PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
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HAROLD BRUBAKER, BEN FINLEY, AND ERIN MCCARTHY, INQUIRER STAFF WRITERS
LAST UPDATED: Sunday, June 1, 2014
Merging one parish into another is “like someone dying or losing a child,” Father Salvatore Pronesti said during Saturday afternoon Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Bridgeport.
“A mother, actually,” he continued, referring to the namesake of the Montgomery County parish he has led for 20 years, only to see it become part of Sacred Heart Parish in Swedesburg.
Still, he hopes for the best.
“You must pull together and try to form this united parish,” Pronesti said. “It’s critical for our spiritual lives. . . . The buildings, yes, we like them. But the buildings don’t make the parish. The parish makes the buildings.”
The scene at Our Lady of Mount Carmel was repeated Saturday afternoon at 46 of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s 235 parishes.
In all, The Inquirer has learned, the church decided to close 16 parishes, merging them with 13 neighboring parishes. The status of the remaining 17 parishes will not change. This will leave the archdiocese with 219 parishes, down from 266 in 2010, when it launched a systemic push to review and downsize its facilities.
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