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According to the 2011 and 2021 population censuses, the Archdiocese of Đakovo-Osijek lost 78,885 Catholic believers or 16.88%. The demographic decline is particularly evident in rural parishes. The demographic decline, the rural exodus, i.e., the mass departure of the rural population to the cities and richer countries of the European Union, have been greatly changing and influencing the value-identity-religious structure of rural parishes. The paper starts with an exploration of the demographic breakdown and goes on to identify the emerging characteristics of parishes in the countryside and points to new circumstances in pastoral work. Thus, the third part of the paper elaborates on four pillars around which and on which it is necessary to build contemporary pastoral care in rural parishes; insufficient number of priests, synodality, subsidiarity and co-responsibility, and fostering a culture of meeting in pastoral activity, specifically the design of new pastoral units structured by several rural parishes that have become active centres of socio-cultural, neo-traditional »new-rural« religious life, based on capillary and categorical pastoral approach, to create religious cohesion and new religious identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]