Merging Catholic Churches…Another One Bites The Dust

Consolidations and mergers seem to be everywhere these days. I had always thought in times of such overall instability, religion would be the one steadfast anchor to fall back on. But it seems with the growing national trend of closing and merging Catholic churches, even the church will be hard to trust. St. Therese’s and Our Lady Of Solace churches are merging into All Saints Church this week - marking the latest closure under the massive reorganization of the seven-county Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse.

Most of the hard feelings and frustrations in this merger was lack of consideration of the church communities in decision-making by the Diocese, as it has strung both parishes on for quite some time. The Diocese chose St. Therese’s church as the site for All Saints Church because of its location, leaving the community around Our Lady Of Solace in disbelief.  St. Therese’s was built 82 years ago as a temporary structure and bears no comparison to the beauty and hard work put into building Our Lady of Solace.

But there was no big protest or backlash at St. Therese’s on Monday. Just a small group of dedicated parishioners mailing out registration forms and mass schedules to the core members (about 440 people total) of both parishes. Parishioners and volunteers expressed sadness more than anything else for the loss of community and church family as they knew it. 

The church hopes that merging the two parishes will help make up for declines in clergy and church members and make masses fuller to attract more parishioners from the area. But parishioners foresee numerous problems and a huge question mark of how many Our Lady of Solace parishioners will switch over.

“Some will and some won’t. Generally you lose 30-40% of the congregation in a merger…and some can’t come this far in the winter-time,” said Sister Mirabito.

Reconstruction on St. Therese’s will continue around the schedule of masses starting this Saturday for All Saints Church, until the altar is extended, the interior is painted and the installations of artifacts from Our Lady of Solace are made.

I think this experience covering the merging of these two churches was a gem of a story, deeply embedded in the emotions and personal ties of a community. I admire the resolve of the people we spoke to for their dedication to their church, its history, and their ability to rise above a devastating situation to which they are helpless in remedying.