The only think shocking is that there aren't more parish closings.

Those parishes that remain open must have bodaciously good bingo nights!

Voris doesn't give a very balanced report. NO parishes in the South and West are growing, not shrinking.

Here's an article from the WSJ which shows that some of the factors at play are things like demographic shifts and not purely a loss of Catholics. Voris starts with featuring Detroit. That whole city is shrinking, not just the church. My impression is that NO Catholics are largely content with the NO services and aren't running away in droves. Perhaps it's different in the North.

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304439804579206400588483532

By JOSH DAWSEY
Nov. 18, 2013 9:03 p.m. ET
The Archdiocese of New York is planning another round of closing and merging parishes, marking the broadest shake-up of the Roman Catholic institution since Cardinal Timothy Dolan took control of the diocese in 2009.

Church officials are in discussions with the archdiocese's 368 parishes and expect to deliver recommendations to Cardinal Dolan by next summer. Closures and other changes could be finalized by next fall and will likely be more extensive than a similar move in 2007, when the archdiocese closed 21 parishes, church officials said.

The planned closures reflect the tectonic shifts affecting the Catholic Church across the U.S., where many Northeast and Midwest dioceses have had to close parishes while the South and West are experiencing growth partially caused by religious Latino populations, said Mark Gray, a researcher at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University. Nationally, parishes have declined about 10% since 1965, according to the center, and about 10% in New York since 1982, according to the archdiocese.

In the Archdiocese of New York—which encompasses Manhattan, the Bronx, Staten Island and much of Westchester County—parishes with dwindling numbers of parishioners or a history of relying on the archdiocese for financial support are likely to be prime targets for change, church officials said. Brooklyn and Queens, along with Long Island, are represented by separated dioceses.

"You cannot run away from reality," said the Rev. John O'Hara, who is leading the archdiocese's effort. "Many of these parishes years ago were populated by thousands and thousands of people. Those populations have moved on. We have many churches where the attendance is well below the capacity of the building."

Parishioners protested the last round of closures in 2007, with some being arrested after they wouldn't leave a closing church in East Harlem. The church has also closed Catholic schools across the city—including 24 closures in January—provoking anger from some parents.

This time around, the archdiocese has hired a consultant, the Reid Group, to help execute its plan.

G. Stephanie Ali, a parishioner at Church of All Saints on East 129th Street in Harlem, said her church, like all others in the archdiocese, has been in talks with archdiocese officials about its future. She said with All Saints' shrinking membership and reliance on the archdiocese for money, she fears it is a candidate for closure.

"Some people are really upset, and they say they may not attend a Catholic service ever again," said Ms. Ali, a member of a Church of All Saints committee discussing the matter with the archdiocese. "Others say, 'I'll choose where I want to go, and no one will tell me where to go.' Others are hopeful. But people are extremely concerned."

Father O'Hara said the changes are difficult but necessary. Attendance has shrunk in many parishes, making them no longer financially viable, with the archdiocese spending about $40 million a year to help parishes that can't pay bills, an archdiocese spokesman said. Cardinal Dolan has vowed to reduce those subsidies.

"That's money that can be used to serve people," Father O'Hara said, adding that the church would like to spend more on education programs. If properties are sold, the church would use proceeds to "fund areas we currently cannot fund," he said.

The changes are taking place in an archdiocese often called the spiritual heart of American Catholicism. The archdiocese has between 2.5 million and 3 million self-identifying members and between 750,000 and a million parishioners attend Mass on a given Sunday.

Demographic shifts in that population are partially driving the move. Parishes built generations ago were often designed to serve large immigrant communities, with pastors speaking the language of the parishioners. Now, people travel widely to attend church, and communities largely mix inside the church, leaving "no need" for ethnic parishes, a church spokesman said.

Some areas of New York are oversaturated with parishes, officials said. About 25% of the archdiocese's parishes are in Manhattan, with a glut below 14th Street. Only about 12% of the diocese's population now lives in the borough. The church says the Bronx and Lower Westchester could also stand fewer parishes.

Archdiocese officials say closures would largely happen in Manhattan and the Bronx but declined to provide specific churches. Father O'Hara said the church hopes consolidating people into larger, more vibrant congregations could energize the remaining parishes.

Another issue is the shrinking number of priests to administer the churches. In an Oct. 1 letter to the archdiocese, Cardinal Dolan said he fears an eventual shortage of qualified priests would hurt the church. The archdiocese once ordained 30 or 40 men per year in the 1960s, while that number now hovers between eight and 10, a church spokesman said.

At Church of All Saints, the archdiocese hasn't hired a new pastor since the former once left. About 100 people attend Mass every Sunday, though it can seat about 1,000, said the Rev. Gregory Chisolm, who administers the parish. The church was built in the late 1800s in soaring Venetian Gothic style and is known to some as the "St. Patrick's of Harlem." He said he urges people to move toward the front pews so they aren't spread so far apart.

"When you don't have the people, it's just kind of hard," Father Chisholm said.

The stats I read like 10 years ago said that in the USA, 25% of Catholics go to mass at least once a month. The question use to be, do you go to mass every Sunday, which pre-Vatican II was like 80% of Catholics went to mass every Sunday. In order to make the big drop in attendance less shocking, they changed the question to once a month, and still they only got 25%!
My gut estimate is that only about 10-15% of Catholics go to mass every Sunday, and like 1/3 of those only go because of their children.

In Catholic Europe, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, only 5% of Catholics go to mass.

In my opinion, attendance just can't get any lower than that, since the only people left in the NO are the feelings oriented types, (mostly women) for which the Novus Ordo was tailored made. They go, because they like it. Then there are the parents of children who go for the sake of their children. Children who when they reach their teens, see the hypocrisy, the contradictions, between their parents daily lives, and the Sunday show of going to mass for 1 hour, and then the parents and the children leave the church too.