Church Property
New chapel dedicated for Boston archdiocese’s pastoral center
Today, Cardinal Sean O’Malley dedicated the new Bethany Chapel in the new Archdiocesan Pastoral Center in the Archdiocese of Boston. We moved our offices to the new APC back in July, but construction of the chapel took a little longer and it was finally finished in time to be dedicated today on the Feast of St. Therese of Lisieux.
It was a beautiful Mass with all the elaborate ceremonies of the dedication of a chapel, including the anointing of the altar, incensation of the chapel, lighting of the altar and chapel, depositing of the relics (don’t know yet which relics), and inauguration of the Eucharistic Pyx. (More on that in a bit.)
I love that the readings for the Mass of dedication includes the Gospel reading of Zaccheus the tax collector. It seems odd at first until you realize that the Church is reminding us that Christ agreed to enter into the home of the repentant sinner and dine with him, just as he enters into our house, our churches and chapels, to dine with us, sinners.
Regarding the name, Cardinal O’Malley said in his homily that it recalls Mary, Martha, and Lazarus and Martha’s invitation to Mary to go to the Lord: “The teacher is here, and He is calling you.” (John 11:28) He sees this an invitation to come to the chapel and to pray and contemplate what the Lord is calling us to. In fact, this verse is inscribed above the altar in Latin: “Magister adest et vocat te”.
Also above the altar is the Eucharistic Pyx, which replaces the traditional tabernacle. This was a particular choice by the Cardinal. It comes from Spain and is a type of tabernacle once used in the pre-medieval period of the Church, especially in the east. It is in the form of a dove, which symbolizes the Holy Spirit, and hangs directly above the altar. It is on a chain so that it can be pulled down to open the door in its chest to place in and remove the Eucharist. He said such pyxes are mentioned in the 6th century writings of St. Gregory of Tours.
Another feature of the chapel is that all the stained glass windows, including the enormous rose window, come from closed parishes around the archdiocese. The crucifix is the physical connection to the old chapel at the chancery in Brighton, brought over in a special ceremony when we moved.
Meanwhile, the Sister Disciples of the Divine Master are a religious order that has come to the APC to care for the chapel, to operate a small shop of devotionals and vestments next to it, to continue their communal work making vestments, and to pray in Eucharistic adoration every afternoon.
While it may not be the most traditional chapel in form, I think the folks at the archdiocese did a pretty good job of turning what was once a bland office space into a suitable location for worship and the celebration of the Mass. It will be nice to go there for Mass during the week.
My parish’s religious art as it was in 1916
Those who are interested in old Catholic church art might be interested in this set of scans I made of a 1916 booklet called Decorations of Immaculate Conception Church, Salem, Massachusetts 1916. The scans include photos of the high altar as well as details and descriptions of art which no longer exists. It has long been painted over, which is a tragedy.
Immaculate Conception, my parish, is the second-oldest parish in the Archdiocese of Boston, after the cathedral-parish, having been founded in 1826. It is also the oldest parish dedicated to Mary in New England, and this weekend we will also celebrate the 150th anniversary of the dedication of the current church, which makes it the oldest parish church in eastern Massachusetts. (Only St. Augustine chapel in the Catholic cemetery in South Boston is older.)
At my pastor’s request I wrote an uncredited article that appears in this week’s issue of The Pilot, the archdiocesan newspaper. We will be celebrating a special Mass at 11am in the church this Sunday with Cardinal O’Malley.
As for the artwork, I offer it for your consideration and for posterity.
And the following is an excerpt from Origin of the Catholic Church in Salem and Its Growth in St. Mary’s Parish and the Parish of the Immaculate Conception, written by then-Father Louis Walsh, a native son of Salem who would later become Bishop of Portland, Maine, in 1890, on the 100th anniversary of the first Catholic Mass in Salem.
