The Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland is set to close 13 of its East Bay parishes, buckling under the financial strain of hundreds of child sexual assault lawsuits against clergy members.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The diocese filed for bankruptcy<\/a> three years ago, after a state law temporarily lifted the statute of limitations on civil lawsuits against institutions accused of enabling abuse. More than 300 lawsuits <\/a>were filed against the Oakland diocese between 2019 and 2022, stemming from allegations that date back to the 1960s.\u00a0<\/p>\n The diocese faces estimated liabilities between $100 million and $500 million, according to 2023 bankruptcy filings. Its financial woes have been compounded by declining mass attendance and Catholic school enrollment, Bishop Michael Barber said in a letter posted to the diocese website on Tuesday.<\/p>\n Barber added that the diocese was facing a record low number of priests, with the average age of priests in the parish steadily rising. Continuing to staff the diocese\u2019s 80 parishes was unsustainable under these conditions, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI deeply understand the sacrifice this will require,\u201d Barber said. \u201cWe cannot allow nostalgia and sentimentality to hold back the message of the Gospel. While we love our local church building, the church has never been solely a building.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Seven of the churches slated for closure are in Oakland, while others are located in Fremont, Alameda,\u00a0Crockett, Walnut Creek and Castro Valley. The decision to shutter them follows \u201cdeep and extensive\u201d conversations with parish leaders, Barber said, as well as data analysis that allowed which churches were struggling most.\u00a0<\/p>\n The timeline for closure will be \u201cunique to each site,\u201d Barber said. Many of the churches slated to shutter \u00a0had already been merged with other parishes, according to Barber, who urged members of the diocese\u2019s remaining parishes to welcome displaced worshippers.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe must focus on the activities that foster prayerful celebrations of the Mass, prioritize works of mercy, and form missionary disciples,\u201d Barber wrote. \u201cThe status quo is not sustainable nor is it serving God\u2019s people.\u201d<\/p>\n The full list of closing churches includes Mary Help of Christians in Oakland, Our Lady of\u00a0Guadalupe site at Blacow Road in Fremont, Our Lady of Loudes in Oakland, Sacred Heart in Oakland, St. Albert the Great in Alameda, St. Andrew Kim Korean Pastoral Center in Oakland, St. Augustine in Oakland, St. Barnabas in Alameda, St. Paschal Baylon in Oakland, St. Patrick in Oakland, St. Rose of Lima in Crockett, St. Stephen in Walnut Creek and Transfiguration in Castro Valley.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland is set to close 13 of its East Bay parishes, buckling under…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292132,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[184,332,143,145,144],"class_list":["post-292131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-bay-area","tag-east-bay","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292131"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292131\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}