His Excellency Sean P. O’Malley, OFM Cap
Archbishop of
Fax 617 782-8358
Dear Bishop O’Malley:
I am writing on behalf of the parishioners of Sacred Heart Parish of Lexington, and am intervening on their behalf with an expert opinion on the use of data and statistics to close a number of parishes in the Boston Archdiocese, including Sacred Heart Parish of Lexington.
I am a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology specializing in the use of statistics in business problems, and am also a parishioner at Sacred Heart.
The process of “sacrament counting” through the sacrament index, as I understand it, is a poor indicator of a church’s vibrancy. Three reasons underlie this statement. First, the mere counting of sacraments in a given parish biases the results in favor of larger parishes whose numbers are larger (merely by their size) relative to small parishes. Using a percentage index (e.g. the number of marriages relative to the number of members of the parish) is a much better indicator of the involvement of the parishioners of a given church community. Second, as a measure of vibrancy of a parish, all sacraments are not equal. Indeed, a large number of baptisms generally indicate a growing community in God, while a large number of funerals is an indicator of a declining and aging community. Third, there are many measures of a community’s commitment to its church which the sacrament index misses. For example, the number of children in CCD is an indicator of the growth of a community, but is missed in an index that merely counts sacraments.
The sacrament index is very deeply and obviously flawed as criteria for a statistical determination or even classification for the closing of a parish. While the dire financial strait of the Boston Archdiocese necessitates a restructuring of Church assets, it is clear to me that the use of data in such an endeavor was clearly misguided and flawed.
As a statistician, I hope that you will consider this expert opinion in the appeal to keep Sacred Heart Parish of Lexington open as a continuing viable community.
Sincerely,