Amid dwindling mass numbers, St. Bernard Parish to close in Peoria

PEORIA – The Catholic Diocese of Peoria plans to officially close St. Bernard Parish in the East Bluff.

The diocese recently announced a litany of changes to prepare for its future. The major changes in Peoria will include the closure of St. Bernard, which opened in 1903. It is the smallest of Peoria's Catholic parishes, with a Mass count of only 41 people, according to information the diocese gathered in May 2023.

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St. Bernard will merge into the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception, the diocese's mother church. Services will continue at St. Bernard for the next 12 months, after which parishioners will attend St. Mary's.

Rev. Louis Tylka, bishop of the Peoria diocese, said many factors went into the merging of parishes throughout its footprint, such as pre-existing relationships between multiple groups, allocation of resources and the data provided on how many people were attending them.

More: These are some of the most significant changes for priests within the Peoria diocese

The news about St. Bernard is not unexpected. In 2023, the Catholic Diocese of Peoria proposed no longer using St. Bernard as part of its reorganization plan, citing an average Mass of 71 people in 2022.

"In the case of St. Bernard's (in Peoria), we realized that the best result would be to close down the parish and the church," Tylka told the Journal Star. "In a number of cases, it meant that parishes would be combined into a single parish."

Previous reporting: Why people were concerned about the potential closing of St. Bernard

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: As parishioners shrink, historic Peoria church to close next year