Declining attendance, donations behind St. Julian Eymard closure in Elk Grove

Declining Mass attendance and contributions to the collection plate will lead to the closure of St. Julian Eymard Catholic Church in Elk Grove Village and its consolidation with sister church Queen of the Rosary, parish officials have decided.

The two churches — about a mile away from each other — already merged into a unified administrative structure in 2020. The move combined some ministries and cut the number of weekend Masses, but kept the doors open to both sites.

But since last September, an internal nine-member committee of the unified parish — now called Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament — began taking another look at the two church sites, including a review of attendance trends and an evaluation of the financial position and future outlook.

“Like every household, school, business, and parish today, we are experiencing rising costs,” the Rev. Arthur Bautista, the parish pastor, said in a statement. “Maintaining duplicate expenses across two locations is no longer the best use of the resources entrusted to us. By bringing our community together more intentionally, we can invest more directly in ministry, worship, Catholic education, and serving our parish families.”

Members of the parish’s multisite review team revealed their recommendation to consolidate the parish into the Queen of the Rosary campus and divest the St. Julian property during a meeting at St. Julian Monday night.

Bautista has accepted the recommendation, and now the parish pastoral and finance councils will formally review the plan before forwarding it to the Archdiocese of Chicago’s presbyteral council. Once that panel approves, Cardinal Blase Cupich will formalize the decision in a decree.

Masses, ministries and the church office at St. Julian will remain in place until January 2027, officials say.

An archdiocese spokeswoman said no job losses are anticipated, since parish staff and clergy already serve both locations. A transition team will evaluate how Masses, ministries, parish gatherings and community life will occur on one unified worship site, she said.

In a slide presentation posted to the parish website, committee members said the decision was not “easy, … arrived at quickly, one taken lightly, or predetermined by the archdiocese.”

They cited increasing costs, a weekly offertory — including in-pew collections, mailed contributions, and online donations — that has remained flat, and having to dip into reserves to cover expenses. Net income from church operations has been in the red since 2022, according to the parish’s Our Path Forward presentation.

Also since that time, weekly Mass attendance has been hovering at around 500 at each church, whereas just before the merger, St. Julian was averaging 1,000 per week and Queen of the Rosary had about 800, parish statistics show.

St. Julian, built in 1978 on a 9.2-acre property at 601 Biesterfield Road, has seating for 450, with ministry activities in conference rooms and a church hall.

Queen of the Rosary, built in 1962 on an 11-acre property at 750 W. Elk Grove Boulevard, has seating for 900, with a neighboring school, rectory, administrative building, sports fields and playground.

So why is St. Julian closing? It’s “smaller, and limits our ability to gather as one parish, especially for major liturgies and events,” parish officials wrote in a website FAQ.

And while committee members said Queen of the Rosary School was not formally part of their evaluation criteria, “it became clear that our commitment to forming young people in the faith is closely connected to the presence of an active worship space on the same campus,” according to the slide presentation.

Officials said they will work with the archdiocese to determine what’s next for the St. Julian property.