Vermont’s new Catholic bishop faces a litany of challenges

When John McDermott was ordained as a priest 35 years ago, both the new cleric and the nearly two-century-old Vermont Roman Catholic Diocese — the state’s largest religious denomination — were awash in historic highs.

Standing before then-Bishop John Marshall at Burlington’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in 1989, McDermott was happy to join a faith with some 150,000 members, 130 parishes and nearly 200 fellow priests.

McDermott went on to rise through the ranks, moving from small-town pastorships to the diocesan post of second-in-command. In contrast, the statewide church has faced a series of declines, with its website reporting nearly one-third fewer members, half as many parishes and only 36 active priests.

McDermott is now set to become Vermont’s new Catholic bishop. The 61-year-old’s installation is scheduled Monday for Burlington’s Saint Joseph Cathedral — the diocese’s current mother church after the closure of the Immaculate Conception sanctuary where he first took vows.

The change of venue is just one reminder of the litany of challenges the new leader faces.

‘Just a question of how much we can afford to help’

When the New Jersey-born McDermott left the U.S. Coast Guard Academy to become a priest (after discovering he was prone to seasickness), the diocese could boast that 1 of every 4 Vermonters was Catholic. With such sway, former bishops regularly rallied the faithful to Montpelier to oppose such measures as abortion.

Ralph Wright — the longest-serving Vermont House speaker, from 1985 to 1994 — recalled a church protest against his 1992 call for LGBTQ+ rights in his book “Inside the Statehouse.”

“The crowd, which had been bused in from the four corners of the state, numbered over a thousand,” the Bennington Democrat wrote. “Amid prayers for the souls of sinners could be heard the distant chant, ‘Wright is wrong; Wright is wrong; Wright is wrong.’”

Then came reporting in the 1990s about past child abuse at Burlington’s now-closed St. Joseph’s Orphanage , followed by headlines in the 2000s about decades of clergy sexual misconduct against altar boys statewide .

“If I was to go down to the Statehouse,” recently departed Bishop Christopher Coyne went on to say in 2019 , “the first thing that someone would come out with is, ‘You have no rights to lecture us about moral law given what the church did to children.’”

The Vermont diocese has paid out more than $30 million in legal settlements, in part by selling such assets as its former 32-acre Burlington headquarters along Lake Champlain. Even so, cases keep coming with the passage of state laws in 2019 and 2021 repealing deadlines on civil claims.

“I’ve been dealing with the abuse crisis for now almost 20 years,” McDermott told reporters at a recent press conference. “Seeking just resolutions for those who have been hurt, I think we have an obligation to help them. It’s just a question of how much we can afford to help them.”

‘Mergers and consolidations will have to be considered’

Catholics also are wrestling with decreasing numbers of priests and parishioners. McDermott first entered the public spotlight 20 years ago when the diocese, reaching a tipping point of more churches than clergy, charged him with leading its first parish consolidation effort.

“My hope would be people focus on the fact that while church buildings are important, our faith doesn’t depend upon them,” McDermott told reporters in 2004 . “To me this shouldn’t be a time of great fear and despair, but of possibility and spiritual growth.”

Since then, the number of active priests has dropped from about 100 to 36 — a figure lower than that under the first Vermont Catholic bishop, Louis deGoesbriand, who founded the state diocese in 1853 . That has forced current leadership to close or consolidate nearly half of its parishes, from 130 two decades ago to 68 today.

Such cutbacks are set to continue.

“The reality is that many churches were built at a time when transportation and travel was more difficult,” McDermott told VTDigger this month. “Now we know people can more easily travel and will do so for those things that are important to them. More parish and church mergers and consolidations will have to be considered.”

Maintaining any religious denomination is difficult in Vermont, as the state has the lowest share of adults in the nation who attend any type of service — 21%, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey .

With fewer clergy, McDermott will rely more on deacons and laypeople to run the diocese.

“I have been the only full-time priest working at the chancery for the last 10 years,” he is quoted in the current issue of Vermont Catholic magazine . “My hope is to provide a strong vision and direction and then let people get to work.”

As a diocesan administrator, McDermott has traveled to all but two of Vermont’s Catholic churches (the outliers are Stratton and Townshend). He’ll start his tenure as the state’s 11th Catholic bishop with plans to visit the last pair. As for questions about how to draw more priests and parishioners, he has no easy answers.

“One of the dangers we face is trying to solve the issue of declining church participation and attendance with a new program,” he said. “We always have to make sure we’re not overly concerned just about numbers. I think the big challenge for us is to be authentically who we are as followers of Christ.”

McDermott said he’d start with himself.

“I’m a glass half full type of person,” he concluded. “I tend to be enthusiastic and hopeful and very positive, even in difficult times, and I’m hoping that continues to be.”

Clarification: This story was updated to clarify terminology related to John McDermott’s installation.

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