Diocese of Rockville Centre

The heavy financial burden of defending over 200 abuse lawsuits led to the decision to seek bankruptcy protection and restructuring Bishop John Barres said.

Peconic Bay Medical Center Foundation has acquired the 24-acre former McGann-Mercy High School site from the Diocese of Rockville Centre for $14 million. The hospital has no immediate plans for the property and will seek input from the Town of Riverhead and the community to develop a long-range strategic plan for the campus, according to PBMC president and CEO Andrew Mitchell.

Riverhead school district officials, who have been negotiating with the Diocese of Rockville Centre since last summer, will publicly present a proposal to purchase the former high school at the Aug. 27 school board meeting.

“When the contract is finalized, it will be presented to the Board of Education for their approval at a public meeting,” Superintendent Dr. Aurelia Henriquez said in an email today. “Once that happens, it will eventually go to the voters for their approval.”

The school district acknowledges "ongoing discussions" with the Diocese of Rockville Centre, which the district first contacted in early May to express 'great interest' in purchasing the former Catholic high school; it has had an appraisal and environmental testing done, according to documents obtained by RiverheadLOCAL through the Freedom of Information Law.

Six months after the Diocese of Rockville Centre shuttered McGann-Mercy High School and nearly three months after it told parents a $10 million deal for the campus had been finalized, no sale has taken place and the diocese won’t provide information about the fate of the site.

The grand jury's criticism of Bishop John Barres, formerly the Bishop of Allentown, Pennsylvania was unfounded, based on incorrect facts, the diocese said in a statement posted on its website.

Bishop John Barres, bishop of the Diocese of Rockville Centre, was named in a Pennsylvania grand jury report released yesterday as one of the leaders of the Diocese of Allentown who allegedly participated in covering up the clergy sex abuse scandal there. 

A group determined to save Catholic secondary education in eastern Suffolk has developed a business and academic plan to open a STEM high school on the campus of Bishop McGann-Mercy High School, which the Diocese of Rockville Center is closing next month.

St. Isidore and Our Lady of Mercy will be consolidated into a new N-8 school, St. John Paul II Regional School on the Marcy Avenue property that currently houses St. Isidore’s.