The plan, which grew out of a study entitled “Called to BE Church,” took into account the recommendations of various local planning groups from across the fourteen-county diocese. Thirty-eight panels reviewed parish resources, membership, debt, and various other parish activities and data. In June, the panels, composed of lay Catholics and priests, made suggestions to the bishop about which churches should merge or close.

One element of the problem faced by the Albany Diocese is that there are 165 Catholic churches in the diocese and there are currently only 124 active priests, and the number of priests is expected to decline in the coming years.

The plan for Columbia County parishes is as follows:

• St. Mary's in Hudson and Resurrection Church in Germantown will merge by July 1, 2009, with both churches remaining open as worship sites.

• St. John Vianney in Claverack and St. Bridget's in Copake Falls will share a priest and conduct a feasibility study on a possible merger or consolidation into one worship site. The findings of the feasibility study are to be submitted to the diocese by December 31, 2009.

• Nativity St. Mary's in Stuyvesant Falls and Holy Family in Stottville will merge by December 31, 2009, with both worship sites remaining open.

The Reverend Frank O'Connor, who serves Holy Family and Nativity St. Mary's, said that St. James Church in Chatham and St. John's Church in Valatie will begin exploring ways to consolidate or merge services. The latter study was not formally announced by Bishop Hubbard in his press release.

Columbia County Catholics may consider themselves lucky compared with other faithful in the diocese, where approximately 20 percent of the 165 churches are being shuttered. In Troy, six churches are being closed, and thirty-three are being closed throughout the diocese.

The mergers will allow parishioners to attend mass at their own worship sites, but merged churches will share a priest. A merger is likely also to mean a reduction in the number of masses, combined treasuries of the two churches, and combined church services, church groups, and the like.

Still some of the communicants of Holy Family and Nativity St. Mary's see the merger as the first step in a process that may see one or both of churches eventually closed.
 
"When Father O'Connor retires, that will be it for one of our churches," said one lifetime parishioner of Holy Family. Father O'Connor, who oversees four masses each weekend at the two churches, is in his early seventies, and there are rumors that he plans to retire soon.   

“Unless there's a miracle, it's only putting off the inevitable," said another disheartened Catholic.

Church mergers and closings are nothing new to Columbia County. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, two parish churches—Sacred Heart and Our Lady of Mount Carmel—were closed in the City of Hudson, causing legions of Catholic faithful to protest but to no avail. Some of those communicants have since broken free of the diocese, purchasing a former restaurant on Route 9 in Greenport and recruiting their own priest who does not report to the bishop.

About a decade ago In Taghkanic, a Catholic church was closed, and its faithful were asked to attend St. John Vianney in Claverack.