MY BUFFALO VACATION: A FAMILY COMES TOGETHER, A DIOCESE TRIES

At 6 AM Wednesday [July 31st] Margaret and I were in the air from Buffalo Airport heading back to Orlando after a week in my hometown. Aside from the chilly temperature of the plane—maybe that’s why they call it Jet Blue—I enjoyed watching the 1983 film “Local Hero” and I cried at the end as I always do. Believe it or not, we were back to our house in Apopka, Florida, in time to roll out the recycling for the Wednesday AM pickup!
 
“Going home” to the place where I grew up is a different kind of travel from sightseeing, particularly as I grow older. The younger generations of my maternal family really don’t know me well—or in some cases, at all. This was brought home at our annual family reunion last Saturday [July 27]. We Floridians rarely get to them because of the distance, and the event lasts only one day. I have lived in Florida since 1978 and before that in the seminary from high school dating to 1962, so I have always been something of the unknown senior member, the oldest sibling who went to sea, so to speak. When Margaret and I arrived at the reunion site Saturday, straight from the Wegman’s bakery [but of course], two younger generations of offspring looked up and asked each other, “Who are those old people with cakes?” The good news: they polished off all the cake after supper. I will say that lots of my family members worked hard to “heard cats” into one meaningful day, and Margaret and I are both grateful for everyone’s arduous work and the arts and crafts souvenirs we received.
 
Some years ago, Margaret and I attended the keynote presentation of the National Catholic Educators Association and heard a magnificent address from Garrison Keillor, then in his prime, on “family reunions.” It was a terrific presentation—not long after 2002 as I recall and how the Catholic Church as a family was going through its crisis of clerical child abuse. Keillor described the “liturgy” of every family reunion he ever attended in Minnesota’s Lake Wobegon, right down to the varieties of potato salad. But it was this insight of his that struck me: “Have you ever noticed that family reunions are very structured, and there is not enough time to do the one thing we need to do as families—talk!” There is never enough time!
 
There was a professional photographer who snapped a photo of the five of us siblings, whose collective ages are 76 [me], 73, 70, 66, and 61. We five got into some grim humor about which one of us would get X’d out of the picture first. The actuarial tables would say yours truly. [The actual photo is not ready yet.] I will make provisions to be sure there is lots of cake for my post-funeral bash.
 
At the very least, a family reunion can be a reconnection with the family members you do know well and with whom you have broken bread, so to speak, in the fairly recent past, where you can make mental notes of those who need a boost or who are facing new ventures in life and career, for whom a long phone call or Facetime would be an enriching encounter both ways after we get home. And I did meet new members of our family! I was lucky to have time while in Western New York to have some of those in-depth encounters: with people and, curiously, places. More specifically, parishes I have known now on the cusp of closing.
 
ON THE WATER AND IN THE HILLS:
 
I’ll start with people and places. We had a pleasant visit with relatives I hadn’t seen in years--in an intriguing setting. They retired to a home, if you can imagine this, which overlooks the Niagara River where it enters Lake Ontario. On the U.S. side their neighbors are Fort Niagara. Across the river in plain sight is the Canadian Fort George. On a bright day [as this one was] you could see across Lake Ontario to Toronto. I said: “You know, if Canada and the United States ever go to war, you folks are in a lot of trouble!” Given that we are in peace time, they introduced us to a new restaurant in tranquil Lewiston, NY, the best town to dine if you are a Niagara Falls tourist. I only regret that we never got around to talking about the Diocese of Buffalo and the parish closings. My family has had its share of upheaval. But on the other hand, why spoil a delicious meal in Niagara Country?
 
My baby brother always takes care of the old man, and we had a lovely evening in the Village of Hamburg and then on to his country home in “The Boston Hills” [the foothills of the Allegany-Appalachian Mountains begin just south of Buffalo and Hamburg]. Although he was raised Catholic with the rest of us siblings, he seems to have found a home in the Presbyterian Church and serves as an elder on several committees. It was interesting swapping notes on shared challenges to both the Presbyterian and the Roman Catholic Churches: aging congregations, reaching youth, the Covid aftermath, finances, etc. Presbyterianism dates to John Calvin and “the work ethic.” That’s a good fit for my brother, who has renovated his house from the ground up mostly with his own hands. He’s happy, I’m happy.
 
