Communication, consultation, precede merger of four parishes

Cheri Perkins Mantz reports in our Catholic Herald on the new Blessed Savior Church to be formed from the merger of Corpus Christi, Mary, Queen of Martyrs, Our Lady of Sorrows, and St. Philip Neri Churches. (Mary, Queen of Martyrs Church in turn was formed by the 2001 merger of St. Stephen Martyr and Mother of Perpetual Help Churches.) Transitional council spokesperson, Chip Swearngan, was interviewed.

“We believe the budget for the new parish would allow us to support two priests and we believe with the volume of ministry service we need to provide and the size of our school population with four campuses, that we could certainly justify two priests.”

Swearngan estimated that Blessed Savior will have 3,000 parishioners.

The print edition of the same issue of our Catholic Herald lists the appointments of priests and shows only Fr. Gregory Chycinski appointed to the merged parish (as pastor) so far. (I wondered about them being assigned two priests when St. Al's has only two for three times as many parishioners.)

Swearngan said that, for the most part, the reactions of parishioners have been positive. That might be attributed to more than five years of discussion that has been integral to the process.

So one year after Mary, Queen of Martyrs Church was formed in a merger, it was again involved in talks about another merger? It's probably hard to get attached to your parish when you know it might not outlive your goldfish.