The Indianapolis Catholic archbishop is announcing changes for parishes in the city and some neighboring counties.
Archbishop Joseph Tobin discussed the changes during a news conference Wednesday morning at Saints Peter and Paul Cathedral.
Three Indianapolis parishes will close on November 30, 2014 as they merge with other parishes. They include Holy Trinity Parish (Holmes and St. Clair); Holy Cross Parish (125 N. Oriental St.); and St. Bernadette Parish (4838 Fletcher Ave.)
Holy Trinity will merge into St. Anthony Parish at 337 N. Warman; Holy Cross will merge into St. Philip Neri Parish (550 N. Rural) and St. Bernadette will merge into Our Lady of Lourdes Parish at 5333 E. Washington St.
The mergers will affect about 1,000 parishioners.
Four parishes will share pastors: Good Shepherd and Holy Name of Jesus (Beech Grove) and St. Rita Parish and Holy Angeles Parish.
"I realize that I'm disrupting in a serious way an already existing community. So I better have the reasons to do that. I think the reasons are not simply saving cost or the other questions about the management of resources. It's trying to position our Catholic Church in a way that will be able to respond to the world as it is now and as it is going forward," said Archbishop Joseph Tobin.
In addition to the three parishes closing and the four merging, there are another 13 partnerships that were announced that will including groups of churches that will share resources and clergy.
The archdiocese says the changes come after discussions among 47 parishes in Indianapolis and neighboring Hancock, Hendricks, Johnson and Morgan counties.
Similar archdiocese announcements in the past few years have led to the closing or consolidations of numerous parishes in southeastern Indiana and the Terre Haute area, in part because of the declining number of priests.
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