A new Catholic parish in Waukegan has its new pastor, a Loyola U.-Chicago philosophy teacher and veteran of the Peru mission.  He is Rev. Daniel Hartnett, S.J., who is to lead “a new Catholic presence in Waukegan,” according to the Chicago archdiocese’s director of research and planning, Jean Welter.

Welter explained to the News-Sun: “There were so many original ethnic parishes up there, and it’s still diverse . . .  We still have the older ethnic groups and Latinos.”

A Waukegan priest, Rev. Gary Graf, and representatives of three parishes worked out a quasi-merger plan.  The resulting quasi-single parish has been handed over to Father Hartnett.

It seems to be where a shortage of priests meets a shortage of anglos, which together meet a reasonable solution.  It’s announced as a new-pastor story —

A philosophy professor who spent 23 years ministering to the poor in a squatter settlement in Peru has been named pastor of a newly formed Roman Catholic parish in Waukegan.

— but seems equally if not primarily a neat bit of ecclesiastical problem-solving.  Not till the sixth paragraph, however, do we have details:

Each church will continue to operate, but will be referred to as the Holy Family site, IC [Immaculate Conception] site and Queen of Peace site. “Thank God,” Graf said. “We need every building we have.”

Come to think more on it, it’s one priest for three parishes — not quite a sow’s ear, but calling nonetheless for silk-purse treatment?