Nine parishes and six missions originally recommended to be closed or to be merged with other parishes will retain their current status. These include Saint Rita of Cascia parish in the Bronx, Guardian Angel parish in Manhattan, Saint Benedict the Moor mission in Manhattan and Blessed Sacrament mission in Orange County.
Complete list of Archdiocesan parish realignment decisions
Saint Paul parish in Staten Island was originally recommended for closure, and will instead merge with Assumption parish. Nativity parish in Manhattan was also recommended for closure, but will instead merge with Saint Teresa’s parish. Another parish, Saint Vincent de Paul in Manhattan, will merge with Saint Columba parish with a chapel to be established, and its ministry to French-speaking Catholics transferred to other parishes in Manhattan and Westchester.
In all, ten parishes will be closed, and eleven parishes will merge with other parishes. For those parishes that merge, the existing church building will continue to be used for Mass, or a chapel will be established. In addition, three missions will be closed and reunited with their sponsoring parishes.
Several parishes will remain under ongoing study, including Saint Mary’s parish and Saint Francis of Assisi parish, both in Newburgh, Our Lady of Esperanza parish in Manhattan, and Assumption parish in Tuckahoe.
The New York Sun reports today on the Archdioce’s Capital Campaign:
The Archdiocese of New York, which is slated to announce today a realignment plan that could include closing some parishes and opening new ones, is attempting to raise $200 million as part of its first major capital campaign in almost two decades.
Launched in honor of its bicentennial, the archdiocese’s campaign began eight months ago and has already brought in $90 million in pledges. About $60 million has been raised through parish fundraising drives, and $30 million by the archdiocese from major donors. Much of the money will go to general parish upkeep: repairing roofs, purchasing new boilers, and repainting church halls, a spokesman for the archdiocese, Joseph Zwilling, said.
Earlier this month, Edward Cardinal Egan announced that the diocese would sponsor museum exhibits, concerts, and lecture series during the 12-months leading up to its 200th birthday — April 8, 2008. "The thought was to do the fund raising first, to give us a chance to prioritize the needs in each parish, and then to go forth with the spiritual celebrations," the archdiocese’s vicar for development, Bishop Gerald Walsh, told The New York Sun.
From Boston: What to do with the altar stones?
The standards for altar relics changed in the late 1960s, says the Rev. Brian Mahoney , director of the archdiocesan Office for Worship, and in most cases, the old altar stones are no longer appropriate for new churches.
"In the past, you could use a little chip from a bone or something for a relic," Mahoney said. The current standard requires a larger piece that is an identifiable part of the body.
Such large relics are much harder to come by in modern times, says Mahoney, so church officials also lifted what had previously been a requirement that altars contain relics.
Most of the local churches that have closed were built when altar relics were mandatory. A previously used altar stone can be grandfathered in for a church that intends to preserve its old altar in a new building. But such occasions are rare.
The fate of the altar stones in the archdiocese’s archives remains unclear. Johnson-Lally says a determination will probably not be made until it’s clear that the reconfiguration program is completely finished.
If some other devotional use is not found for the relics, church guidelines mandate a formal burial in a Catholic cemetery. Either way, the change in practices effectively ends a tradition that originated in the earliest days of Christianity.
"The early, early, early Christians . . . celebrated the sacraments in the catacombs, on the tombs of the catacombs in Rome," says Heck. "That was their altar surface. The sarcophagi that held the bodies or the bones of the saints in the catacombs are where they celebrated Mass."
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