Two Catholic Churches in Brooklyn Will Close, by Paul Vitello, New York Times, November 16, 2010

Two Catholic Churches in Brooklyn Will Close

By Paul Vitello
New York Times
November 16, 2010

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The St. Lucy-St. Patrick church in Fort Greene is to be merged with a neighboring parish.

Facing a drop in attendance and a shortage of priests, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn plans to close two churches, fold six parishes into three and impose strict budget constraints on all 198 of its parishes.

The move, announced from pulpits on Sunday, was described by church officials as the first phase of a broad consolidation that will result in further closings or mergers over the next two years, eventually affecting every parish in the diocese, which serves an estimated 1.5 million Catholics in Brooklyn and Queens.

Coming on the heels of the largest school reorganization in the history of the neighboring Archdiocese of New York, which announced provisional plans last week to close 31 parochial schools and one high school, the Brooklyn announcement underscored a sense of urgency in the church hierarchy about the financial impact of long-term population shifts, changing religious routines, aging church properties and a shrinking work force of priests.

"Given the financial constraints we now face, the diocese can no longer provide any financial assistance to your parish or any other parish in the diocese," Bishop Nicholas A. DiMarzio said in a letter read Sunday to parishioners at the churches that will be the first to close or merge, all of them in Brooklyn. "Further, the growing shortage of priests available for parochial service must be considered in all our strategic planning decisions."

This round of closings and mergers, to take effect on Jan. 31, follows a half-dozen other waves of parish and parochial school closings in recent years in the Brooklyn diocese. Among other cutbacks, the diocese has shuttered nearly half its elementary schools since the late 1990s.

Msgr. Kieran Harrington, the diocese's spokesman, said that in recent years 75 percent of the parishes in the diocese had gone into debt, sought diocesan subsidies or been forced to dip into reserves, which in most cases consisted of the proceeds of previous sales of church school buildings or other properties.

But beginning next year, he added, the diocese will offer subsidies only in emergencies and will discourage every parish from spending or borrowing against its reserves. "When we looked at the numbers, in some cases we were just shocked by what we saw," Monsignor Harrington said, referring to the eight-month review process that led to Sunday's announcement.

The news surprised parishioners like Lilia Chino, 45, a mother of four who lives next door to one church marked for a merger, St. Lucy-St. Patrick, in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn. She said everyone at Sunday Mass was "angry and bothered."

"Where are we going to go?" she said. "We are all crying, hoping it doesn't close."

The announcement also stirred the pot of recent political tensions between the Brooklyn Democratic Party chairman, State Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez, and some people who have fought him, including two priests affected by the mergers and closings.

In the fall of 2009, the priests, the Rev. John Powis and the Rev. Steve Lynch, helped Councilwoman Diana Reyna fend off a primary challenger backed by Mr. Lopez, who has feuded with her over various housing development projects in Brooklyn.

Bishop DiMarzio, who recruited Mr. Lopez's help in 2009 to defeat a bill that would have opened the gate to many more sexual abuse lawsuits against priests, recorded a message of support for Mr. Lopez and his slate of candidates, which was used in calls to voters. After both priests' churches appeared on the list of closings and mergers, the two were quoted in The Daily News on Monday saying they suspected Mr. Lopez of having influenced the decision — a charge Monsignor Harrington called "categorically untrue."

In a phone interview on Monday, Father Powis put a finer point on his criticism, saying: "I have serious differences with Mr. Lopez, and I'm sure he does not wish us well. But I don't have any quarrel with the decision to close my church. It's falling down."

He said he had been forced to celebrate Mass in the basement of his church, St. Michael-St. Edward Church in Fort Greene, because of falling debris in the interior. At Father Lynch's church, St. Lucy-St. Patrick, a secretary said the priest was visiting sick parishioners and would not be able to return calls. The parish is to be merged with the neighboring Mary of Nazareth parish in Clinton Hill.

William Kearns, a utility company manager who was among 50 lay people and clergy members who studied the parishes' landscape and made recommendations to the diocese, said the process was "emotionally very difficult on all sides," but ultimately came down to questions of sustainability. The parishes that will remain after the consolidation process is over, he said, are "the ones that are going to be able to pay their own way."

The other church scheduled to close is the Church of Our Lady of Montserrate in Williamsburg. In Crown Heights, St. Gregory the Great parish will merge with St. Matthew parish, and St. Ignatius parish will merge with St. Francis of Assisi-St. Blaise parish.