This a time of change in the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas, which includes Lawrence’s two parishes and the Catholic Church’s campus ministry to Kansas University.

The archdiocese recently announced new assignments for 30 priests, the retirement of three pastors and a sabbatical for another.

That means a lot of new faces in area churches.

“If people retire, we’ve got to fill those spots. It’s going to have a domino effect,” says the Rev. Charles McGlinn, vicar general for priest personnel for the archdiocese. “We try to follow our policy of a pastor assigned six years to a place, renewable for another six years, but sometimes we can’t.

“It’s a very complex kind of thing. As our number of priests grows smaller, it gets more difficult to cover all the places.”