New York Catholics Learn Fate of Their Parishes, by Sharon Otterman, New York Times (November 2, 2014)

Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan announced on Sunday the largest reorganization in the history of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of New York, with 55 parishes from Staten Island to the Catskills to merge with neighboring parishes.

In 31 of those mergers, all Masses and other sacraments such as weddings and funerals will cease to be celebrated on a regular basis at one of the churches being merged. In the remaining 24 mergers, both churches will remain open for the regular celebration of Masses and other events.

Of the churches that will essentially be closed on a weekly basis for worship purposes, nine are in Manhattan, six in Westchester, six in the Bronx, four in Staten Island and six are in Rockland, Sullivan, Ulster, or Dutchess counties.

The churches that will cease to be used regularly in Manhattan include Holy Rosary, Holy Agony, and Saint Lucy’s in East Harlem, and Our Lady of Peace, Saint Elizabeth of Hungary and Saint Stephen of Hungary on the Upper East Side.

In the Bronx, churches no longer used regularly will include Visitation on Van Cortlandt Park South and Saint Ann on Bainbridge Avenue. On Staten Island, they include Assumption on Webster Avenue and Saint Mary of the Assumption on Richmond Terrace.

In Westchester, they include Most Holy Trinity and Saint Denis in Yonkers and three churches in Mount Vernon — Saint Ursula, Sacred Heart and Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

Parishioners in some affected parishes have already begun mobilizing to save their churches, and legal action and additional protests are expected before the decisions take effect in August 2015.

In its announcement on Sunday, the archdiocese did not say what will happen to church buildings that will no longer be used regularly. But Cardinal Dolan said last year that he would like to use the proceeds from the sale of unneeded church buildings to create endowments to support religious education and outreach programs.

Some churches that had been recommended for mergers by an advisory panel earlier this year were spared, at least for now, after parishioners raised objections. Among them are Holy Innocents Church in Midtown Manhattan, the only church in New York where the Latin Mass is celebrated daily, and St. John’s Church in Piermont.

“This time of transition in the history of the archdiocese will undoubtedly be difficult for people who live in parishes that will merge,” Cardinal Dolan said in a news release announcing the changes. “There will be many who are hurt and upset as they experience what will be a change in their spiritual lives, and I will be one of them.”

“It will be our responsibility to work with everyone in these parishes so as to help make the change as smooth as we possibly can,” he added.

Similar reorganizations have taken place in many Roman Catholic dioceses across the nation, as church leaders grapple with how to staff and maintain networks of churches that were designed decades ago for larger populations of churchgoing Catholics.

The Archdiocese of New York, which decades ago had 1,200 active diocesan priests, now has only 365, fewer than the number of parishes. International priests, religious order priests and deacons have been making up the gap.

Church attendance has also continued to fall. Though the archdiocese says 2.8 million Catholics live within its borders, only about 12 percent — or 346,000 — of them attended Mass on the average Sunday in 2013.

There are also financial pressures. The archdiocese is seeking to complete a $170 million-plus renovation of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, its flagship church on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. Cardinal Dolan said last year the archdiocese could no longer afford to spend $40 million a year on unneeded parishes.