ON THIS DIOCESAN REORGANIZATION AND PARISH CLOSINGS:
 
As I noted in earlier posts over the past week at the Café Facebook sites, I wanted to visit churches in the hill country south of Buffalo to the Pennsylvania line, parishes I have attended over the years and have emotional attachment to. I am not that familiar with North Buffalo or the Niagara Falls metro areas, though the reorganizations and closings in the Buffalo diocese are intense there, too. Over several days I was able to enter five churches without difficulty along the “U.S. 219 Corridor” mostly, attend Mass at a sixth, and was locked out of just one. [The parish had a security number code to enter.] I gathered up as much information as possible from vestibules and bulletins. I didn’t have the time to visit the offices of the churches, but I had visited the Epiphany Parish staff in Langford/North Collins, N.Y. just a few years ago and they graciously talked about their parish.
 
I want to talk a bit about Epiphany and suggest you look at its website. The parish dates to 1851 as St. Martin’s Parish, which is how we knew it as kids. It is situated in the “hamlet” of Langford in the town of North Collins, N.Y. I noted in the parish’s online history that St. Martin’s Parish “was under interdict from June 23 to September 1, 1878” meaning every Catholic in the hamlet was excommunicated! There are no details; my guess is that the local farmers refused to cooperate with a foreign pastor for control of the parish resources and management. This was a quite widespread problem in the United States, even in New York City, and it has bearing on the clerical abuse issues of the present day. The control of Catholic property in the 1800’s rested with lay boards of “trustees” who were incorporated civilly. “Trusteeism,” as the system came to be called, was gradually condemned and done away with, as the Encyclopedia Britannica explains quite well, late in the 1800’s. Today, the owner of all diocesan entities—parishes, cemeteries, schools, seminaries, Catholic Charities—is the bishop or archbishop alone, corporation sole. [When “my” Florida parish built “our” church in 1987, the Bishop of Orlando signed all the construction contracts.]
 
No one, I imagine, foresaw a time when thousands upon thousands of victims of ministerial malfeasance would go to civil courts across the country seeking damages in the billions of dollars. About 25% of Catholic dioceses in the United States have sought bankruptcy as of this writing, and because of corporation sole the bishop is the officer legally responsible for the damages to the flock, which alas makes every Catholic financially responsible, theologically speaking. In Buffalo’s case, both the number of victims and the scope of administrative malfeasance were so great that even with a declaration of bankruptcy, the Buffalo Diocese as a corporation is on the hook for $100,000,000.
 
The money will come from consolidation of parishes, sales of properties, and outright assessments from the parishes that survive the cut. It is my understanding that the diocese cannot sell its cemeteries, which factored into the Buffalo Diocese’s closing proposals. St. Martin’s/Epiphany has a fine cemetery next to the church, which scored heavily in its favor, as well as a former school/social hall and a remodeled church which has not lost its historical flavor. St. Martin’s was renamed Epiphany when the parish absorbed a closing neighboring parish in 1996, and I could not help but notice the addition of a colorful Three Kings statue set in the sanctuary. [See Facebook or inked In.] If you read their bulletin/website, there is a notice that this community will carry the title: Member of Catholic Family of the Holy Rosary [of the region of southern Erie County]. I guess the Church itself will still be called Epiphany, and the statues will stay.
 
Margaret and I were both impressed with the gentle country warmth of the parish and the congenial pastor who celebrated the Mass on July 28. Even at the early [for me] 8 AM Sunday Mass, the folks “hung around” after the celebration. If I read the diocesan proposal correctly, Epiphany should survive the final cut to be announced later in August and there was no sense of angst in the congregation.
 
This cannot be said everywhere; at least 24 "clusters" are aggressively appealing their rearrangements. I have been watching my family’s parish status closely in diocesan “family” or cluster 28 [of 36] and this is the official language from the diocesan website in explaining why St. Bernadette’s in Orchard Park, my family’s parish, will soon be no more:
 
Recommendations for Family #28:
Projected number of active priests for this family by 2030 = 2
 
Based upon scoring and metrics, it is recommended that the family [28] right size and reshape this family evaluating the following recommendations:
1.  St. John the Baptist will merge with SS. Peter and Paul in Hamburg.
2.. Utilization of St. John the Baptist’s sites as secondary worship sites.
3. St. Bernadette in Orchard Park is recommended to merge with Sts. Peter and Paul in Hamburg.
4. Sale of the entire property of St. Bernadette is recommended.
 
Justification:
 
1. St. John the Baptist in Boston is a needed location for the surrounding area, especially with recommended merger and closure of the St. George West Falls parish. The practicality of utilizing the East Eden site on a weekly basis for Mass will have to be determined by the family going forward, but sale of this site is not possible with the cemetery.
2. St. Bernadette is located in an area of the Diocese that needs to be right sized and is the only parish in that family that does not have a cemetery.
3. St. Bernadette is only 5 minutes away from Sts. Peter and Paul in Hamburg and 9 minutes from Nativity of Our Lord in Orchard Park.
4. This is a strategic move to address number of priests to minister to this family.
 
