocese had closed about 70 parishes in the last 20 years, he said, those closures did not necessarily happen as part of an overall plan of continued vibrancy for the whole archdiocese.
One common concern from parishioners about the Renew My Church initiative is the commonly-held skepticism that, although the Archbishop is using a consultative process, the decisions about which parishes will close have already been determined.
But the Cardinal is emphatic: “No decisions about parish closings have been made.”
He has no illusions that the process won't anger some people, or perhaps even seriously injure his own standing in the Archdiocese.
So far at least, it seems that Chicago Catholics are expressing support for Cupich's approach.
We offer Cardinal Cupich our fondest hopes for success and the support of our prayers.
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