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The archdiocese has announced that 31 parishes will merge into 14 new parishes, representing the final round of parish mergers and closings of a restructured archdiocese under the lengthy review and consultation process called Making All Things New.
The mergers, announced May 8, are in addition to the changes announced last November, which when combined with the new changes will leave the 10-county archdiocese with 296 parishes when all the mergers take effect Aug. 1.
Some of the mergers announced last week involve more than one parish, for instance three parishes in the Northeast Bronx will merge with St. Frances of Rome, thereby combining four parishes into one.
In some cases the church buildings of the merged parishes will continue to offer regular Masses and services, and in other cases the buildings will be used only on special occasions.
In one situation, however, a merger announced in November of St. Luke’s parish in the South Bronx with St. Jerome’s has been reversed. St. Luke’s, which was slated to close, will continue as an independent parish serving the sizable Ghanaian Catholic community in the borough.
Cardinal Dolan, who has followed the process closely and gave final approval to the plans that emerged, said the changes were necessary for the archdiocese to thrive as geographic shifts in the Catholic population led to an overabundance of churches in some areas and not enough in others. Financial and personnel concerns also figured in, he said.
“For too long we have been in the business of maintaining buildings and structures that were established in the 19th and early 20th centuries to meet the needs of the people of that time, but which are not necessary to meet the needs of the Church and its people as it exists today,” he said in a statement announcing the final mergers.
He acknowledged, however, in a May 8 interview with CNY, “I cannot deny that emotionally and spiritually it’s been a difficult process. It would be analogous, I guess, to the decision of a father that he has to close the house and move somewhere else. You don’t want to do that because you know the family loves the place, there are memories there, there are hopes there, there are dreams there.”
But the cardinal said that in the long run the decision was necessary for the strength and vitality of the Church. And he pointed to the previous Sunday’s Gospel reading in which Jesus told his disciples that sometimes the branches must be pruned in order for the vine to be strengthened.
“Sometimes we have to do some pruning,” he said. “Pruning is not easy. Ask any gardener.”
But there is an upside, as he noted: “You prune some branches (and) within a couple of weeks you see that the other ones are pumped and bearing fruit.”
In 11 of the 14 newly formed parishes, two church buildings will be used, with one church designated as the parish church and the other site used for Masses and sacraments. There will be six churches where Masses and sacraments will no longer be celebrated on a regular basis, and the buildings used only for special occasions.
In the Making All Things New pastoral planning process, parish clusters and an advisory committee made proposals that were reviewed by the cardinal and the Priests’ Council, and the first stage of changes was announced. At that time, however, the cardinal requested additional input about other parishes, including the 31 involved in the final round of changes. In his comments to CNY, he said the changes would re-orient the Church from a static maintenance paradigm to an energized, evangelical one.
“It’s either institutional maintenance or a recovered sense of mission,” he explained. “To maintain all these nearly 380 parishes is dragging us down. We’re using resources, personnel and the money of God’s people to maintain them all. We’ve made tough decisions to say we’re not into institutional maintenance, we’re into mission.
“From the beginning, this process has been about helping the archdiocese to better accomplish the work of evangelization and outreach, preach the Gospel, perform works of charity and educate people in the faith, all of which is at the heart of the Church’s mission. So let’s do it and do it right. That’s what the new evangelization is all about.”
And he pointed out the positive initiatives the archdiocese was taking as a result of the Making All Things New self-evaluation, including new and expanded churches and services.
“There is immense good news,” he said.
Potential areas for increased growth and expansion, he said, include a new, expanded church facility for St. Frances Xavier Cabrini parish on Roosevelt Island to allow all of its services to be consolidated in one place; an expanded church for St. Mary’s parish in Washingtonville; and a study of the need to move St. Michael’s parish in mid-Manhattan to the new Hudson Yards redevelopment project.
