Hello!
My husband is a native of Rochester, NY, and used to wrok for Kodak (specifically, he grew up in the towns of Greece and West Irondeqouit) and we lived there for several years after we were first married (our two oldest dc were born there, at the U of R). We visit relatives there every Summer.
If you are an orthodox Catholic, the Rochester area may be a challenge for you. We have a really hard time just trying to find a place to go to Mass when we visit for the Summer. From our experience, it is a very liberal area,and I know that the bishop there is very liberal. When we lived there, he was often written up in the newspaper becuase on a few occasions people even wrote letters to the Vatican about some of his policies. My suggestion to you would be to try to find a home outside of central Monroe County, and perhaps outside of Monroe County, period. The more rural areas are somewhat less liberal. Check any Catholic school out thoroughly before enrolling your children. I was shocked when a friend of ours up there told us about the school she graduated from (a private, Catholic girls school run by nuns) where the nuns taught the girls in high school about the use of articificial contraception, because the nuns “knew we would be doing it anyway.” The public schools are quite liberal. We were already planning, when our oldest children were babies, that we would not be sending them to the Public schools there because of what we were reading and hearing about them from others.
As mentioned previously, the southern parts of Monroe County, as well as the Canandaigua-Victor area, and the Newark area, seem to offer more “orthodox” Catholic churches/communities than what you are likely to find closer to the city.
The one real positive - Catholic Radio! Rochester has Catholic Radio 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so you will be able to hear Catholic Answers on the radio, as well as many other great programs. I would seriously recommend your trying out several parishes up there in order to find out where you are most “at home” before settling in one area. There are also many Catholic homeschoolers in NY, so that may also be an option for you.
I hope this helped you instead of confused you!
God bless!
