Catholics in northeast Iowa contemplate church consolidations, changes as Archdiocese of Dubuque finalizes ‘Journey in Faith’ plan

• The Archdiocese of Dubuque is finalizing plans for its "Journey in Faith," which would consolidate parishes into pastorate districts with recommended Mass locations and emphasize a mission shift toward evangelism.
• The Catholic church faces challenging trends prompting the plan, including steep declines in Mass attendance and the number of priests available to serve parishes.
• Parishioners and church leaders maintain concerns about losing some parishioners as the number of churches with weekend Mass is reduced next year.

LUXEMBURG — Since the 1800s, two institutions have been a constant for families in Luxemburg: Holy Trinity Catholic Church and Ungs Shopping Center.

At the small town’s four-way stop intersection, Holy Trinity’s steeple has towered over the town’s general store, just across the street from the church, since 1875. The Ungs family has been part of Luxemburg since the church’s first construction in 1857.

For decades, Mike Ungs, the fourth generation in his family to run the store for groceries, sundries and farm supplies, has watched the two change with the times — often in tandem.

Growing up, he remembers how hours at the family business used to be set around Mass.

“It used to be a big part of our business,” Ungs said. “You’d sell eight or 10 dozen doughnuts (on Sunday.) Sunday was family day, so people would pick up sliced meat for picnics.”

In the 1860s or 1870s, before it was sold to the Ungs family, history books say the general store and its connecting bowling alley fell into disfavor with the church’s priest, who made it close during Mass to prevent parishioners from slipping out for a game during Sunday vespers.

But now, as the Catholic Church faces declining church attendance, fewer priests and other headwinds, Holy Trinity is one of many in the Archdiocese of Dubuque coming to a crossroads far bigger than strikes and spares.

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The Journey in Faith plan, proposed by Archbishop Thomas Zinkula to help the Archdiocese pivot for the church’s survival, could end weekend Mass at some churches.

The tie that binds

Even before Mike Ungs was born, his family’s deep roots were visible all around the church grounds.

The family was involved in the erection of the church’s first building in 1857. After the building was destroyed, they helped the church start anew with a second building in 1875, which remains today. His father’s cousin helped build the church’s chapel.

In the church’s cemetery, gravestones document the family’s long dedication to Luxemburg’s crown jewel. For years, Mike has maintained their legacy as Holy Trinity’s groundskeeper. With his wife, Rhonda, they have served in the church’s choir and other ministries.

One of Mike’s favorite parts of church is the fellowship, when he can spend about as much time talking to other families and watching them grow as they spend in Mass together.

Mike and Rhonda trust in the plan put forth by Zinkula. They remember when he served as their priest in Luxemburg, years before he became the archbishop. They have already been acquainted with other nearby churches in the St. John Baptist de La Salle Pastorate through the occasional Mass.

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Changing the Mass location won’t deter the faithful couple from going to church, but the potential of losing their favorite church home for Mass carries a sentimental weight for a family who has had their baptisms, confirmations, confessions, weddings and funerals at Holy Trinity for generations.

“I can’t lie that it’s not going to hurt — not hearing the church bells ringing, or (seeing) the parking lot full of cars. It will be a big change,” Ungs said. “I’ve been brought up in this town, and the church and school are your main hub of the town.”

The town’s Catholic school closed in 2016, amid declining enrollment.

Like Ungs’ business, the church is not immune to changing times. Ungs Shopping Center has had to change with the times to survive, and the family is poised to do it with their church to further the mission.

“We have enough people with a very strong faith. … There will be some that fall away entirely,” he said. “But we’ve got to face the facts that there’s just not enough priests to take care of all these towns anymore. If we let it beat us, it will.”

A leap of faith

Amid optimism for the plan’s potential to revitalize the church with an arc bending toward evangelism, the archbishop and priests say the risk of deactivating parishioners with a reduction in Mass locations is one of their greatest concerns.

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The Most Rev. Thomas Zinkula, archbishop of the Diocese of Dubuque, knows the concern well. When his family church closed, his family experienced the heartache of leaving behind masonry built by his ancestors that hosted his grandparents’ wedding and his own baptism.

“It really tears my heart,” he said. “I don’t want to lose anybody in this process.”

In the last 20 years, the number of priests serving the Archdiocese has declined 44 percent and is expected to drop even further. Mass attendance is down 46 percent, despite a 4 percent increase in the area’s population, and generational declines in church involvement are daunting.

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But trends aside, Zinkula said the mission at hand is bigger than church buildings, and the plan is about more than efficiency. One church presentation describes the plan as a transition from “Christendom,” which preserves the faith and relies on inherited identity, to the “Apostolic Age,” which will awaken faith by forming a new Christian identity, creating missionary outposts and prioritizing pioneering leadership.

“Are we accomplishing our mission by using a lot of church buildings that are, on your average Sunday in the Archdiocese, one-third full?” Zinkula said. “We’re hoping to have them more like two-thirds full. That changes the worship experience so much in terms of vibrancy and energy there.”

Doing so now, he said, puts the church in a position of relative strength before further predicted decline.

“We’ve kind of become domesticated in our Catholic Church right now, where it’s homey, and it’s really wonderful to have a home base,” Zinkula said. “But we’ve kind of lost the sense of that journey — going out, taking our faith out into the world and sharing it with others.”

After months of intensive feedback meetings across the Archdiocese, Zinkula plans to announce his final decisions for the plan in March or April, when pastorate groupings, Mass schedules and priest assignments will be released. The implementation process will begin in July.

