JOHNSTOWN - Two-thirds of the city's Catholic parishioners are finding it hard this weekend to say goodbye to their neighborhood churches.
"It's really sad for the people who grew up in the other churches," Georgia Gay said Saturday afternoon, as she entered Mass at the newly-named Holy Trinity Church at the corner of Glebe and East Clinton Streets.
After this weekend, Holy Trinity Church, which used to be known as St. Patrick's Church, will stay open and the city's other two other longtime Catholic churches - Immaculate Conception Church on Warren Street and St. Anthony's Church on Nicholas Street - will close.
The two Roman Catholic church closures in the city are part of a larger initiative that was launched early this year by the Albany Catholic Diocese.
Albany Diocese Communications Department Director Ken Goldfarb said last week that all of Johnstown's Catholic weekend and daily Masses will be celebrated at Holy Trinity starting next weekend. He said there will be ceremonial closing ceremonies sometime in January at Immaculate Conception and St. Anthony's churches.
Goldfarb has said the diocese probably will sell the two church buildings that are closing.
Gay, who walked into Holy Trinity Saturday with her mother, Eleanor Adebahr, explained that both are longtime attendees of that church. But Gay said it will probably "take awhile" for members of the other two churches to get used to not attending services at their own churches.
Adebahr seemed to be taking the church streamlining process in stride.
"As long as they keep it here, it's okay with me," she said.
Others walking into Saturday's Mass at Holy Trinity, such as Earl Fosmire, feel the diocese is doing what it needs to do. He said he has attended all three churches in what has long been known as Holy Trinity Parish.
"You have to go along with the times," Fosmire said.
He said attendance is down at many Catholic churches and there is a lack of priests everywhere.
Rev. Kenneth Swain, parish pastor, said Saturday that there is a mix of feelings this weekend as many Catholics in the city say goodbye to their neighborhood places of worship.
"Some are doing it good and some are hurting a lot," Swain said, who equated the sense of loss to losing a family member or friend.
But he said the parish has been a triad of places to worship since 1993 when it became Holy Trinity Parish.
"Holy Trinity is just catching up with that," Swain said.
Diocese officials said the changes in parish alignment are driven by the fact most cities across the Albany Diocese have lost between 25 percent and 39 percent of their populations since 1960, with the notable exception of Saratoga Springs.
"To me, it's a big error," said St. Anthony's member John Pavlus. "Its divided the community."
Florence Izzo said she was married at Holy Trinity many years ago and just returned from Florida and had lived in Gloversville a number of years.
"I was not in favor of it," she said of the church closings. "Why not keep them open? They expand the malls and the shopping centers."
One woman, who identified herself as an Immaculate Conception member but didn't want to give her name, was shaking her head walking into Holy Trinity - her new permanent church.
"It's very sad," she said. "It's happening all over the diocese."
