The 12:00 pm Mass will probably not be returning in the near future. There are several reasons for this.
The Archdiocese is encouraging parishes to reduce the number of weekend Masses if the church is not half full for each Mass. The Saturday 4:00 pm and the Sunday 8:00 am Masses are never half full. The church seats over 700 persons. We will have to wait until after Labor Day to see what attendance will look like.
The Archdiocesan BEACONS OF LIGHT program has started and we will not know which Family of Parishes we will be in until November 11. I will have some idea what may happen in the middle of the summer. Each Family of Parishes will have to develop a pastoral plan including a Mass schedule plan for all the parishes in the group. I have no idea what that is going to look like. We are in a kind of limbo until then.
Father David Endres (who is not technically assigned here) may not be able to come as often as he does now. He wears many hats: Dean of the Seminary and Professor, Priests’ Personnel Director, chair of the Archdiocesan Bicentennial Committee, Editor of a National Catholic Historical Review Journal. These are the jobs I know about. The Seminary has recently been assigned to provide priests for a parish in Cincinnati and Father Dave is not sure how often he will have to cover that assignment. The guidelines for scheduling Masses include a stipulation that no priest may be scheduled for more than two Masses per day meaning if the noon Mass were to return we will have to rely on outside clergy help.
Finally, I would like to point out that when the Beacons of Light Program is actualized every parish in the Archdiocese will have to make sacrifices. Change is never easy and the upcoming changes are going to be dramatic and maybe a bit overwhelming. We need to pray over all of this beginning now.