Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - The Vatican has ruled in favor of keeping St. Bernadette Parish open in Orchard Park. The Buffalo Catholic Diocese had sought to merge the parish with one in Hamburg.
Mary Pruski of Save Our Buffalo Churches says the parish won its appeal on merit.
"Our parish, every month, is having baptisms and weddings and full parishioners in the pews and visitors in the pew. They saw that in the documentation that our core team was so great in putting together and after the meeting with the Pope in Rome, we were hoping that we would start hearing final decisions," said Pruski with WBEN.
That decision came Monday afternoon, where Pruski says there were "tears of happiness".
"The joy we're walking on air, because it's a new life, because the Diocese made it very difficult to try and be successful under these circumstances," she added.
Pruski is optimistic other parishes that appeal will get a similar outcome.
"We have a good number that are overdue for getting a decision as well as St. Bernadette's was," Pruski said. "We got our decree to close back in November, and we should have been closed in May, but because of the suspended decree, we've been waiting and there's many other there's about 20 other parishes in our group that are at the same point, so hopefully they're opening up their mailboxes This week and receiving the same type of good news."
Fr. Bryan Zielenieski, Vicar for the Renewal at the Buffalo Diocese, says every parish had the right to appeal.
"We knew that St. Bernadette had applied for recourse wanting to remain open as an independent parish. They have sacraments and finances, while we acknowledge that they were declining over recent years, we made a case that it was enough to merge. The Vatican did not agree with us. So there's nothing that's unexpected," said Zielenieski in an interview with WBEN.
He says the Diocese will abide by this ruling, and looks forward to St. Bernadette parish community fully incorporating into the Family of Parishes, which also includes SS. Peter and Paul Parish, Hamburg, Boston and East Eden and Nativity of Our Lord, Orchard Park.
St. Bernadette was of about 30 parishes that filed appeals to the Vatican after the Diocese announced plans to merge dozens of churches and close as many as 70 in an effort to pay back tens of millions of dollars owed in settled child sex abuse cases.