A Catholic church in Lyndonville heavily damaged in a February fire will not be rebuilt, Buffalo Diocese officials announced Monday.
St. Joseph Church, which is more than 100 years old, will be demolished after diocese officials, parish leaders and the church pastor determined that the building was getting too little use and could no longer be maintained.
“Over the course of the past few months, it became apparent that St. Joseph’s worship site could not be sustained long-term, and thus we could not responsibly take the step of rebuilding it following the fire,” the Rev. Mark Noonan, pastor, said in a letter to parishioners at Masses last weekend in eastern Niagara and Orleans counties.
A Feb. 28 fire that started inside a wall in a classroom attached to the Lake Avenue church building caused extensive smoke and water damage to the white clapboard structure.
No Masses have been held inside the sanctuary since the blaze.
The parish was known since 2009 as Our Lady of the Lake, following a diocese restructuring that allowed for worship sites at St. Joseph Church and St. Patrick Church in Barker. More recently, it became part of a new “family of parishes” that includes worship sites in Holley, Kendall, Albion, Medina, and Middleport.
A spokesman for the diocese said in a news release that memorials honoring St. Joseph Church will be made for St. Patrick Church in Barker, a 15-minute drive from Lyndonville, and for St. Mary Church in Medina, which is about 10 minutes away from the St. Joseph site.
Prior to the fire, the St. Joseph Church worship site offered Masses at 5:30 p.m. on Saturdays and 10:45 a.m. Sundays.
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply