NEW YORK
The Journal News
Elizabeth Ganga, eganga@lohud.com 10:01 a.m. EST November 2, 2014
The Archdiocese of New York announced Sunday that it will merge 112 parishes into 55 new parishes, with less than half of the merged parishes continuing to celebrate masses and sacraments at both churches.
Of the new parishes, 31 will only use one of the church buildings on a regular basis.
In Westchester, 12 churches will be merged and the Salesian community will keep two active churches in Port Chester at sites to be determined. In Rockland, four churches will be affected.
No parishes are merging in Putnam.
At St. Bernard Church in White Plains, which had been told it might merge but in the end was not on the list, parishioners Danuta and Don Zamora were happy and relieved as they walked into 9 a.m. Mass Sunday. They had sampled several churches before picking St. Bernard. They liked its diversity and that it seemed to be growing and thriving.
“We just moved into the area and we were just extremely hopeful that the church would stay open,” Danuta Zamora said.
Sunday’s announcement was in the works for several years. The church initiated a reorganization process called Making All Things New that involved self-evaluations by parishes and recommendations from an Archdiocesan Advisory Board.
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