“There’s going to be a new parish in Hudson Yards. There’s going to be a new church on Roosevelt Island. There is going to be at least one that is expanded in the upper counties, Washingtonville. There’s going to be a better use of religious orders.”
Cardinal Dolan noted another positive development is that the burgeoning Ghanaian community will finally have a spiritual home at St. Luke’s in the Bronx, which will serve the approximately 700-800 Ghanaian Catholics who were looking to join an established parish. He said with this influx of new parishioners, St. Luke’s—which was not going to be used under the original plan—will be able to remain a vibrant, stable parish.
To assist the Ghanaians in their search for a parish, Auxiliary Bishop John O’Hara, director of the archdiocesan Office of Strategic Pastoral Planning, and Brother Tyrone Davis, C.F.C., who heads the Office of Black Ministry, accompanied a delegation to various churches before St. Luke’s was selected.
“Now we’ve got close to a thousand Ghanaians, with more probably coming who said, ‘We would love to unite with the wonderful people who are already there.’ They’ve been looking for a place and they finally got it,” the cardinal said.
“We’ve got a young administrator there, Father Steve Markantonis, who rose to the occasion and said, ‘My God, this is exciting, let’s do it.’ That’s pastoral planning!”
In addition to finalizing the parish mergers, the Making All Things New process identified several potential areas for increased pastoral ministry and growth, including:
• The Franciscan Friars of the Renewal undertaking ministry in the Newburgh area to work with the underprivileged, and immigrants;
• The Claretian Fathers expanding their ministry in White Plains;
• Franciscan Friars, headquartered on Todt Hill, Staten Island, possibly taking on new ministry;
• Identifying areas for housing to serve people with autism and other disabilities;
• An expanded apostolate and new facilities to minister to and with the Latino community throughout the archdiocese.
The cardinal also made a final decision concerning the merger of St. Charles Borromeo and All Saints parishes in Harlem. The decision to merge had been made in November, but the cardinal held it in abeyance while another proposal for Harlem was considered and ultimately rejected. Now that the process is concluded, the decree is being issued.
Finally, the archdiocese had announced in November that the Salesians of Don Bosco had agreed to undertake pastoral ministry in Port Chester and would develop a proposal to configure and merge the four parishes there. That proposal will be presented to Cardinal Dolan, who will review the plan and discuss it with the Priests’ Council at the end of May.
Transition teams have been working throughout the archdiocese to assist parishes with the practical steps needed to implement the new arrangements and to help in the process of forming new parish families after the mergers. The teams will pay particular attention to mergers where one of the church buildings will not be used on a regular basis for Mass and sacraments.
“People are talking together and parishes are starting to come together in preparation for the August 1 merge,” Bishop O’Hara said. “One of the things that I think is key to all of this is people talk about ‘our church’ and certainly there is affection, there is feeling, there is memory. But we have to think about the Church, which is wider. Catholic means universal. And that’s what this whole thing is about. It is about the Church and it requires vision. It requires cooperation. It requires taking a chance.”
The pastoral planning process, which began in 2010, involved surveying parishioners of every parish of the archdiocese; meeting with priests, deacons and religious throughout the archdiocese; consulting with the archdiocesan pastoral council and reviewing the observations offered by Cardinal Dolan from his own extensive parish visits since his 2009 appointment as archbishop.
The formal phase of Making All Things New was launched in September 2013, with every parish performing a self-examination, then joining other nearby parishes in a “cluster” to develop proposals for the future of the Catholic Church in that area. The proposals were reviewed by the 40-person advisory committee comprised of clergy, religious men and women and the faithful from across the archdiocese, and, finally, by the Priests’ Council and other close advisers and key staff.
“The other day on my day off, I walked up Lexington Avenue and there’s a nice little soup and sandwich shop that I love,” the cardinal said. “And the other day I walked by it and there’s a big sign that says ‘We’re not closed. We’re only moving and expanding to serve you better.’ And I thought, wow, can I copy that sign and put it on our parishes?”
