Latest news, weather, high school sports for Michigan’s Upper Peninsula

REPUBLIC -- Sister Lois Risch and Sister Margey Schmelzle run not just one, but two parishes in Marquette County.

Two priests from Ishpeming come in to perform sacramental duties at the parishes, but these nuns take care of just about everything else.  They keep track of the finances, they maintain the building space for both Saint Augustine's Church in Republic and Sacred Heart Church in Champion.  And perhaps their most important role...they help their parishoners.

"We attend to the needs of the people...we're present for the major events in their lives like baptisms, all the sacraments," says Sister Margey.

The sisters are in charge of the parishes because there simply aren't enough resident priests to go around.  Since 1966, the number of active priests in the Upper Peninsula has declined from 151 to 56, a decrease of more than 60 percent. 

This is also a national trend.  In 1965, there were nearly 36,000 diocesan priests in the United States.  Forty years later, the number was down to about 29,000.

"We see an increasingly secularized culture, I think, all around us.  The place of God, the place of religion, the place of spirituality is more and more, it seems, diminished in people's lives," says Bishop Alexander Sample of the Diocese of Marquette.

But, Bishop Sample says things may be looking up for the priesthood in the U.P.  He currently has 11 men in his seminary which, he says, is high for the area.  And two of those men will be ordained as priests this summer.

When I asked Sister Margey and Sister Lois if they're overwhelmed by their duties, they said they're managing fine as a team.

"I don't think either of us feel that it's too much, and that's what's good because if you just had one person here, that would be a strain; how do you keep all this going?  But with the two of us, it works out very well," says Sister Lois.

One of the ways they keep their parishes afloat:  they sell pasties to help pay the winter bills at Saint Augustine's.  But these sisters point out that they're not just getting by, they're thriving.

"Every year we have more people joining, it's not just huge numbers, of course, because we don't deal in large numbers out here, but every year there are people who have either joined or who have come back to the church," Sister Margey says.

If you'd like to buy some of the St. Augustine pasties mentioned above, they'll be selling them this Saturday, March 5, from the kitchen in the downstairs of the church.  For more information, please call the following number:  (906) 376-8475.