The Vatican has halted the planned closure of St. John Kanty Church by the Diocese of Buffalo, a parishioner from the church announced Monday.
St. John Kanty Church, built in 1892 and located on Broadway and Swinburne Street in Buffalo's East Side, is one of dozens of church buildings the diocese scheduled to close, merging the parish with another, as part of its Road to Renewal, an initiative launched to address issues including declining numbers of available priests, fewer men pursuing priestly vocations, declining church attendance and consequences of a clergy sex abuse scandal which resulted in the Diocese of Buffalo filing for Chapter 11 reorganization in 2020.
Parishioners petitioned the Vatican, asking that the closure of the church and sale of its assets be suspended. One of the parishioners, Matthew Zawisky, announced Monday, Sept. 29 that they've received a favorable reply.
"We are encouraged and hopeful with the response that we have received from the Prefect for the Dicastery of the Clergy, suspending the actions of the Buffalo Diocese which would extinguish our Parish and sell our church. This for a period, typically 90 days, as the Dicastery further considers our appeal," he said in a written statement.
Zawisky, later speaking to BTPM NPR, added he and a group of parishioners are remaining hopeful this will lead to a longer-term solution that saves St. John Kanty from permanent closure.
"We have to talk to our fellow parishioners who've been scattered to other churches. And then we assume we'll talk with our pastor and other administration in the diocese," said Zawisky. "We look forward to the momentum we were generating over the Easter season; it was our biggest crowds in a long time. So this is like, a phoenix rising, literally, you get this letter from the Vatican, and that's kind of the law of the land in the global Catholic Church."
St. John Kanty became a religious and cultural cornerstone for Buffalo's Polish American community since it first opened in the 1890s. It has both local and federal historic landmark recognition for that history, that Zawisky hopes continues on.
"The Polonia on the East Side was built to sort of escape poverty and oppression in Poland and to be able to exercise their faith freely on the East Side of Buffalo and to build, at the time, the largest Polish American community in the country," he said. "So we want to keep that legacy and have that intergenerational culture alive for so many young people that are looking for this sort of deep tradition and meaning in their lives and in our lives."
The Diocese of Buffalo issued the following written statement Monday morning:
"The decision of the Dicastery for the Clergy to grant an additional review of the Diocese's plans to merge St. John Kanty Church with St. Stanislaus, follows the very consultative and deliberative process that the Diocese has followed in implementing the Road to Renewal, which is aimed at bringing together those parishes that alone are unsustainable with parishes that have greater vitality and resources. Bishop Fisher will be engaging with the Dicastery to further detail the decision to merge St. John Kanty with St. Stanislaus during his upcoming visit to Rome.”
