{"id":443,"date":"2017-01-30T01:30:42","date_gmt":"2017-01-30T06:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/?p=443"},"modified":"2017-01-30T01:30:42","modified_gmt":"2017-01-30T06:30:42","slug":"all-of-toms-rivers-catholic-churches-to-remain-open-in-diocese-restructuring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/2017\/01\/all-of-toms-rivers-catholic-churches-to-remain-open-in-diocese-restructuring\/","title":{"rendered":"All of Toms River&#8217;s Catholic Churches to Remain Open in Diocese Restructuring"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_444\" style=\"width: 910px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-444\" class=\"size-full wp-image-444\" src=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/8837153ce79136612dd1ce10906d1b96.jpg\" alt=\"St. Joseph church, Toms River. (File Photo)\" width=\"900\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/8837153ce79136612dd1ce10906d1b96.jpg 900w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/8837153ce79136612dd1ce10906d1b96-300x167.jpg 300w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/8837153ce79136612dd1ce10906d1b96-768x427.jpg 768w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/8837153ce79136612dd1ce10906d1b96-756x420.jpg 756w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/8837153ce79136612dd1ce10906d1b96-640x356.jpg 640w, https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/8837153ce79136612dd1ce10906d1b96-681x378.jpg 681w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-444\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">St. Joseph church, Toms River. (File Photo)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Toms River\u2019s four Roman Catholic\u00a0parishes will remain intact as part of a restructuring plan announced last week by the Diocese of Trenton.<\/p>\n<p>The diocesan plan, known as Faith in Our Future, is in response to reduced church attendance\u00a0in recent years across the diocese, which spans Ocean, Monmouth, Mercer and Burlington counties. Dozens of churches in Ocean County will be merged and linked together, however none of the Toms River churches will face changes or consolidation.<\/p>\n<p>The plan calls for St. Joseph, St. Justin, St. Luke and St. Maximilian Kolbe parishes to remain separate, but to work under a collaborative model. Under the model, the churches will\u00a0enter into formal, collaborative relationships, working together on specific, agreed-upon shared areas of ministry, shared programs, shared staffing and shared resources. Each\u00a0parish will remain distinct\u00a0with their own pastor, pastoral and finance councils, finances, census and sacramental books, but will\u00a0\u201cwork together whenever possible to do what a single parish cannot do effectively alone.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn recent years, dioceses all over the country have had to come to terms with the changing realities in the life of the Catholic Church and its faithful,\u201d Bishop David M. O\u2019Connell said in a statement, adding that current estimates show just 17 to 18 percent of families registered in the diocese\u2019s 107 parishes attend Mass regularly.<\/p>\n<div class=\"fcbkbttn_buttons_block\" id=\"fcbkbttn_left\"><div class=\"fb-share-button fcbkbttn_large_button \" data-href=\"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/2017\/01\/all-of-toms-rivers-catholic-churches-to-remain-open-in-diocese-restructuring\/\" data-type=\"button_count\" data-size=\"large\"><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Toms River\u2019s four Roman Catholic\u00a0parishes will remain intact as part of a restructuring plan announced last week by the Diocese of Trenton. The diocesan plan, known as Faith in Our Future, is in response to reduced church attendance\u00a0in recent years across the diocese, which spans Ocean, Monmouth, Mercer and Burlington counties. Dozens of churches in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":444,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,2],"tags":[172,173,168,169,170,171,11],"class_list":["post-443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-toms-river-life","tag-catholic","tag-church","tag-st-joseph","tag-st-justin","tag-st-luke","tag-st-maximilian-kolbe","tag-toms-river-nj-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/8837153ce79136612dd1ce10906d1b96.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/tomsriver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}