The NY Archdiocese has been doing a restructuring thing for a while – gosh, when we were in NYC in the fall of 2003, we went to Mass at St. Peter’s parish near Wall Street, and they had announcements about this in their bulletin.

Anyway, where it stands:

Meanwhile, parishioners at St. Mary, a formerly Slovak parish in Haverstraw, N.Y., which has dwindled to fewer than 200 people on Sundays, are waiting as well. The prospect of closing has put life on hold at the parish, said Msgr. Robert J. McCabe, the church’s pastor. Parish leaders had been considering installing an elevator to help elderly parishioners avoid the long climb up dozens of steps to the sanctuary for Mass but decided not to because the church’s future is unknown. Eileen Larkin is a fourth-grade teacher at a struggling Catholic school in Westchester County that she asked not be identified so as not to alarm parents who are registering their children for the coming school year. The school’s population has dropped below 200, causing many teachers to fret about their future, although they try not to show it to parents and children.

"I’m hoping that the reason they’ve delayed it is they’re deciding not to do it," she said. "If they really want to do this, why would they wait so long?"

And, not surprisingly, New Orleans reorganizes:

Before the hurricane last August, the archdiocese was home to an estimated 491,000 Catholics in 142 parishes. But six months after the storm, 35 parishes have no worship life whatever, the archdiocese said.

Officials said the reconfiguration represents their best attempt to ration scarce insurance money and concentrate rebuilding around centers of vitality. The storm affected nearly a third of the church’s 1,200 buildings across the eight Louisiana parishes that comprise the archdiocese.

For instance, in St. Bernard, the plan consolidates what were once eight church parishes into one. Plaquemines Parish will have two working Catholic parishes, one in Belle Chasse and another in Point a la Hache, where there were once five. In New Orleans, 24 damaged church parishes will be consolidated into 11.

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