Sisters of St. Joseph
In 1902 nine Sisters of St. Joseph from the mother-house at Le Puy took charge of the school in the French parish of St-Roch, Fall River, Massachusetts. The accession of other members from the mother-house enabled the community to take charge of three other schools in the city attached to French parishes. In 1906 St. Theresa's Convent was formally opened as the provincial house of the community, which was legally incorporated in the same year, and a novitiate was established. In the mid 1970s, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Fall River merged with the Springfield Congregation.
Sacred Heart Church (Sharon, Pennsylvania)
In the late half of the twentienth century, demographic shifts took have an effect on Sacred Heart Church and much of the Shenango Valley. Declining populations and decreased mass attendance hurt many of the churches in the area, which left Sacred Heart Church with a fraction of its former membership. In 2016, Bishop Lawrence Persico had decided changes needed to be made because of the demographic shifts, as he believed that, "the care of the souls for the faithful of Sharon could be better served by a single territorial parish..." On April 14, 2016, Bishop Persico announced preliminary plans to merge Sacred Heart Church into Saint Joseph's Church. This was met with anger and disappointment from the parishioners of Sacred Heart. During the next few months, the Diocese of Erie took feedback from members of the pastors and parishioners of both parishes. With the new feedback, an official decree was released on September 16, 2016, officially announcing the merger that would become effective on February 13, 2017. At that time, Sacred Heart Church, along with its assets and all sacramental records, would be merged and subsumed into Saint Joseph Parish. However, Sacred Heart Church would become a secondary church of Saint Joseph Parish and would remain open for worship occasionally. But things did not end up that way. After Sacred Heart Church merged with Saint Joseph Parish, Sacred Heart Church would only open once for a mass on the solemnity of the church's namesake(Feast of the Sacred Heart), which occurred on June 23, 2017. After the mass, rumors began to circulate on how long the church would remain open as a secondary parish. Everybody got the answer when a letter from the pastor of Saint Joseph Parish, Father Thomas Whitman, appeared in a parish bulletin asking Bishop Persico for permission to completely close Sacred Heart Parish, citing reasons such as nearby arson and vandalism, though the legitimacy of some of these reasons has been challenged by former parishioners of Sacred Heart. His request was granted in a decree published on March 12, 2018. The changes would take effect on March 25, 2018. Not long after the request was granted, the building was showing signs that it was to be put up for sale. The blessing of the building was removed and all sacred objects were removed from the premises, leaving many former parishioners (mainly the families who donated the stained glass windows) wondering where they were. In a comment on a n article about Sacred Heart Parish to the Sharon Herald newspaper, pastor of Saint Joseph Parish, Father Whitman stated, "People should not be wondering where the stained-glass windows are; we've had information about that in the church bulletin(no evidence of this was found). If they came to mass on Sunday, they would know all about it." This comment left many former parishioners of Sacred Heart and some parishioners of Saint Joseph enraged. Soon after this article was published, Sacred Heart Parish, its parking lot, and rectory was found on the website for Northwood Realty Services, confirming what was long rumored, for $395,000. As of July 2018, a buyer has not been found and the future of the church remains a mystery.