We offer words of encouragement to the Pittsburgh Catholic Diocese as it takes difficult but decisive steps to secure its future in an uncertain and challenging time.

The steps are as necessary and as timely as they are difficult.

The 188 parishes that make up the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh will consolidate into 57 parishes by the end of 2023, Bishop David Zubik announced Saturday.

For Butler County, it means consolidating 20 congregations into five regional churches.

The Butler parishes of St. Peter, St. Paul and St. Michael the Archangel, which already operate as one, will now merge with St. Andrew in Center Township and St. Fidelis in Meridian. There are six church buildings involved, since the St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen Parish includes St. Stanislaus Kostka in Lyndora and St. Conrad in Meridian.

It’s easy to draw a parallel between Butler’s churches and its schools, three years ago underwent a similar downsizing. While it might seem trite and even insensitive to raise the issues, the questions will arise about unused properties, their value and tax status. There will be an additional circumstance: many of these church structures will qualify as historical buildings and deserving of preservation. Historically significant buildings usually are limited in their scope of commercial use.

It’s striking that some of the ethnic flavors that make up our community will be lost in the mergers of so many congregations. Our diversity is one of the primary reasons why there are so many Catholic churches to begin with. We recall the boyhood memories of local World War II hero Abie Abraham: “The residents came from Syria, Russia, Poland, Romania, Austria and other foreign countries, and had settled in Lyndora. Those shanties are gone now ... ”

Abraham had a knack for celebrating the diversity and complexity of humanity. His story about survival on the Bataan Death March — titled “Oh, God, Where Are You?” — quotes men as they are pushed beyond their limits, showing how they survived individually and prevailed together.

There’s something to be gained from Abraham’s example. Church was about people long before it was about buildings. Individually, believers refer to their bodies as temples of the spirit; collectively, they are the body — the temple — of the spirit of Christ.

It will be the people of the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh who will carry on the mission of the church, as people have done for two millennia.