Catholic Church to halve number of Glasgow parishes as priest numbers fall

The Catholic Church is to halve the number of parishes it has in Glasgow and Dunbartonshire as part of a major restructuring that will see 24 churches close.

Archbishop William Nolan said the move was forced by "too many parishes but too few people" in a letter to congregations, but admitted the amount of closures would be a "painful experience" for many.

He added that the number of active priests in the the archdiocese had fallen by a third within the last five years.

A church spokesperson told BBC Scotland's Drivetime programme that the number of active priests in Glasgow could fall to as few as eight within the next 20 years.

Ronnie Convery, director of communications at the Archdiocese of Glasgow, warned that as the majority of priests are currently over the age of 60, this will lead to a lack of priests in the coming years.

Convery told Drivetime: "This has been an ongoing issue for 10 or 20 years. There are two problems - the churches are in the wrong places, having been built in areas that have since been depopulated, and fewer people are going to church now.

"But the real killer blow is the vocations crisis - we simply do not have enough priests anymore to service all these parishes.

"At the moment Glasgow has around 80 parishes - in 20 years' time we reckon there will only be eight priests left working. Something has to be done to make things workable."

The news comes as Scotland's major religious faiths grapple with a steady decline in numbers.

The 2022 census revealed that, for the first time, a majority of people in Scotland said they were not religious.

According to data at the census, 20.74% of Glaswegians are Catholic, while 13.3% of the overall population in Scotland said they were Catholic.

However, those numbers showed people saying they were Catholic had dropped by more than 117,000 in the past decade.

The merger proposals, covering churches in Dunbartonshire East, Dunbartonshire West, Glasgow South, Glasgow West and Glasgow East & North, have been approved in principle by the archbishop and the Council of Priests.

The official journal of the archdiocese, Flourish, stated the moves will now be discussed locally across parish and deanery pastoral councils, ahead of the changes taking place.

Convery said many of the moves will see two parishes start sharing one building.

The mergers and closures will not take place on a single future date but at separate times, with each case going through due process in canon law.

The plan suggests many of the closures will be "within five years", although some are listed as being "within five to 10 years".

It will result in about 40 parishes in total.

The archbishop's statement said: "There are too many parishes but too few people, too many churches but too few priests.

"Compared to when these parishes were formed and our churches built, there are significantly fewer people coming to Mass. Some of our largest churches are in places where there are the fewest people...

"Our parishes and our churches hold great memories for us and are dear to our hearts, so any reduction in parishes and any closure of churches will be a painful experience. We cannot avoid that pain, though, by not facing up to reality.

"Just as the vinedresser cuts back the vine so that it may grow, so we too must trim and prune in order to stay healthy, in order to grow."

Heritage experts told BBC Scotland News that the news was expected, but would be a blow to many local communities with buildings falling into disuse.

In recent years the Church of Scotland has sold off numerous buildings across the country.

Dr DJ Johnston-Smith, the director of Scotland's Churches Trust, told Drivetime: "There was an inevitability to this. It will be very hard to hear for many people.

"Since 2020, 456 church buildings have closed across Scotland, so more than one a week, and we predict another 400 to 500 closures before the end of the decade.

"The country is undoubtedly secularising, but that's not just the sole purpose of these buildings - they have been places of community, places of sanctuary and can sit as an anchor in any community, even for people who do not cross the threshold."