The parish has one of the highest per capita donor profiles in the entire archdiocese, Christopher E. Baldwin, a trustee, said. It recently finished an $800,000 round of improvements to the church’s buildings. Its community space hosts a highly regarded nursery school and accommodates some 400 community meetings per year.

Shocked by the archdiocese’s recommendation, the church’s pastor, the Rev. Kevin Madigan, told his parishioners in a Nov. 23 letter that he pressed church officials for the reason St. Thomas was being recommended for closing. He was told, he said, that “since St. Thomas More will eventually close some day, it is better to do it now rather than later, when there is presently a momentum within the archdiocese to merge parishes.”

The explanation was not satisfying to parishioners, who are now fighting to save the church, which was built as an Episcopal church in 1870 and was intended to resemble a small chapel in the English countryside. Mr. Baldwin warned that the archdiocese would be shortsighted to shutter an institution that generous donors love.

“Closing St. Thomas More reminds me of a man who would eat his leg to fill his belly,” he said. “He may be full for a short period of time, but he soon will again be hungry. And God help him when he gets up to walk, let alone run.”

The additional churches that are now being proposed for closing are St. John Neumann on Staten Island; St. John the Martyr and St. Gregory the Great in Manhattan; St. Joseph’s, Our Lady of Grace, St. Francis of Assisi and St. Anthony’s in the Bronx; Our Lady of Mount Carmel in White Plains; Our Lady of Pompeii, in Westchester County; and St. Mary’s, in Orange County.