UPDATE: St. Dennis in Royal Oak to Merge with Madison Heights, Hazel Park Churches

Update, 9:30 p.m.: Parishioners volunteering at an overnight warming center in the former St. Dennis School on Monday said they know little about plans to cluster their parish with St. Vincent Ferrer in Madison Heights. Volunteers indicated they are following local news media for updates.

St. Dennis Pastor, John Christ, was at the warming center Monday. He was unavailable for comment, saying questions should be referred to the Archdiocese of Detroit.

6:15 p.m.: By 2015, St. Dennis Catholic Church in Royal Oak will no longer exist as its current parishioners know it, and a new Catholic community consisting of parishioners from three churches will emerge.

St. Dennis will move forward as cluster partner with St. Vincent Ferrer in Madison Heights "in early 2012," according to the Archdiocese of Detroit's restructuring plans released Monday afternoon.

Detroit Catholic Archbishop Allen Vigneron released the plan, which would see at least 38 parishes merged or reduced to 18 parishes by 2016. He noted that a newly merged parish may retain two or three churches.

St. Dennis and St. Vincent Ferrer are to develop plans to merge within one year of clustering. Then that merged parish will become a cluster partner with a merged St. Mary Magdalen/St. Justin (both in Hazel Park) parish and develop a cluster plan to be submitted to the archdiocese's Regional Moderator.

Vigneron directs that the cluster plan "should be implemented when a current pastor is no longer available, if a replacement is not available to be assigned, or when any of these parishes begin to experience a net operating deficit. Plans should commence with models for initial collaboration and include contingency plans for programming, outreach and administration, for clustering/merging the parishes, and/or closing buildings and planning for the sale of property."

This may result in short-term, temporary administrators assigned or a more permanent solution, according to the plan.

For parishioners of St. Mary Catholic Church the news is more upbeat. St. Mary, once in a cluster with St. James Catholic Church in Ferndale, is considered self-sustainable will now be a stand-alone church. After ending its partnership with St. Mary, St. James  will move forward as cluster partner with Our Lady of Fatima in Oak Park.

In addition, St. Mary, Shrine of the Little Flower, and Guardian Angels Catholic Church in Clawson will submit a temporary short-term cluster plan that might be necessary in the event of an emergency vacancy of a pastorate. The three parishes will immediately identify ways to streamline collaboration so if the need emerges to implement a temporary cluster the pastors and parishes will have already developed relationships.

2:30 p.m. Monday: Parishioners in Royal Oak and other local communities are awaiting final word on the fate of their churches ahead of Archbishop Allen Vigneron's scheduled news conference at 4 p.m. today to discuss Together in Faith, the Archdiocese of Detroit’s plan to deal with financial challenges and a shortage of priests.

After a yearlong pastoral planning process, recommendations for merging some of the six-county archdiocese's 267 parishes were released in December. Those recomendations included a proposal to unite St. Dennis Catholic Church in Royal Oak with three other churches – St. Vincent Ferrer in Madison Heights, and Mary Magdalen and St. Justin in Hazel Park.

Pastors found out last week about Vigneron's decisions regarding their parishes' fates and were instructed to share the news with parishioners at weekend masses. However, many members reported there was no such announcement.

The Rev. Bob Malloy, a Capuchin priest, was filling in for the pastor at St. Dennis and was asked not to announce any plans to the congregation, he told the Detroit Free Press. But St. Vincent Ferrer parishioners were told that around 2015, the four churches would be merged into one parish, the paper reported.

Royal Oak's two other Catholic communities, Shrine of the Little Flower and St. Mary Catholic Church, were proposed to be standalone churches because each is considered sustainable and strategically located within the community.

Right now, St. Mary is part of a cluster that includes St. James Catholic Church in Ferndale. The two churches share one pastor, the Rev. Steven Wertanen, and a coordinator of Christian services, but each parish has its own business manager, office manager and music minister.

Wertanen told St. Mary parishioners Sunday that St. James would be forming a new community along with Our Lady of Fatima in Oak Park and Our Lady of La Salette in Berkley.

Pastors at Shrine, St. Dennis and St. Mary were unavailable for comment Monday.

Official announcement

Those familiar with the entire plan say it mirrors the proposed plan released in December that recommended paring 60 parishes to 21 through closings, merges and clustering of some churches, according to The Detroit News, 

“This is a hard time for the archdiocese to have to close churches for the sake of financial planning,” Shrine parishioner Jeanette Quesada said. “This is not a case of the archdiocese versus laity. It may feel like it to some laity because they will be hurt if their church closes. We have to accept the fact that change occurs, and trust the fact that Jesus is in the tabernacle of every Catholic church. Ultimately that is the reason why we attend.”

For more information

The Archdiocese of Detroit is to release a complete list of how each parish is affected on its website sometime after 4 p.m. Monday at www.aodonline.org.