LEWISTON — The head of the Catholic Church in Lewiston is recommending closing and selling two of the city’s five Catholic churches.

If Bishop Richard Malone agrees with the move, St. Joseph Church at 253 Main St. and St. Patrick Church at 22 Bates St. will close in October. The buildings and their adjacent rectories could be cleared for sale early next year.

The reason is money, Monsignor Marc Caron said Monday.

“Even after doing this, we project a $100,000 budget deficit for the fiscal year,” said Caron, who leads the Prince of Peace Parish and oversees all of Lewiston’s churches. The previous fiscal year ended on June 30 and had a deficit of about $240,000.

“It’s a tremendous loss at multiple levels,” Caron said of the likely closings. “Even if they were open, we couldn’t afford to use them.”

His decision has been coming for months. In March, the two churches were targeted for closure by a task force of local leaders. This Spring and early Summer, Caron led a series op talks looking for alternatives.

He offered a computer slide show that portrayed a parish with too few people and too little money for an aging collection of churches. In the past 10 years, the number of Catholics in the city has fallen by about one-third, from 21,000 in 1999 to about 14,000 today, he said.

“We want to know, ‘Is there something else we should do?'” Caron asked people.

No better answer was ever found. Caron shared his decision with parishioners at services on Saturday and Sunday.

“The overwhelming response was sadness,” he said. “I can’t say there is any surprise.”

Mark Labonte, who helped organize 2007’s events for St. Joseph Church’s 150th anniversary, said he was already resigned to the closure when he heard Caron.

“It’s a sad thing to see the oldest church in the city close,” Labonte said. “But the times are the times and you have to do what you have to do,” he said.

For the people who have prayed at St. Joseph’s or St. Patrick’s for decades, it will be especially tough, Labonte said.

“I find God in every church I go to,” he said. However, when his mother died this spring, Labonte was grateful that her funeral Mass was held in the church she’d attended for more than 20 years.

Such recollections will make closure tough, Caron said.

Though the city’s churches are all part of the same parish, people often identify with their churches. Some will leave.

“That’s the greatest challenge we have,” Caron said.

He is hopeful that no other Lewiston churches will be forced to close. If all goes according to plan, the parish ought to break even in the 2010-11 budget.

“We’re headed in the right direction,” he said.

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