Diocese of Buffalo announces plans to consolidate some parishes as part of ‘redesign plan’

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Diocese of Buffalo announced a plan to “right-size and reshape” the nonprofit organization, including consolidating dozens of parishes.

The diocese’s Road to Renewal division presented priests with a plan which provides for the merger of 34% of the diocese’s 160 parishes.

“The Diocese of Buffalo faces multiple challenges, including a significant shortage of priests, declining Mass attendance, aging congregations and continued financial pressures caused by our Chapter 11 filing,” explained Bishop Michael W. Fisher. “This plan is the result of lessons learned when we brought parishes together in the parish family model and determined fairly quickly that reducing the number of parishes would best allow us to use our limited resources to help reinvigorate a spiritual renewal in the diocese.

“These difficult changes associated with our renewal allow us to direct limited resources toward the greatest needs of our community,” added Bishop Fisher. “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 will not be known until clergy and parish leaders review the proposed recommendations. Final decisions will be made between August 15 and September 1.

“To formulate the recommendations that will be presented to pastors, we looked at parish demographics, participation in the sacraments and financial support,” explained the Rev. Bryan Zielenieski, Vicar for Renewal and Development, who leads the effort on the Road to renewal. “We also looked at variations in our urban, suburban and rural parishes, as factors such as poverty rates, transportation availability, proximity and limited resources impact the overall long-term vitality of the parish .

The merger process will begin this fall.