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	Church Closings Announced By Dan Hartzell The Morning Call February 1, 2009 http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-b1_5churches.6766893feb01,0,7565411.story For parishioners of St. Luke on Stroudsburg's Main Street, Saturday Mass brought welcome news: Theirs was not among the 35 or so Scranton Diocese parishes to be closed in the months ahead. Scranton is following a path similar to that taken by the Allentown Diocese, and others across the nation, as shrinking financial and human resources force the shuttering of smaller churches with declining attendance. Scranton Bishop Joseph F. Martino delivered the news in recorded audio form, which played at Masses Saturday and will replay at Masses today. In a press release, the diocese said it will post all the closings on its Web site (www.dioceseofscranton.org) at 7 p.m. tonight. Martino recorded several messages, tailoring them to clusters of parishes, each of which received information specific to churches in its vicinity. He did not say in his message to St. Luke how many churches would close. The Rev. Thomas D. McLaughlin, pastor of St. Luke, said after 4 p.m. Mass Saturday that about 35 would close. With about 15 percent of the diocese's 224 churches closing, the impact isn't as deep as in the Allentown Diocese, which announced the closure of nearly a third of its churches in June. Still, the news was upsetting at the affected parishes, such as Christ the King in Blakeslee which will consolidate with Our Lady of the Lake in Pocono Pines. Lynnette Smith, coordinator of religious education at Our Lady of the Lake, said the church is scheduled to close by June, 2010. She said she knew of no other closings in the area. At Saturday evening Mass, ''People were very quiet and reflectful, and our pastor urged us to keep all the parishes in our prayers,'' Smith said. Reached at Christ the King Saturday night, the Rev. Patrick McLaughlin declined to comment. With few empty pews at St. Luke for the 4 p.m. service, parishioners were happy to learn the five churches in their ''cluster'' will be part of the reorganization's ''partnership'' model, the one with the least impact on the faithful. The parishes will share some services to avoid duplication, but retain their churches and individual pastors. ''Linked'' parishes will remain separate, but two parishes will share a priest. ''Consolidated'' parishes will feel the greatest impact, ''coming together in such a way that only one continues to exist,'' Martino said in the recording. ''We're fortunate,'' said Nancy Gabana-Wayes of East Stroudsburg as she and her husband, Phil Wayes, departed St. Luke Saturday. The influx of new residents to the Stroudsburg area in recent years likely helped St. Luke and other Monroe County parishes remain strong, she said. Gabana-Wayes feared for her childhood parish elsewhere in the diocese, a church still attended by her mother. ''It's unfortunate,'' Jolyne Pohutsky of Stroud Township said at St. Luke, adding after a pause, ''But necessary.'' The economic prospects facing not only the church, but the nation, require hard choices, she said: ''You have to be realistic.'' The Allentown Diocese began its restructuring last summer, starting the process of shuttering 47 of its 151 churches across a five-county area. Planning began about a year ago in Scranton in a process that included evaluations and input by parish committees. The Diocesan Planning Commission, made up of priests, deacons and other religious and lay people from throughout the 11-county diocese made its recommendation to Martino in October, according to the diocese Web site. The Scranton Diocese serves Catholics in Monroe, Luzerne, Lackawanna, Wyoming, Pike, Wayne, Susquehanna, Bradford, Sullivan, Lycoming and Tioga counties. Contact: hartzell@mcall.com, 610-778-7942
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