Catholic advocates petition New York foundation to fund pensions, church preservation

Daniel Payne, Catholic News Agency

Friday, November 21, 2025

Advocates in New York state are petitioning a Catholic foundation there to help fund major pension shortages and church preservation efforts as well as to help support victims of clergy sex abuse. In a November 13 letter to the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation in New York City, representatives of the group Save Our Buffalo Churches, sexual abuse victims, and pensioners of the former St. Clare’s Hospital asked the foundation to help the three communities with the “profound hardship” they are experiencing. Numerous parishes in Buffalo have been fighting diocesan-mandated closures and mergers over the past year. Hundreds of former workers of St. Clare’s, meanwhile, saw their pensions reduced or eliminated starting in 2018 due to major shortfalls. The hospital itself closed about a decade ago.