While the Left Coast is reeling from the record-breaking settlement in the sex abuse scandal, the faithful on the East, particularly up in Beantown, are feeling a different disorientation and anguish: some drastic proposals for dealing with the worsening priest shortage in the Archdiocese of Boston:

“If no proactive archdiocesan-wide approach to future staffing, guided by the archbishop, is undertaken, the archdiocese faces hard results: a series of parish closings due to staff limitations and financial problems, and the accompanying hurt and anger,” warns the Pastoral Planning Report, prepared by a committee of 15 lay members and clergy this spring after 15 months of study.

The report paints a grim picture of priest staffing. There are 500 active priests in the archdiocese today. Of those, 108 are age 65 years or older. The report projects the church will lose 25 priests annually, while a mere five candidates each year will be ordained to replace them.

By 2015, the number of clergy is expected to dwindle to 292 active priests for 295 parishes, the report said.

The figures demonstrate a staggering drop in the number of clergy in the Boston Archdiocese, which was staffed with 1,189 priests in 1976 and 859 priests as recently as 2004, according to FutureChurch, a national coalition.

“We’re not immune to what the rest of the Catholic church is going through. There is an enormous shift in the number of priests out there,” said archdiocesan spokesman Terrence C. Donilon.

Donilon emphatically dismissed the prospect of another sweeping round of parish closures or a dramatic reassigment of priests.

However, the report makes clear that every aspect of parish life – from Mass schedules to priest workloads and the role deacons and trained lay ministers may play at funeral services – should be scrutinized.

The committee recommends the parishes or archbishop consider:

— Adjustments to daily Mass schedules in coordination with neighboring parishes to ensure daily liturgy is available “albeit at different local parishes.”

— Whether parishes have the authority to a designate a particular day for celebrating funerals.

— Whether a parish communion service is ever an “allowed option.”

— Establishing criteria to regulate the number of Masses priests or parishes should celebrate daily and on Sunday.

“Parish life will have to look very different from the present as parishes strive to use more limited resources for mission,” the report said in a recommendations section. “Many aspects of the present parish structures will not be sustainable in even the immediate future.”

This sort of helps put the hand-wringing about the Latin mass into perspective, doesn’t it?