The first Dedication of the Church of the Immaculate Conception took place on Sunday morning, January 10, 1858, and seems to have been accompanied with all possible solemnity, as it was the “greatest Catholic ceremony” yet seen in Salem or in Essex County.
The weather was remarkably fine for the season. Long before the hour fixed for the ceremony, the church, excepting the aisles and vestibule, was crowded, and a still larger number of persons remained outside. Many were present who had witnesses the Dedication of Old St. Mary’s in 1832, and a few of these are still living in our parish. Many Protestants came, and were treated with great courtesy and attention, the best seats in the church being cheerfully offered to them. The doors and aisles were guarded and kept open by a delegation from the “Father Mathew Temperance Society” and the “Irish Reading-Room Association,” whose members marched in procession to the church.
In a short preliminary instruction, Father McElroy, S.J., of Boston, explained to the very attentive hearers, the nature, order, and design of the Dedication Ceremonies, and thus rendered them more interesting and impressive. Then, from the sacristy, came the cross-bearer, between two acolytes; next in order several altar-boys, seven or eight priests, dressed in cassock and surplice, the Right Rev. Bishop Bacon, D.D., of Portland, and finally, accompanied by deacon and subdeacon, and arrayed in cope and mitre, Right Rev. Bishop Fitzpatrick, D.D., Bishop of Boston, “whose imposing presence” attracted the especial attention of the congregation. The procession moved down the middle aisle to the outside main door; and after a short prayer by the Bishop, continued around the entire edifice, while the Pontiff sprinkled the walls, and the clergy chanted the penitential psalm, “Misere.” The circuit being made, and a second prayer recited, the procession entered the church; and when all had reached the sanctuary, the clergy and choir chanted solemnly, in Latin, the “Litany of the Saints,” during which the Bishop invoked upon the church and altar “the special blessing” of God, and thereby dedicated it to His honor, under the title of the “Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.” A third prayer was then chanted, and the procession moved around the outer aisles of the interior, while the Bishop sprinkled the walls with holy water, and the chant of “psalms of joy” resounded through the sacred edifice. When the sanctuary was reached, a last and beautiful prayer was chanted aloud by the Bishop, and the solemn Amen, closed the Benediction rite.
The doors of the church were then opened to the throng of people outside, and in a few minutes, every available spot was occupied by no less than three thousand persons.
The Solemn High Mass followed …
Cardinal coming to celebrate our church’s 150th anniversary
This year marks the 150th anniversary of my parish’s church. While Immaculate Conception parish in Salem, Mass., was founded in 1826, the current church itself was built in 1857 and dedicated in January 1858. This makes it the oldest parish church in Massachusetts, with a Mass celebrated every Sunday for that century and a half. Only St. Augustine chapel in South Boston’s Catholic cemetery is older.
Next Sunday, Cardinal O’Malley will be coming to Salem to celebrate Mass with us at 11 am to mark the occasion. Here’s a description of the Dedication Mass in 1858, taken from Origin of the Catholic Church in Salem and Its Growth in St. Mary’s Parish and the Parish of the Immaculate Conception by Fr. (later Bishop) Louis S. Walsh, written in 1890. (Bishop Walsh was a native of Salem and later became bishop of Portland, Maine.)
The first Dedication of the Church of the Immaculate Conception took place on Sunday morning, January 10, 1858, and seems to have been accompanied with all possible solemnity, as it was the “greatest Catholic ceremony” yet seen in Salem or in Essex County.
The weather was remarkably fine for the season. Long before the hour fixed for the ceremony, the church, excepting the aisles and vestibule, was crowded, and a still larger number of persons remained outside. Many were present who had witnesses the Dedication of Old St. Mary’s in 1832, and a few of these are still living in our parish. Many Protestants came, and were treated with great courtesy and attention, the best seats in the church being cheerfully offered to them. The doors and aisles were guarded and kept open by a delegation from the “Father Mathew Temperance Society” and the “Irish Reading-Room Association,” whose members marched in procession to the church.
