Suppression of a Croatian–Slovenian Parish in San Francisco and Parishioners' Efforts toward Its Reopening: Reflections on Heterogeneity of Ethnic Catholicism in the U.S.A.

Abstract

In recent decades, we have seen a pronounced crisis of personal parishes in the United States that serve European ethnic communities, many of which have been forced to close or merge, usually due to the lack of clergy, declining Mass attendance, and financial reasons. This issue for American Catholicism is the focus of the essay, dealing with a particular case of parishioners' resistance to the closure of the Croatian-Slovenian parish of the Nativity of Our Lord in 1994 and its reopening two years later. That was a period of empowerment for Catholic Slovenian and Croatian Americans in the San Francisco Bay Area, a significant achievement for "traditional" immigrant organizations that were slowly losing their past focal role with much more numerous firstgeneration immigrants. The rebuilding of this religious community, now shared among three ethnic groups and administered by a Polish pastor, has been afflicted with challenges inherent in the establishment of interethnic cohabitation and finding a permanent solution to some old issues.