Archbishop Sean O'Malley came to Grove Hall one day recently to visit the parish of Saint John/Saint Hugh, a vibrant Roman Catholic church on Blue Hill Avenue which has long served black Catholics in the neighborhood. The prelate came to bless and dedicate new front doors recently installed at the church. One parishioner was telling the story this week, and wondered to herself how long those new doors would remain open.

In an archdiocese undergoing intense self-analysis, she worries her church will soon be targeted for closing and consolidation. It is a question that is on the minds of most practicing Catholics: What is to become of their place of worship? This week, they learned that a process is underway to restructure parish lines, and it's likely some churches will be closed by the summer.

More certain is the expectation that a whole handful of Catholic churches in Dorchester - maybe as many as five - will be closed down by year's end, and churchgoers will be invited to places of worship in neighborhoods outside their own.

For those of us raised as Catholics in the era before John Kennedy became the first Catholic president, the bonds to the parish of our baptisms exert an almost primordial tug on our psyches.

But that was back in the middle of the last century, a time when every parish had six or more priests and every mass had overflow attendance. In some parishes, it was not unusual to have two masses celebrated at the same time in the same space- one on the main altar, a second at a side altar.

Today, many local parishes are staffed by just one priest, and often he is asked to provide coverage at an adjacent parish. At. St. Mark's, pastor Rev. Dan Finn has been running between three churches every Sunday - his own, and nearby St. Peter's and Holy Family parishes. The pastor of St. Angela's in Mattapan, Father Bill Joy, looks after liturgies at St. Joseph's in Hyde Park, and since last month, St. Matthew's on Stanton Street in Dorchester. It is an untenable situation.

In that long ago time, there was a great rivalry between parishes. More recently, as resources of funds and clerics have diminished, local Catholic parishes have been working together with increasing frequency. Catholics routinely keep track of the Sunday Mass schedule at several churches. If they miss "the 8:30" in their own parish, they head to another church for "the nine."

On the weekend after last month's heavy snowfall, a Neponset woman said she chose to attend a holyday mass at St. Gregory's in Lower Mills: "They have a four o'clock afternoon mass, and there's good parking at the CVS lot," she explained.

Founded in 1863, St. Gregory's was Dorchester's first Catholic church. In those early years it drew Catholics from as far way as South Boston, Dedham and Quincy. In recent years, St. Greg's has become a Sunday destination for Catholics from near and far to an evening Mass at 5 p.m.

To his credit, Archbishop O'Malley has publicly outlined the problems of diminishing resources and excess expenses facing the church. In a letter last week, he invited laypeople to join in the discussions of defining the issues and devising solutions.

It is a different time, and Catholics are in a different place from where they were five decades ago. The changes are certain to arrive, and they're coming soon. -Ed Forry