Pittsburgh area Catholic parish to close nearly all of its church buildings

St. Maurice Church in Forest Hills will be the only remaining St. Joseph of the Worker Parish if the Bishop says it’s OK. The other seven Catholic churches are slated to close their doors due to significant financial constraints.

“It seems like one church after the other that I belong to is being closed, and then I have to find a new one,” said Joe Pricener of Monroeville.

For Catholics like Pricener, finding a church to permanently call home has been difficult lately.

“As soon as I get comfortable in the new one, they close it and you go to another one,” Pricener said.

Talk about closing St. Joseph the Worker Parish facilities started last October. Now, St. John Fisher Church in Churchill is set to close along with Sacred Heart, Saint Anselm, Madonna Del Castello, Good Shepherd, St. Jude the Apostle and St. Colman.

Sister Sandy Pelusi belongs to St. John Fisher Church. She said, “It’s hard to lose. I’ve lost my parish from when I was a child. We’ve lost a lot of things in our lives, but God is with us, and we have to move on.”

Thursday, parishioners found out that St. Joseph the Worker Parish would recommend to Bishop Mark Eckman to close seven of its eight church buildings, leaving only St. Maurice in Forest Hills.

In a statement, St. Joseph the Worker Parish said, “We know this is a difficult moment for many parishioners, and each church will be honored with opportunities for remembrance and a final closing Mass.”

Pricener said, “A lot of reasons for it, but they definitely are in trouble as far as I’m concerned. They’re losing the young people, and it’s just us seniors that continue to go to church.”

The bishop is expected to make his decision in December. The closures would not begin until January of 2026.

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