Parish preservation group says it will appeal to Vatican over Buffalo bishop’s ‘harmful’ leadership

An outspoken parish preservation group in the Diocese of Buffalo, New York, says it is appealing to the Holy See over what it claims is Bishop Michael Fisher’s “ineffective and harmful” leadership there.

Save Our Buffalo Churches said in a Feb. 26 press statement that it would pursue a “papal petition” against Fisher and his “executive team” over alleged “canonical violations.”

“Bishop Fisher’s ministry has become increasingly ineffective and harmful,” the group claimed in its statement. “He has lost his good reputation among Catholics, and his actions have harmed the reputation of the Catholic Church to both Catholics and non-Catholics.”

The dispute “has reached the point of necessity for intervention by the Holy See,” the statement said.

The group said it was “principally” requesting that the Vatican investigate the diocese’s management of its sexual abuse settlement — including alleged “misrepresentation of information to the Vatican Dicastery for Clergy” — as well as what the group claimed was “malevolence toward the spiritual health of our clergy and all Catholics in western New York.”

In a Feb. 26 statement, the diocese said it “categorically rejects” the allegations the group has made regarding “mismanagement” and “misrepresentation.”

“Bishop Fisher and his leadership team continue to work constructively with the Dicastery for the Clergy to provide all relevant information and detail as required to address questions about individual parish mergers and closures, and to also address the objections of individual parishes that have appealed specific decrees, as is their right,” the statement said.

Ongoing dispute over closures, diocesan policy

The charges appear to be at least partly in reference to the Buffalo group’s long-running criticism of Fisher and the diocese over both parish closures and church property management, a dispute that has played out both at the Vatican and in the New York Supreme Court.

The state high court in July 2025 briefly ruled in favor of a group of Buffalo parishes that had protested the diocese’s requirements that they pay into an abuse fund amid a larger dispute about potential parish closures.

The parishes had objected to the diocese’s requirement that they pay huge portions of cash into the diocese’s $150 million clergy abuse settlement even as they waited for the Vatican to hear their appeal concerning the diocesan merger plan.

The state Supreme Court ultimately tossed the lawsuit, citing a “long-recognized and sensible prohibition against court involvement in the governance and administration of a hierarchal church.”

Fisher had also drawn criticism for his 2024 decision to ban parishioners from using church facilities while working against diocesan-mandated parish mergers and closures. Fisher reversed that decision in November 2025 after meeting with Vatican officials about the dispute.

In December 2025, meanwhile, the Vatican ordered that several parishes in the Buffalo Diocese could remain open amid the diocesan merger plan after advocates petitioned the Holy See over the orders.

In its Feb. 26 statement, the diocese said it “fully complies with all judgments rendered by the Dicastery for the Clergy and has not appealed any revocation of merger or closure decrees issued by the dicastery.”