BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Diocese of Buffalo announced a plan to 'rightsize and reshape' the non-profit organization, including consolidating dozens of parishes.
The Diocese's Road to Renewal division presented a plan to parish priests, that calls to merge 34% of the diocese's 160 parishes.
“The Diocese of Buffalo is facing multiple challenges including a significant priest shortage, declining Mass attendance, aging congregations, and ongoing financial pressures brought about by our Chapter 11 filing,” explained Bishop Michael W. Fisher. “This plan resulted from the lessons learned as we brought parishes together in the parish family model and determined rather quickly that scaling back the number of parishes would best allow us to use our limited resources to help reenergize a spiritual renewal in the diocese.”
According to a fact sheet released by the diocese who surveyed their 160 parishes: there is a 49% decline in registered households across Diocese, 60% of their parishioners are over the age of 60. Fifty nine percent of the parishes are also reporting a negative net operating balance.
“These difficult changes associated with our renewal allow limited resources to be directed to the greatest needs in our community,” Bishop Fisher added, “The work of the Holy Spirit within our diocese and the support of the Western New York community has been an incredible blessing.”
The exact number of churches that will be merged won't be known until the clergy and parish leadership review proposed recommendations. The final determinations will be made sometime between August 15 and September 1.
“To make the recommendations that will be presented to pastors, we examined parish demographics, sacramental participation, and financial support,” explained Rev. Bryan Zielenieski, Vicar for Renewal and Development, who leads the Road to Renewal effort. “We also looked at the variations of our urban, suburban, and rural parishes because factors like poverty rates, availability of transportation, proximity, and limited resources impact overall parish long-term vitality.”
The merging process will begin this fall.
