OBSERVER Photos by M.J. Stafford The Rev. Bob Owczarczak sits at his desk in his office at Holy Trinity Church in Dunkirk. Owczarczak heads up a new “family” of six Roman Catholic parishes in northern Chautauqua County.

The “Road to Renewal” for Catholics in Western New York leads to consolidation.

In the latest move of the Diocese of Buffalo’s streamlining effort, parishes have been grouped into 36 “families.” Each family is headed up by a pastor who oversees all the parishes within it. Associate pastors in each family are available to say Masses.

A handout at local Masses recently detailed the new setup. The six parishes of northern Chautauqua County — St. Anthony’s and St. Joseph’s in Fredonia, Blessed Mary Angela, Holy Trinity and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in Dunkirk, and Silver Creek’s Our Lady of Mount Carmel — are in one family.

The head pastor for the family is the Rev. Bob Owczarczak. Associate pastors are the Revs. Dan Fiebelkorn II, Stephen Soares and Joe Walter.

A new schedule for Masses in all six parishes was also included in the handout.

Owczarczak said during an interview at his Holy Trinity office this week that “there’s a lot to do, and I’m still kind of figuring out day by day because the program is new.” It started in early March.

“We have to try to not duplicate resources. There’s a lot to it,” he said. “The role of pastor used to be for an individual church. Now the pastor is pretty much the same thing for, in our instance, six parishes.”

The family is temporarily called “Family No. 3” but there is an effort underway to give it a better, more inspiring name.

“We don’t have as many priests, and in the next upcoming years, we don’t have enough priests to cover for the amount of churches that we have. Things are going to have to change, such as Mass times,” Owczarczak said.

“Back in the day we had 400, 500 priests… and you could have churches on every corner,” the reverend said. Nowadays, the diocese has around 120 priests and is expected to lose many of those in the next few years due to retirements.

Religious education classes will also get combined, Owczarczak said. “We’re not getting as many volunteers, and the majority of churchgoers now are in their 60s, 70s and 80s. We’re not bringing in as many young families as we did before. We’re going to try to work on that.”

Owczarczak said he is trying to get across that parishioners should think of their church not as a building, but as a community of people.

He said of the Road to Renewal, “This is looking towards the future, where we’re trending … the different life of the Catholic Church and saying, how can we make the best of it and start working toward it now before it’s too late.

“The goal is to bring more people in and continue God’s mission.”

Family 4 in the diocese is located in southern Chautauqua County and includes: St. Patrick, Randolph; Our Lady of Loretto, Falconer; St. James, Jamestown; Sacred Heart, Lakewood; Holy Apostles, Jamestown.

Family 5 includes: St. Mary of Lourdes, Mayville; Christ Our Hope, Clymer; St. Dominic, Westfield.

St. Joseph, Gowanda; St. Mary, Cattaraugus; Holy Spirit, North Collins; and Epiphany of Our Lord, North Collins have all been placed in Family 27.

The Buffalo diocese has a web site, roadtorenewal.org, dedicated to explaining the realignment.

The website subpage called “Why We Need Renewal” opens with this: “Facing severe financial challenges and also trends that are common in dioceses across the country having to do with declining church attendance and school enrollment, we are looking at best practices elsewhere to determine how to preserve Catholic life and increase the impact of ministries across the region.”

It goes on to cite the COVID-19 pandemic and then touches the sex abuse scandal that has bankrupted the diocese.

“The Chapter 11 process will go on for an extended period of time. This effort is aimed at defining the best organization for diocesan ministries and parishes for a vibrant future, acknowledging financial challenges but not being limited by them in carrying out the work of Faith.”

Further down the page is a section called “The Big Picture.” It begins, “This renewal is necessary for the diocese to regain focus on mission and overcome the negative trend of participation in sacraments, financial support and vocations. These trends are driven in part by the shameful history of abuse and its cover up, the ongoing bankruptcy and the recent impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

It then offers some statistics, including:

¯ Mass attendance is down 41% in the last eight years.

¯ Baptisms and marriages have declined more than 30%.

¯ Catholic School enrollment is down 24% over the past decade.