August 27, 2008

FOUR PARISH MERGERS BECOME OFFICIAL

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of the Diocese of Brooklyn has announced the formal mergers of eight parishes into four, effective Sept. 1. Three of the mergers are in Queens and one in Brooklyn.

                  In separate canonical decrees, the Bishop stated the following:

              ---In St. Albans, St. Pascal Baylon and St. Catherine of Sienna will become one parish with a new name: Our Lady of Light parish. The main office will be at the former St. Pascal Baylon parish at 112-43 198th St.

              ---St. Mary Star of the Sea in Far Rockaway and St. Gertrude’s in Edgemere will become St. Mary Star of the Sea-St. Gertrude parish, with the parish office at St. Mary Star of the Sea, 1920 New Haven Ave.

              ---St. Camillus in Rockaway Beach and St. Virgilius in Broad Channel will become St. Camillus-St. Virgilius parish. The main office will be located at St. Camillus, 99-15 Rockaway Beach Blvd.

              ---In Bedford-Stuyvesant, Our Lady of the Presentation and Our Lady of Loreto will become Our Lady of the Presentation-Our Lady of Loreto parish. The parish office will be at Our Lady of the Presentation, 1677 St. Marks Ave.

The two churches involved in each merger will continue to serve as worship sites, according to the decrees. Mass will be celebrated at each church on weekends. The main offices will maintain the parochial registers for the merged parishes.

Bishop DiMarzio said the reasons for the parish reconfigurations included “changes in the spiritual practices among the faithful, a decrease in available clergy and men and women in consecrated life and changes in the general population within our Diocese.”

A consultation process preceded the decision to enact the mergers. Among those consulted were the Presbyteral Council, the territorial Episcopal Vicars, clergy, pastoral ministers “and other members of the faithful of the parishes involved,” he said.

The Sept. 1 mergers comprise the fourth set of parish configurations announced by Bishop DiMarzio since Jan. 1, 2007. Since that date, 37 parishes have merged into 18, including the current group.

In the decrees, the Bishop states that he has “directed the development of a comprehensive pastoral plan, which is to include the whole of the Diocese.”

The number of parishes in the Diocese now stands at 198.

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8/27/08