My sister had sadly but correctly predicted the closing of her parish, St. Bernadette, some time ago in this process. The parish did have a school until about a decade ago when the diocese closed it as being financially unfeasible. The school closing and its metrics were hotly contested at the time. The pastor and parish leaders considered a lawsuit. And, as the above summary notes, St. Bernadette does not have a cemetery and is thus available to go on the market immediately, the only parish in Family 28 which presumably can be converted to quick cash, though the market for former churches in Western New York is a major unknown. The charisma of the parish’s location—a quiet residential and wooded setting on twenty acres—may or may not impact its sale value. It is my understanding that St. Bernadette is appealing the closing on the grounds that “metrics” do not consider the spiritual and communal health of the parish—I have attended perpetual adoration there—but I suppose many churches would claim the same thing. Regarding selling churches, see today’s New York Times, “As Hundreds of Churches Sit Empty, Some Become Malls and Restaurants” [August 4, 2024] and the attempts to sell Buffalo’s closed Seminary.
 
Commenting further on Family 28, Sunday Mass[es?] will be offered at the St. John the Baptist Parish edifice in Boston, NY, and possibly at the satellite parish of St. John’s, but there will be only two priests available for this entire enterprise of Family 28. St. John’s is about ten miles from the Hamburg site of Sts. Peter and Paul—in the summertime. Both parishes are in the precarious “Lake Erie snow belt.” The satellite parish to St. John’s has a cemetery, which complicates matters further. The merger of St. John’s and Sts. Peter and Paul appears to be a concern about overworking its priests, a fair consideration. When you get down to those kinds of numbers, all the sacramental and faith formation ministries of a parish/diocese suffer. Consider confession and ministry to the sick. The old pastor in me worries about the “faith formation structure” of closings and mergers. There is research that when parishes shut down operations—or provide Mass only—they lose 30-40% of youth involvement, period. If a parish closes, the kids just drop religious formation, CYO, even Catholic school attendance entirely.
 
The” winner” in Family 28 is Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Hamburg, another parish dating back to the 1800’s. This parish was my family’s church for decades after moving from Buffalo in 1962. My siblings went to school there; I offered my first Mass there in 1974; and my parents are buried in the parish cemetery. However, the Catholics in my family who remained in Hamburg opted later for St. Bernadette’s for its intimate family atmosphere and devotion, as well as its school. There is more than a little irony that families like mine will be steered toward Sts. Peter and Paul by the diocese. SPP has had serious issues of clerical abuse over the years and unfavorable newspaper coverage as recently as 2019. [If you missed a previous post, I told the story of my parents’ concern about an associate there who invited boys to the parish basement to make wooden crosses, and that was in the 1970’s.]
 
As I talked to my sister and brother-in-law about the practical and spiritual impact of losing their parish, I could not help but think of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s stages of grief. In truth, priests are suffering as much as their people. I’ve never seen a diocese in reorganization take the time to acknowledge or address the pain of its members, at least in public statements, beyond the immediate victims of abuse. The Diocese of Buffalo refers to its administrative crisis and reorganization as “The Road to Renewal,” but I doubt many people look at it this way. If by renewal we mean getting back to episcopal styles of management as we have done things in the past, we are just digging the hole deeper. Bishops got us here in the first place; planning the future must be less defensive and more honest. Again, there are competent studies which get little attention in the Catholic press but underscore the pain, anger, and distrust of the clergy themselves in their bishops. [See this 2022 study from Catholic University, of all places.] In one of the studies, a priest told an interviewer that “my bishop no longer looks at me like a priestly son, but as a potential corporate liability.”
 
After I got home from Buffalo, I ran into a priest of my own diocese in Florida. We worked together on diocesan projects back in the 1980’s. I came to realize that he is currently the senior pastor of a four-parish arrangement that seemed quite grueling. And I discovered this week that my own parish today, a flagship in the Orlando Diocese and larger than SPP in Hamburg, NY, will be down to two fulltime priests shortly. In our conversation we wondered why the Roman Church places greater institutional energies in preserving the practice of ordaining single men than upon access to the sacraments. I don’t have an answer, but this is possibly the kind of subject Pope Francis would have liked to address in the Synod on Synodality.
 
I would be very surprised if Buffalo came anywhere near its projections for future financial and clerical arrangements. In fact, I would bet that another “renewal” will be necessary before 2030. What I did suggest to my family was a freedom of conscience to cultivate an interior life with God, to do what they felt necessary to grow closer to Christ in deeds and prayer. The famed Trappist monk Thomas Merton himself built a little house or hermitage on the monastery grounds where he lived alone to pray, write, and correspond during the final years of his life. A unity in Jesus’ Gospel calls for all of us to make our homes a mirror of Christ’s chosen community.