SS Peter and Paul Church on Cherry Street in Jamestown (Google Maps)
A group of current and former parishioners of Holy Apostles Parish at SS. Peter and Paul Church are trying to save the downtown church from being closed and sold.
In early September, the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo announced that SS. Peter and Paul Church, Our Lady of Loreto in Falconer, Our Lady of Snows in Panama, and Our Lady of Victory in Frewsburg would all be closed with the entire campuses sold.
Holy Apostles member Tony Dolce said that originally, a proposal that came out from the Diocese in June 2024 had St. John’s Church in Jamestown being closed, “And a group from St. John’s put a counter-proposal together to flip-flop that to close St. Pete’s instead. It went to a leadership team. The team sent it to Buffalo. The Diocese then made the decision to swap the two buildings, but in doing so, not only did they decide to close St. Pete’s they also made St. John’s merge, basically, with St. James Church on the other side of town.”
Dolce said that decision makes St. John’s Church a secondary site to only be used for special occasions.
He said a group of about 80 people from the Jamestown area met last week on the issue and have joined with a “Save Our Churches” group in Buffalo that is working with other Catholic churches in Western New York who are facing closure.
Dolce said the group believes the Diocese has violated canon law, which is a set of ordinances and regulations made by ecclesiastical authority for the government of a Christian organization or church and its members, “.. on how churches can be closed and under what circumstances, and/or merged. And we believe that there were some steps here that weren’t legally followed and basically at this point we’re trying to get them to A – reverse the decision or B – Slow it down or stop it for now until we have a chance to see how we can fix this.”
Dolce said some of the procedures for closing a church would include determining if the church is financially sound, has solid attendance, and if the church wishes to remain open and maintain its facility, all criteria which he says SS. Peter and Paul meets to avoid closure, “Other legal questions, and again, I’m not a lawyer so I don’t know, what happens to the assets of a church, the endowments that are left, other properties, the school buildings, cemeteries, rectories, things like that. There’s just a lot of pieces of properties and aspects of the church that need to be taken into account.”
Dolce said a letter writing campaign is underway and that a Facebook Group titled “Save Holy Apostles Parish!” and already has over 250 members is a good resource for people who want to get involved in the effort to get information.
I blame the Vatican for its disastrous mishandling (coverup) of the clergy abuse scandal. Had the Vatican come out pastorally and forcefully to condemn the abusers and comfort the victims, things might have been different. Instead their response was to move predatory priests around and otherwise cover things up, which led to the necessity of lawsuits and prosecutions against the church. The really sad thing is that we need the church to function well in an ever more dangerous world; shutting down churches (and thus depriving the good people who still believe) does a disservice to us all.