It could be years before the church realizes the benefits of the plan, but he hopes the process will be transformative.

“A lot of this is people going through a grieving process. There’s anger, and bargaining, and depression, and I get that,” he said. “But our faith is based on the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ — his suffering, dying and rising. There’s suffering happening with this ... but then there can be new life.”

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Pastorate models

Since Zinkula was ordained in 1990, he has seen periods of parish mergers, pastoral planning and inactivity. He says the piecemeal approach has been pushed as far as it can.

Three hypothetical models put forward by the Archdiocese show maps built along various lines with recommended Mass locations, the number of priests in pastorates, and drive times between churches. Maps take into consideration geography, capacity, facility numbers, Mass attendance and other factors, like the number of weddings and funerals held at each parish.

Even in parishes where Sunday Mass does not continue, churches can continue to celebrate the sacraments like baptisms, as well as daily Mass and funerals.

Pastorate map designs aim to maximize accessibility by allowing at least 80 percent of parishioners to attend Mass by traveling 20 minutes or less. Zinkula said drafted models beat that number, topping 90 percent.

With leadership development being another priority, plans also aim to reduce stress on priests, many of whom are pastoring multiple parishes. In recent years, international priests have been brought in to help fill shortages — a plan that is no longer tenable given changes in immigration policy.

Under new parameters, a priest may not celebrate more than three Masses per weekend.

Parishioners say that’s welcome news, citing examples of priests who have suffered heart attacks or have left the priesthood. In November 2024, a pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish in Cedar Rapids died by suicide.

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“Personally, I’ve witness that strain or stress that can happen naturally when someone is brand-new to the vocation,” said St. Pius X parishioner Kristy Staker, whose father is a deacon and whose brother is a priest at four parishes in the diocese. “They are human beings entrusted with huge amounts of spiritual responsibility. Supporting their well-being will support the church as a whole.”

Zinkula said that the potential for more communal living among priests may also support their mental health in an increasingly secular world.

Maintaining cohesion

While the Catholic Church remains universal, the experience can vary substantially from church to church — from worship style to religious education to community bonds.

“There are some people that only come to St. Patrick,” said the Rev. Dennis Miller, priest of St. Patrick in northwest Cedar Rapids. “When we moved into organ and chant (music) here, we lost people who wanted more upbeat hymns.”

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Today, the historically Irish church remains largely blue-collar and has seen modest growth in Mass attendance from the Time Check neighborhood. With four weekend Masses and a daily Mass throughout the week, they take pride in traditional liturgy, the Catachesis of the Good Shepherd, and a fish fry that draws upward of 1,400 attendees during Lent.

As in many churches, St. Patrick attendees take great pride in their identity as members of their particular parish. When certain pastorate models from the Archdiocese of Dubuque indicated weekend Mass at St. Patrick could end, Miller said his congregation first approached the plan with skepticism and fear.

“One of the (hypothetical) plans involves us not having Sunday Mass, so they immediately think closure,” he said. “I heard right away ‘let’s get a petition together to save St. Patrick.’ ”

But through months of conversations, he says many are hopeful for an alternate pastorate model that could pair the church with St. Wenceslaus and Immaculate Conception, which are culturally similar to St. Patrick. Some have even looked forward to the collaborative possibilities.

Even with a good match for culture and style, he knows some may not attend Mass at other churches. When his uncle’s church closed in Haverhill, he declined to attend Mass in Marshalltown, about 15 minutes away.

“Every church … has the same basic service, Mass, leadings,” Miller said. “But I understand that people are different, the environment is different. If you’re very connected to that, it can be hard to go to a new place.”

Rev. Jacob Dunne, pastor of five rural parishes in Benton County’s Queen of Saints cluster, said everyone remembers when their local public school became part of the merger with the larger Benton Community School District. The same complicated feelings can be applied to churches.

“Among rural parishes, there’s a desire to make sure there’s a presence of churches in communities,” he said. “What I’ve learned as a pastor is ... you can’t just take something away and assume anything can replace the role of this church or parish in a person’s life.”

While parishioners may have some disagreements on particulars of the Journey in Faith plan, there seems to be consensus on the need for change to build a sustainable future for the church.

“Let’s face it, not everybody’s going to be happy,” said Jennifer Ockerlander, St. Patrick parishioner for almost 10 years. “But that decision still needs to be made.”

The next generation

Dunne, who also serves as chaplain of Xavier High School in Cedar Rapids, tends to generations at both the younger and older ends of the spectrum.

His parishioners, like many rural churches, trend older. Many are frustrated that their children don’t follow in the Catholic faith after being diligently raised in church and sent to Catholic education.

But with a shift in the Archdiocese’s emphasis to evangelism, Dunne sees a new wind with potential to activate the church’s next generation of faithfuls.

“It might be a slight breeze, but I see among high schoolers a desire for God, a desire for spiritual things,” he said. “This is going to set us up for the real shift, which is a cultural shift.”

Dunne, 33, is shocked at how readily students will use clinical language to describe their feelings, and how openly they are willing to talk about mental health concerns.

Gen Z and Generation Alpha, with different social habits than their predecessors thanks to technology and social media, may have less of a need for communal experiences than previous generations in the practice of faith. But with new levels of introspection among young people, he sees in them hope to cultivate faith.

“Trend lines are not determinative, and I think there is an awakening, a desire for something more,” he said. “This is not another story of inevitable decline, but a shift into a new reality.”

Comments: Features reporter Elijah Decious can be reached at (319) 398-8340 or elijah.decious@thegazette.com.