Archdiocese of New York Announces Parish Merger Decisions

By Melanie Grayce West
Wall Street Journal
May 08, 2015

http://www.wsj.com/articles/archdiocese-of-new-york-announces-parish-merger-decisions-1431091536

St. Thomas More, a Roman Catholic church on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, won’t be closed by the Archdiocese of New York, a decision announced on Friday that marks a reversal from an earlier proposal.

The parish is one of about 40 in Manhattan, Staten Island, Westchester County and parts of the Catskills region that received final word on their future as part of a broad reorganization that church officials say is necessary to meet the modern needs of the church.

Most of the decisions on mergers and closures were announced in November, and those affected churches have begun combining or closing. Friday’s decisions finalized secondary proposals that had been in limbo for months.

In total, the archdiocese, which represents about 2.8 million Catholics, will shrink to 296 parishes from 368. Those remaining parishes will have 331 buildings used for Mass and sacraments.

In an interview on Friday, Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the archbishop of New York, said there is sufficient time to complete all of the mergers by the Aug. 1 deadline. At that point, some parishes will stop holding Mass, he said.