The St. Mary's Parish community is reacting strongly to the Prince George Dioceses' decision to shut down the church.

By Tommy Osborne

St. Mary's Parish

“Shock, sadness, anger” regarding Dioceses’ decision to shut down St. Mary’s Parish

Jan 27, 2026 | 1:09 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Following the Prince George Dioceses’ decision to close St. Mary’s Parish on July 27, 2026, the church community is reacting strongly to the possibility of losing a space that has been well loved by many for 66 years.

“(We’re feeling) shock, sadness, anger, and really disbelief how they could make a decision with the Parish. It’s a special place. We are vibrant, we are diverse, we are growing, we are financially stable, that is not a parish that should be closing,” said the Parish’s Pastoral Council Chairperson Ron Polillo.

Polillo says St. Mary’s is an incredibly important space for many in the community, noting it holds a special place in his heart, alongside hundreds of others, so the loss of the Parish is about a lot more than just the building itself.

“I’ve been going to this church for nearly 15 years. The last seven years I’ve served as the pastoral chairperson. I was the school council chairperson (for St. Mary’s School) for seven years. Both my girls went to Saint Mary’s School here for eight years. And that’s just my story. There’s hundreds, thousands of those stories in this community and the connection to this Parish and this church,” Polillo said.

The Dioceses says St. Mary’s is closing due to its proximity with Sacred Heart Cathedral, so St. Mary’s parishioners could go to the other nearby church. However, Polillo believes the loss of St. Mary’s will mean the loss of many mass-attendees.

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“Unfortunately, what I think is going to happen is this will mean a significant amount of people will stop going to mass and be practicing Catholics. If they (the Dioceses) thought that this was going to enhance the other two parishes, I don’t think that’s going to happen. What is going to happen, unfortunately, a lot of people will just stop going to mass and will stop becoming practicing Catholics,” Polillo says.

Polillo believes the Dioceses’ reasoning to close the Parish “just doesn’t make sense,” so he is calling on the local community to contact the Dioceses to speak out against the decision, noting he has already done so.

“Write a letter to the Diocese and ask them to appeal the decision and revoke the decree. And hopefully we can come to a decision in that matter,” he said.

Polillo adds due to canon law, you need to contact the Dioceses within the next ten days, and should the decision not be reversed, he adds he is considering a possible next step of going straight to the Vatican itself.

“There is precedent. You go back to 2022 in Saint Louis, there was a parish that took it right to the Vatican, and they got a decree overturned and the parish remained open. So that’s what we’re hoping for,” he said.

“It’s not something that we thought we had to do, but the entire parish is going to band together to do everything we can to overturn this decision,” he added.

Even though the Parish is set to close, the Dioceses says the school will remain open.