ST. LOUIS — One parish in the Archdiocese of St. Louis is asking the Vatican to stay open.
This is after St. Roch was told they'd merge with another parish through the Archdiocese's "All Things New" restructuring plan.
It will reassign 155 priests and reshape 178 Catholic parishes into 134:
- 35 parishes will be subsumed.
- 15 parishes merged to create five new parishes.
- One new personal parish for the Spanish-speaking community.
- These parishes will be overseen by nearly 90 diocesan pastors and 17 religious order pastors, many of them serving more than one parish.
The Archdiocese of St. Louis announced St. Roch would merge into Christ the King Parish in University City, which is about 10 minutes away by car.
There were four reasons listed for the closure:
- Saint Roch Parish has 295 catholic households.
- In 2013, 261 members of the faithful were present for the celebration of the Most Holy Eucharist on Sunday, but now there are 121 members of the faithful present.
- The parish operated at a financial deficit in each of the past five years, with an aggregate deficit in excess of one million dollars for those years, despite receiving grants from the Archdiocese of St. Louis.
- The parish has averaged eight infant baptisms and six funerals annually in the last five years.
"We kind of went through all the stages of grief, we went through all of it," Sean McGroarty said in reaction to the pending closure.
Grieving the grim news is parishioner Sean McGroarty, who's also the St. Roch School Board President.
The more than 100-year-old church has housed his family for years in the Skinker-DeBaliviere neighborhood.
"My wife grew up here. We got married and I joined the parish in 1999 and we've been here since," McGroarty said.
Immediately, parishioners like McGroarty appealed the decision before the June 12 deadline.
"We thought the Archbishop's decree was deficient. We put a new HVAC system in the school, we did a lot of physical improvements and somehow that was counted against us as finances," McGroarty said.
He also acknowledged a dip in attendance due to COVID-19 and their 92-year-old pastor dying recently.
After sending the appeal, Archbishop Mitchell Rozanski had 30 days to review the letters from the time he received them.
The Archbishop came back to St. Roch with an answer they didn't want.
"We received it a couple of days ago and the Archbishop decided that he would not amend or revoke his decree," he said.
Now, they're going to the most Holy: the Vatican.
"St. Roch is a pillar in this community and a very vibrant community. It's a such a rich area of diversity, it should be something the Archdiocese should be standing by," he said.
A response needs to be sent back to Archbishop Rozanski in 15 business days.
From there, his office will forward their appeal to the Vatican for a careful study and decision.
If the Vatican denies that request, the merger is planned to happen on Aug. 1.