I enjoyed reading the article “As 2015 ends, List of accomplishments, challenges for pope’’ by John L. Allen Jr. (World, Dec. 27).
I would like to include three more items in the challenges facing Pope Francis.
1) The fact that only 24 percent of adult Catholics are attending Mass each week shows that something about the church is terribly wrong. This is a decline from 41 percent in 1985.
At age 58, I notice that I am frequently the youngest person attending mass. The Catholic hierarchy gives the decline in mass attendance as one reason for consolidation of parishes.
Even more than the decline in the number of congregants, the shortage of priests is tearing parishes apart, with many forced to close or merge with others. At the Christmas Mass I attended at St Anne’s in Readville, the celebrant revealed he was 83 years old. The Vatican is controlled by elderly men who refuse to open the priesthood to people different from themselves.
2) Led by Francis, the Vatican needs to embrace the reality that people like my smart and caring daughters would make great priests. Unless the all-male policy is changed, many Catholics will walk away from the church due to this obvious discrimination against more than half its members.
3) The Vatican needs to acknowledge that priests of whichever gender should be allowed to marry so that they can lead full and natural lives.
And finally, here’s an item for the Boston Archdiocese, and others in similar situations, to consider. Let’s do something about the rectories that sit half empty. The one at St Gerard’s in Canton has five empty bedrooms — a whole second floor which we parishioners pay to heat and maintain. Many other rectories around the city and state are mostly vacant and could be put to better use by programs for families in need, elders, or single pregnant mothers. The list is endless. Isn’t helping others the foundation of our faith?
When I made this suggestion to our beloved pastor, he bellowed that the “parish would have to buy me a condo.’’
So be it.
Paul Phalan
Canton