‘St. Agnes is not sustainable’
RICHEYVILLE – Barring an unlikely change of course, St. Agnes Parish in Richeyville will close by July.
In a meeting Sunday afternoon in the parish’s social hall, officials from the Diocese of Pittsburgh said St. Agnes would be unable to pay for its day-to-day operation by the end of the fiscal year, and the parish will either be folded into a nearby parish, or divided among three parishes within the region.
The final decision will be announced in May. If St. Agnes does end up being dissolved, it would be joining a growing list of Catholic churches in the Mon Valley, and throughout the Pittsburgh region, that have had to close because of declining population, increasing debt and a shortage of priests that will likely worsen over the next couple of decades.
“There’s a bigger issue for this region that just St. Agnes,” according to John Flaherty, the secretary for parish life in the Pittsburgh diocese. But, he added, “Basically, St. Agnes is not sustainable.”
However, many parishioners who attended the two-hour meeting said St. Agnes could be kept alive, and the parish is being punished for what one described as “unintentional mismanagement” of its money.
Before about 60 parishioners, officials from the diocese painted a sobering picture of St. Agnes’ problems. It has about 65 to 80 remaining parishioners, and its number of weekend Masses has dwindled from five to one. Its priest serves other parishes in the Mon Valley, and St. Agnes incurred debt that it will likely never be able to pay off on its own, given its shrinking base of contributors.
“There’s only so much 60 people can do,” said the Rev. Edward Yuhas, the parish’s priest. “We’re a people of faith, and we need to move forward.”
Some parishioners weren’t ready to accept the likelihood that St. Agnes would be shuttered. Some suggested another parish should close because St. Agnes has the newest building and is handicapped-accessible, having been built in 2003, while others lamented the end of an institution that had bound their community together.
“I’m getting upset about it, because I think it’s all about money,” said Wilma Pagac, a Richeyville resident whose history with St. Agnes extends to the 1950s. “All my kids got married here; they got baptized here.”
Toni Hoak, another longtime parishioner, suggested the diocese try to import priests from Poland or Lithuania to try to fill its ranks.
Presuming St. Agnes will close, its parishioners will become part of either St. Oliver Plunkett in Fredericktown; Ave Maria in Bentleyville; or St. Thomas Aquinas in California, or scattered between the three of them. Those attending the meeting were given consultation forms where they could state their preferences. Some left them ripped up and unmarked when the meeting was over.
St. Agnes’ building could continue to be used within a newly configured parish or be sold to another denomination.
Last year, St. Anthony Church in Monongahela closed, a move that was opposed so passionately by some parishioners that they locked themselves inside the church for 24 hours to protest the decision. They also asked the Vatican to intercede, but the diocese’s decision to close St. Anthony’s was upheld. In 2011, St. Dominic Church in Donora was closed.
“Our funerals outnumber our baptisms,” said the Rev. Samuel Esposito, the episcopal vicar for Region III of the Pittsburgh diocese.