BATAVIA/Ascension Parish plans to appeal the Buffalo Diocese decision to close the church at Sumner and Swan streets

The Regular Parish Pastoral Council Meeting was opened to the public on Thursday evening, to allow parishioners to express their concerns about the announcement of the sudden closure of Ascension Parish in Batavia.

The Parish was originally not on the list for closure until an appeal was made by St. Maximilian Kolbe in East Pembroke. After Bishop Michael Fisher reviewed St. Maximilian Kolbe’s counter proposal, it was announced on September 9th that St. Maximilian Kolb would remain open. On September 10th, the Buffalo Diocese announced that Ascension Parish would now be closing instead and merging with Resurrection Parish.

The decision was made due to the distance that parishioners from East Pembroke would have to drive to attend mass, 7.2 miles, and the number of students enrolled in Faith Formation. St. Maximilian Kolb has 46 students compared to Ascension at 13.

Christina Bucciferro was baptized at Ascension Parish and was saddened when she heard about the closure while at work last week.

According to Father Scottston Brentwood, a Friar with Mercedarians Order of Mercy | Mercedarian Friars USA, currently the Buffalo Diocese has 198 worship sites and only 106 priests, whose average age is 77. He says by 2030 there will be 60-68 priests in the whole Diocese.

The newly formed Family #12 will consist of St. Padre Pio/Oakfield, Resurrection Parish/ Batavia, Our Lady of Mercy/ Le Roy, and St. Maximilian Kolbe/East Pembroke.

Ascension Parish Trustee Bill Brach says they plan to join the group Save Our Buffalo Churches, Save Our Buffalo Churches. The closing process for the church can occur between October and the end of the year.

From the group’s website:

Save Our Buffalo Churches, we are helping to share information with our diocese on all of our rights as laity and parishes under Canon law.   

Closures/Mergers are permitted for ‘grave cause’ only.  Canon Law allows for an appeal of a bishop’s decision.  

‘Grave cause’ does NOT include priest shortages, diocese financial issues, nor demographic changes which are temporary circumstances which can change.

After the meeting ended, parishioners were asked to sign a Procurator Mandate to appoint Bill Brach (in blue hat) as the Procurator to represent the church and their interests.

Brach says they already appealed the decision, but for various reasons they were denied.

“We presented the appeal that we didn’t want to merge, and that we would prefer to be linked to keep our autonomy. At that meeting when we made the proposal, the diocese came out with a new rule that nobody gets linked, you have to be merged, so I made an addendum to that, that we should be the lead parish and merge the other churches with us. Part of the issue was the financial condition of our parish is very solid. I asked for and was denied a number of times for the financials of the church they want to merge us with (Resurrection Parish). They’re talking about transparency but they’re hiding information,” says Brach.

According to Diocese numbers, income for Ascension Parish for 2022-23 was $332,015.07. Expenses were $338,346.52, running at a deficit of 2%.

Income for Resurrection Parish for 2022-23 was $451,031.33. Expenses were $503,631.18, running at a deficit of 10%

What will happen next?

“The Bishop will have to do a formal decree to close the church. In doing so, he as to notify the parish, it has to be posted in our bulletin, so all the parishioners know it, then the clock starts ticking. You have 10 days to file your appeal and that will throw the brakes on everything. Then, the Bishop has I think 30 days to respond. Depending on how that goes, you can appeal over him by going to the Vatican. If the Vatican denies it, there is one more appeal you can do.”

According to Father Scottston Brentwood, the appeals process at the Vatican is quite expensive ($10,000 for each appeal), but the parish of about 340 families say they are ready to take the issue of closure beyond the Bishop if needed.

“We’re a very solid community.”

Currently, Ascension Parish is dealing with large crowds during their one and only mass at 10:30a.m. on Sundays. The 4:00p.m. mass on Saturday was discontinued.