Chicago Archdiocese launches staff reorganization

 

About 60 employees of the Chicago Archdiocese were told this week they must reapply for their jobs — the first wave in an overhaul of the nation's third-largest Roman Catholic archdiocese.

The staff reorganization is part of a multiyear initiative to revitalize the 2.3 million-member church in Cook and Lake counties. Employees for 11 offices that exist to support parishes will no longer hold the same positions after July 31. The archdiocese employs about 15,000 part-time and full-time workers in its pastoral center, schools and parishes.

All of the staff affected are at the Cardinal Meyer Center, a South Side branch of the church's headquarters that houses the Department of Parish Life and Formation. By Aug. 1, that department's name will become Parish Vitality and Mission, and the 11 offices will be consolidated into four, named for the church's renewed priorities: evangelization, lifelong formation, divine worship, and human dignity and solidarity.

The reorganization is the first step of an effort unveiled this year by Archbishop Blase Cupich to determine how many of the archdiocese's 351 parishes should close by 2030.

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