Parishes ask Vatican for mediation over closings

BOSTON (AP) — Worshippers in eight dioceses around the country have banded together in a last-ditch effort to ask the Vatican to instruct bishops to negotiate with them over the closures of their parishes and to stop them from “wrecking the Catholic Church in America.”
Peter Borre, co-chairman of the Boston-based Council of Parishes, formed in 2004 to oppose parish closings, was in Rome on Monday to hand-deliver a letter asking that the Vatican tell bishops to promptly enter into mediation with 31 parishioner groups in Allentown, Pa.; Boston; Buffalo, N.Y.; Cleveland; New Orleans; New York City; Scranton, Pa.; and Springfield, Mass.
The letter says more than 1,000 American churches have been closed recently or are scheduled to close soon. It doesn’t say how many are unaffected.
Borre said he planned to deliver the letter to the Vatican on Tuesday.
“We are stating on behalf of 31 parishioner groups and eight dioceses that the Vatican should step in and prevent bishops from basically wrecking the Catholic Church in America by shutting down viable parishes,” he said.
Bishops nationwide have had the difficult task in recent years of merging and closing parishes and parochial schools as Catholics moved out of cities and into the suburbs. Also contributing to the consolidation has been a shortage of priests, rising costs to maintain old churches and a drop in Mass attendance.
Borre called the effort “a last resort” to get bishops to reconsider decisions to close parishes.
In the Archdiocese of Boston, the fourth-largest archdiocese in the United States, five churches have prevented closures by staging all-day vigils. The archdiocese, spread across 144 communities in eastern Massachusetts, is the spiritual home for more than 1.8 million Catholics.
A Vatican spokesman declined to comment Monday. An Archdiocese of Boston spokesman, Terry Donilan, did not comment directly on the letter but said in a brief statement that the archdiocese was waiting to hear back from the Vatican on a “small number of remaining appeals” from closed churches.
Maryanne Schultz-Barrick, a parishioner of St. George’s Roman Catholic Church in Niagara Falls, N.Y., which was closed by the Diocese of Buffalo, said she was “prayerfully hopeful” about the outcome of the parishes’ Vatican request.
“I think the letter is strong in its arguments in order to get the Vatican to acknowledge all the unnecessary closings that are driving people away from the Church rather than to the Church,” said Schultz-Barrick, who served as the church’s liaison with Borre for the Vatican appeal.
A New Orleans parishioners’ group, NO Church Closings, fought unsuccessfully to save five parishes that closed in 2008. A spokesman, Alden Hagardorn, said he hopes the mediation letter will persuade the bishops to sit down and talk with parishioners about reopening some of the parishes on a smaller scale so they each can have at least one weekly Mass.
“My hope is that the Catholic hierarchy in Rome will realize the harm they are doing to Catholics throughout the country and they will mediate with us,” he said, “to allow us to keep our doors open, even on a limited basis.”
Cleveland Bishop Richard Lennon said last month the diocese there would close 29 parishes and require another 41 to merge to create 18 new churches. There are 224 parishes operating in the diocese, meaning more than 30 percent of the diocese’s total would be disrupted or worse, the letter said.