Clarence, N.Y. (WBEN) - Another win has come for Western New York Catholics from The Vatican in the fight against the merger and closure of several parishes in the region.
The local group Save Our Buffalo Churches announced on Monday that Canon Recourse Appeals to the Dicastery for Clergy at The Vatican has resulted in the revoking of the merger/closure decrees for two additional parishes: Our Lady of Peace Parish in Clarence and Holy Apostles Parish in Jamestown.
They join St. Bernadette Church in Orchard Park, who received their revoked decree back in November.
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Additionally, both parishes also received an acceptance of their appeal against the large assessments levied upon their parishes, and suspends the action required by the diocese due to "grave concerns".
"We're so very excited now that we have four confirmed saves of parishes due to our Canon Law Recourse process," said Mary Pruski from Save Our Buffalo Churches with WBEN. "It means the recourse is over-and-done, the parish goes back to being standing free from anything that theDdiocese is trying to put over them. It's a huge win for that reason alone."
This announcement follows immediately after Bishop Michael Fisher sent a letter to the pastors revoking the policy instituted 18 months ago, ruling that parishioners exercising their right to file Canon Recourse may not meet within their parish grounds. The letter also acknowledged the forceful removal of parish trustees, parish/finance council and staff members who supported using Recourse severely limited the parishioner’s freedom of choice.
Leaders with Save Our Buffalo Churches says Bishop Fisher acknowledged this matter was discussed during his recent meeting with the Dicastery for Clergy.
The three major decrees from the Dicastery come as a major victory to the fight against the Buffalo Catholic Diocese's "Road to Renewal" plan.
"[The Dicastery] went through each rationale that the Diocese put forward to say that they needed to merge and close these parishes, and then put next to it the parish response, saying, 'These are the reasons why we don't meet that criteria, and this is proof of where we're financially good: Our attendance is good, it's adequate because we have enough money to keep our parish open.' And also went into some of the finagling the Diocese did with some of their financial packages," Pruski explained. "At the end of each of these decrees, it said there is no merit to having these mergers occur, so therefore we deny that there is any substantial rationale for these parishes to merge. There is no benefit to it."
Pruski says the Save Our Buffalo Churches group has about 20 more appeals to The Catican that she feels are in very good shape to hopefully receive the same good news decrees from the Decastrate.
"We have a few that had the partial wins that we spoke about a couple months ago. They said the merger probably should proceed, but no money goes to the bankruptcy court. Those parishes have moved further on to go to the Supreme Court at The Vatican. They have their Canon lawyer in Italy, but that, again, could be 3-to-6 months before their cases are heard. But The Vatican would not take the case unless it had substantial cause to be heard in front of their court," Prusku said. "We have good feelings for those people, especially since we've gotten these most recent decrees all showing the same rationale. There's no foundation, so we're hoping everybody will be able to have a win. It's possible not everybody will, but they tried with all their might, and that's what we're here to do, is help them do their best."
In addition, parishioners of Our Lady of Bistrica Parish in Lackawanna received a letter from Bishop Fisher stating that his decree to merge and close their parish has been personally revoked by him due to procedural errors.
"They are, what's called, a 'personal parish', Our Lady of Bistrica," Pruski noted. "It was established solely by the Croatian immigrants who came to Buffalo in the early 1900s, maybe 1910, and for years, they worshiped in a small building in Lackawanna. They had a Croatian priest assigned to them from Croatia, who was actually a brick builder before he entered the priesthood, so when he arrived - he's still here - helped personally build that church, brick-by-brick, and he continues to be a priest in residence, and taking care of them, keeping their traditions alive."
"You cannot merge and take a parish and say, 'You no longer exist,' because they identify with a group like the Croatians. That's where the Diocese got it wrong, because they didn't recognize that. They said, 'You're just a territorial parish boundered by South Park Avenue and whatever. Their fiscal boundaries are more-or-less dotted lined.' But it's for Croatian people to gather, and they get people from across Canada, Pennsylvania and Ohio that come to their shrine just for that purpose. So that decree had to get thrown out because the Bishop gave them an improper categorization."
Bistrica has returned to full parish operational status, and is aware that the Diocese of Buffalo may/will attempt to close them again, but Pruski says the parish will be ready for whatever challenge they may face.
"Their documentation was very good, why they should stay open, because they had a suspended decree all this time anyway. They're going to follow the same route, update their numbers because, again, they're doing much better with 2025. We hope they will be able to be a full win also," she said.
When all is said and done, Pruski is hoping the Diocese sees these decisions from The Vatican and considers looking over its Road to Renewal plans.
"If I were the Diocese, I would be terribly embarrassed that my boss, The Vatican, came back with such a harsh decision, point-by-point, saying that you have no grounds to do these to this parish," Pruski said. "The Diocese has to take a turn now and say, 'How do we fix this? How do we heal?' Because they keep saying we want to heal. I'm calling out, and people around me are calling out, saying, 'Stop the Road to Renewal. Stop demoralizing our priests. Let them stay in their parish and not have to run ragged every weekend to try and rotate masses.' It's time to put this to rest.
"Close the Road to Renewal. We'll work together on finding a program that fits better for this Diocese, but stop this irrational movement, because The Vatican says you can't use the parishes for the bankruptcy. You can't take tax money from the parishes for bankruptcy."
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