UPDATE: La Salette in Berkley to Merge with Ferndale, Oak Park Churches

Update, 5:50 p.m.: Our Lady of La Salette in Berkley will partner with a merged parish made up of St. James Catholic Church of Ferndale and Our Lady of Fatima in Oak Park, though the timing is uncertain.

St. James Catholic Church of Ferndale will end its current partnership with St. Mary in Royal Oak and move forward as cluster partner with Our Lady of Fatima  "in early 2012," according to the Archdiocese of Detroit's restructuring plans released Monday afternoon.

Detroit Catholic Archbishop Allen Vigneron released the plan, which would see at least 38 parishes merged or reduced to 18 parishes by 2016. He noted that a newly merged parish may retain two, or three churches.

St. James and Our Lady of Fatima are to develop plans to merge within one year of clustering. Then that merged parish will become a cluster partner with La Salette and develop a cluster plan to be submitted to the archdiocese's Reginal Moderator.

Vigneron directs that the cluster plan "should be implemented when a current pastor is no longer available, if a replacement is not available to be assigned, or when any of these parishes begin to experience a net operating deficit. Plans should commence with models for initial collaboration and include contingency plans for programming, outreach and administration, for clustering/merging the parishes, and/or closing buildings and planning for the sale of property."

This may result in short-term, temporary administrators assigned or a more permanent solution, according to the plan.

2:52 p.m. Monday:  Parishioners in Berkley, Huntington Woods and other local communities are awaiting final word on the fate of their churches ahead of Archbishop Allen Vigneron's scheduled news conference at 4 p.m. today to discuss Together in Faith, the Archdiocese of Detroit’s plan to deal with financial challenges and a shortage of priests.

After a yearlong pastoral planning process, recommendations for merging some of the six-county archdiocese's 267 parishes were released in December. Those recommendations included a proposal to unite Our Lady of La Salette in Berkley with St. James in Ferndale and Our Lady of Fatima in Oak Park.

Pastors found out last week about Vigneron's decisions regarding their parishes' fates and were instructed to share the news with parishioners at weekend masses.

La Salette's pastor was not available for comment Monday, but Deacon Dan Darga said some information was shared with the congregation over the weekend.

At Our Lady of Fatima over the weekend, the Rev. Paul Chateau explained how his parish is to merge with St. James by mid-2013, then merge with Our Lady of La Salette, according to the Detroit Free Press.

"I don't know how exactly this is going to play out. They didn't give me a script," Chateau told about 170 parishioners at Saturday mass, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Officials at La Salette were not available for comment early Monday afternoon.

Right now, St. James is part of a cluster that includes St. Mary Catholic Church in Royal Oak. The churches share a pastor, the Rev. Steven Wertanen, and a coordinator of Christian services, but each parish has its own business manager, office manager and music minister.

Wertanen told St. Mary parishioners Sunday that St. James would be forming a new community with Our Lady of Fatima and La Salette.

Official announcement

Those familiar with the entire plan say it mirrors the proposed plan released in December that recommended paring 60 parishes to 21 through closings, merges and clustering of some churches, according to The Detroit News,

“This is a hard time for the archdiocese to have to close churches for the sake of financial planning,” said Jeanette Quesada, a parishioner at Shrine of the Little Flower in Royal Oak. “This is not a case of the archdiocese versus laity. It may feel like it to some laity because they will be hurt if their church closes. We have to accept the fact that change occurs, and trust the fact that Jesus is in the tabernacle of every Catholic church. Ultimately that is the reason why we attend.”

For more information

The Archdiocese of Detroit is to release a complete list of how each parish is affected on its website sometime after 4 p.m. Monday at www.aodonline.org.