As St. Pius X in Towson prepares for its final Christmas Mass in the stone beacon just over the Baltimore County line, parishioners say they will remember the First Holy Communions, the weddings, and the funerals.

But to residents along the York Road corridor, the church was about much more than worship.

The basement’s sprawling ballroom hosted Irish dancing leagues, community meetings, pancake breakfasts with Santa, and Bible studies. The school next door educated thousands of children — many not Catholic, some not even Christian — who appreciated the kindly nuns and, later, the Montessori philosophy.

The fields gave Towson’s public school girls a chance to play lacrosse. The Giving Garden fed hungry Baltimoreans; the annual Christmas tree sale provided firs inside the Beltway. And who could forget the yearly carnival, with its Tilt-a-Whirls and the obligatory goldfish-in-a-plastic-bag souvenir?

“I’m attached to the community. Not the building,” said Elias Gouel, a retired pediatrician who has been an active member for decades. “That part — the community — is what we are all going to miss.”

Unless the parish prevails in an appeal to the Vatican, the church at 6482 York Road will close its doors this month, part of a church merger plan that has seen about three-dozen parishes folded into other ones this year. Most of these churches celebrated their final regular Masses in recent months, but St. Pius was allowed to stay open through the end of December. A week later, St. Mary of the Assumption, also on York Road, celebrates its last regular Mass on Jan. 5.

The Archdiocese of Baltimore’s Seek the City initiative aims to re-imagine Catholic life as the city’s population shrinks and church buildings sit underused; it comes after a bankruptcy declaration fueled in large part by settlements in a sprawling sex-abuse scandal.

St. Pius is set to merge with Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, a larger space about two miles away on North Charles Street. Many faithful say they won’t go there; they say Masses are too formal and the surroundings are cold.

Howard Weinert, 78, who was born Jewish and converted this year after being married to a Catholic woman for 50 years, is among those searching for a new church because of what he considers the Cathedral’s imposing altar. “I didn’t become a Catholic just to have to worship with binoculars.”

St. Pius, in contrast, is an everybody-knows-your-name place in walking distance for many members. They wear what’s comfortable and hug and kiss hello.

Every church that has closed or is facing a merger has meaning to those who worshipped there, and has something distinctive. For St. Pius, it’s the neighborhood – Rodgers Forge’s brick rowhouses, Stoneleigh’s stately Tudors, and Anneslie’s neat bungalows, as well as apartments across the city line.

“It was a little bit of Mayberry,” said Kristy Knuppel, who grew up going to the church and taught Sunday school there. “The community kind of kept the good feeling, and the love. So to lose it now? It’s gut-wrenching.”

Early Days

Founded in 1958 in part as a home for Catholics leaving Baltimore, St. Pius X was, from its early days, focused on social justice. Young families packed the pews for services and volunteered for food drives. The parish earned extra money renting out its basement for Irish dances, called céilis, part of a circuit known as the Emerald Isle Club.

Patti Nicholls, a registered nurse, met her husband at one. A member of St. Pius as a child, she said the ballroom became a destination for her musical family. Her daughter, Clare, took up the fiddle.

“We didn’t go to the dances at St. Pius because we were church members. They weren’t Catholic dances,” she said. “It was just this great, multi-generation thing. Grannies would dance with their teens. Young children could run around with other kids and be somewhat contained.”

Girl Scouts began meeting at the church. Parish volunteers opened the doors to watch children for a “Mom’s Night Out.” The annual Christmas tree sale brought in $100,000 by the time it ended. Neighborhood parents, including state Del. Cathi Forbes, began using the church events to mark time — first, your kids are big enough to go on rides; then, they can go with their friends; and then they can supervise younger siblings.

By 2009, St. Pius was flush enough to unveil a $1.8 million renovation. The parish raised a total of $2.3 million for the project, according to the archdiocese.

Beginning of the End

Ask the faithful of St. Pius when fortunes changed, and many point to the loss of a full-time pastor a decade ago, and with it a few Mass times. The parish began sharing a pastor, Father “Jojo” Jose Opalda, with St. Mary’s in Govans, and dropped its 4 p.m. Saturday Masses.

“People who were used to going to that Mass didn’t necessarily want to come at a new time,” said Margie Brassil, a longtime St. Pius parishioner who is overseeing the church’s legal appeal to stay open. “And then, the 5 p.m. Sunday Mass stopped, and we lost another 200 people.”

As the church went from eight Masses to two, the number of worshippers dwindled to about 200 for the 10:30 a.m. Sunday Mass, with a smaller number called the “St. Pius Peeps” turning out at 8:30 a.m. Meanwhile, Opalda took on additional duties, as a judicial vicar in the downtown-based marriage tribunal.

Archdiocese spokesman Christian Kendzierski said it’s not unusual for priests to split their time among churches and that the reduced Mass schedule was likely tied to falling attendance.

The COVID-19 pandemic created other challenges. Organized religion has also dropped off for all faiths. According to a Villanova University study, donations to Catholic churches dropped by more than 25% during the pandemic.

About 22% of Americans identify as Catholic, according to Gallup, but 37% of Catholics told Gallup in 2019 that “recent news about sexual abuse of young people by priests” had them personally questioning whether to remain in the faith.

Some Catholics with children who identify as LGBTQ+ no longer feel comfortable in a religion that considers same-sex relations to be a sin, while some female members have chafed at the church’s opposition to abortion and women becoming priests.

“They are resistant to the modern world,” said Nicholls, who left the church as an adult. “You have men in Rome telling people what to do. And they don’t know the first thing about it.”

The archdiocese also also changed the curriculum at St. Pius X’s school to the Montessori method, which attracted families who were not Catholic and thus did not join the church. The school closed in 2021. Baltimore County has been interested in purchasing the school and the adjacent land for use as a recreation center and ballfields. The property was appraised at $2.5 million, but Councilman Mike Ertel told a group of neighbors the archdiocese had asked for twice as much.

A reprieve from Rome?

The decision to close St. Pius surprised parishioners, as the church sat in a thriving neighborhood. St. Pius appealed the archbishop’s decision. When the archdiocese denied the appeal, the church asked longtime parishioner Brassil to lead efforts to appeal to the Vatican in Rome. St. Pius hired an attorney who has had some success with reversing decisions in other cities.

Kendzierski referred questions about the closing to a decree issued by Archbishop William Lori.

Meanwhile, every step feels closer to goodbye.

Master gardener Elizabeth Wagner led the move of the Giving Garden to new ground at Immaculate Heart of Mary, where Pius’ beloved deacon, Patrick Woods, will be serving. Church leaders canceled the tree sale. Choir leader Kevin Cronin found a home for his singers at St. Francis Xavier in Hunt Valley. Longtime parishioners will celebrate Mass at their senior centers.

On a recent Sunday, as Father Jojo preached, “Jerusalem, take off your robe of mourning and misery,” parishioners held back tears. They faced the black-eyed Susans that an artist placed in a sculpture of Mary, and the Calvert crests she painted on Joseph’s robe that bookend the altar. A church that faces Rome, with touches of home. And the choir sang, “How Lovely Is Your Dwelling Place.” There would be a few more Masses until goodbye.