Nova Scotia, Canada Dioceses to merge (Post #133)

.
Excerpt from the Halifax Chronicle Herald: Yarmouth’s Roman Catholic diocese to join Halifax

1 June 2011

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Yarmouth will merge with its Halifax counterpart sometime this year.

"Yarmouth is a small diocese and does not have a lot of growth," Marilyn Sweet, spokeswoman for the dioceses, said Tuesday.  "There are expenses involved with being a separate diocese and it’s not always reasonable to remain (separate)."  The two districts have grown closer since 2002, when Yarmouth came under the purview of the Archbishop of Halifax, Sweet said.  "There have been shared consultations and the financial people have talked together," she said. "But we’re not sharing financial resources at this time."

Things get more complicated when it comes to sex abuse lawsuits faced by the Diocese of Yarmouth. Archbishop Anthony Mancini handles the lawsuits and all other issues as the apostolic administrator for Yarmouth. But the diocese bears the financial and legal responsibility on its own, unless the Diocese of Halifax is directly mentioned in the lawsuit, Sweet said.  The Diocese of Yarmouth has faced 22 cases of sexual abuse involving clergy. About 14 cases have been resolved, with settlement amounts of more than $2.6 million being paid out.   But the move to merge Yarmouth with Halifax isn’t directly linked to financial pressure from the lawsuits, Sweet said.  "The decisions around need-ing to make the two dioceses one has been growing through the years," she said.

The Yarmouth diocese encompasses Kings, Annapolis, Digby, Yarmouth and Shelburne counties. It was created in 1953, detaching from the Halifax archdiocese.   "That’s often what happens, as the population in the church waxes and wanes, administration of the church also has to be efficient," Sweet said.  "There were good reasons in the 1950s to establish the Diocese of Yarmouth and there are good reasons now to bring these two dioceses together. And at the heart of it all is to make sure that we have adequate resources to carry out the work of the church."

She said there are no plans at this point to extend the union to include the Antigonish diocese, which has also been rocked by the priest sex abuse scandal.  "Antigonish diocese is alive and has faced (a) really tough time and it’s growing again."

Sources include
http://thechronicleherald.ca/NovaScotia/1246328.html
http://www.dioceseyarmouth.org/
http://www.catholichalifax.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=88&Itemid=94
http://www.catholichalifax.org/new/index.php
http://www.antigonishdiocese.com/title.htm