{"id":292063,"date":"2026-04-29T21:51:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-29T21:51:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/292063\/"},"modified":"2026-04-29T21:51:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T21:51:16","slug":"diocese-of-oakland-announces-closure-of-13-east-bay-churches-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/292063\/","title":{"rendered":"Diocese of Oakland announces closure of 13 East Bay churches"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"KGO\"<\/a>Wed, April 29, 2026 at 8:01 PM UTC\"\"<\/p>\n

The Diocese of Oakland is closing 13 churches as it faces a financial crisis compounded by declining attendance and sexual assault settlements.<\/p>\n

Bishop Michael Barber says the closures include seven churches in Oakland, including Our Lady of Lourdes, Saint Augustine and Saint Patrick.<\/p>\n

There are also closures in Fremont, Alameda, Crockett, Walnut Creek and Castro Valley.<\/p>\n

MORE: Jury awards $16M to survivor in 1970s Oakland Diocese priest abuse case<\/a><\/p>\n

Bishop Michael Barber says the Diocese is seeing a trend of declining Mass attendance, Sacrament participation, and Catholic school enrollment.<\/p>\n

He says they are also at an all-time low of priests assigned to 80 parishes and the average age of priests continues to climb.<\/p>\n

MORE: Diocese of Oakland files for bankruptcy after over 330 child sexual abuse lawsuits<\/a><\/p>\n

Bishop Barber says all affected parishioners will be welcomed at a nearby parish.<\/p>\n

The Diocese is currently working to receive bankruptcy court approval of its proposed plan for reorganization.<\/p>\n

Here’s the full list of closures:<\/p>\n

Mary Help of Christians, Oakland<\/p>\n

Our Lady of Lourdes, Oakland<\/p>\n

St. Andrew Kim Korean Pastoral Center, Oakland<\/p>\n

St. Paschal Baylon, Oakland<\/p>\n

Our Lady of Guadalupe Site at Blacow Road, Fremont<\/p>\n

St. Albert the Great, Alameda<\/p>\n

St. Rose of Lima, Crockett<\/p>\n

St. Stephen, Walnut Creek<\/p>\n

Transfiguration, Castro Valley<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

If you’re on the ABC7 News app, click here to watch live<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wed, April 29, 2026 at 8:01 PM UTC The Diocese of Oakland is closing 13 churches as it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[8896,121273,124507,143,145,144,124508,124509,124510,124511],"class_list":["post-292063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-child-sexual-abuse","tag-diocese-of-oakland","tag-michael-barber","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news","tag-our-lady-of-lourdes","tag-saint-augustine","tag-saint-patrick","tag-sexual-assault-settlements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}