In a short preliminary instruction, Father McElroy, S.J., of Boston, explained to the very attentive hearers, the nature, order, and design of the Dedication Ceremonies, and thus rendered them more interesting and impressive. Then, from the sacristy, came the cross-bearer, between two acolytes; next in order several altar-boys, seven or eight priests, dressed in cassock and surplice, the Right Rev. Bishop Bacon, D.D., of Portland, and finally, accompanied by deacon and subdeacon, and arrayed in cope and mitre, Right Rev. Bishop Fitzpatrick, D.D., Bishop of Boston, “whose imposing presence” attracted the especial attention of the congregation. The procession moved down the middle aisle to the outside main door; and after a short prayer by the Bishop, continued around the entire edifice, while the Pontiff sprinkled the walls, and the clergy chanted the penitential psalm, “Misere.” The circuit being made, and a second prayer recited, the procession entered the church; and when all had reached the sanctuary, the clergy and choir chanted solemnly, in Latin, the “Litany of the Saints,” during which the Bishop invoked upon the church and altar “the special blessing” of God, and thereby dedicated it to His honor, under the title of the “Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.” A third prayer was then chanted, and the procession moved around the outer aisles of the interior, while the Bishop sprinkled the walls with holy water, and the chant of “psalms of joy” resounded through the sacred edifice. When the sanctuary was reached, a last and beautiful prayer was chanted aloud by the Bishop, and the solemn Amen, closed the Benediction rite.
The doors of the church were then opened to the throng of people outside, and in a few minutes, every available spot was occupied by no less than three thousand persons.
The Solemn High Mass followed […]
Here is a photograph of the original high altar in the church, after it was finished in later years. This photo was taken about 1905 and was featured on a Confirmation certificate. The pastor at the time of the photo was Father Timothy J. Murphy. Ironically, the present pastor is also named Timothy J. Murphy!
A big fan comes to the rescue of Our Lady of Refuge
What’s an old Catholic church in Flatbush, New York, to do when summer heat bakes the old stone, un-air-conditioned building? Of course, they turn to a Big Ass Fan. No, really that’s what it’s called.
A Kentucky company with a wicked name - Big Ass Fans - is putting one of its industrial-sized machines in an unlikely place: a Brooklyn Catholic church.
The nearly century-old Our Lady of Refuge Church in Flatbush, where the congregation dwindles every summer because of scorching heat, plans to install the 240-pound fan next weekend.
“Oh my gosh!” church business administrator Judy Agard said. “We might have to change the name. It’s a church!”
I also like the name of the parish: Our Lady of Refuge. Now with the B.A.F., that’s what this church will be: a refuge from the heat. The fan has a 24-foot diameter and 10 steel blades—now inscribed with the autographs of the donors who ponied up the $7,500 to install it.
“The name of the company isn’t something that you’d want to put in print, but I had to laugh - it is a big-ass fan,” said Ronald Holder, a parishioner since 1980 who helped spearhead a fund-raising bid that began last year.
Big Ass Fans director of sales Paul Lauritzen said that since 1999 the company has installed its large fans at about 50 churches nationwide, insisting the name has not yet offended the churchgoing public.
Frankly, I wish our parish had a B.A.F. in it. Here in New England, you don’t find many air-conditioned churches either and it can get stifling.
Follieri revisted again
The FBI has arrested Raffaello Follieri and accused him of fraud for claiming Vatican connections in a scheme allegedly to buy mothballed properties from US Catholic dioceses and re-develop them. (Follieri was allegedly making false claims of close ties to then-Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano, right.)
According to the FBI, Follieri claimed the Vatican had formally appointed him to manage its financial affairs and that he had met with the pope in person in Rome.
He is accused of keeping various ceremonial robes, including the robes of senior clergymen, in his Manhattan office, and of hiring two monsignors to accompany him during his business dealings.
Once, according to the complaint, he even asked a monsignor to change out of his robes and put on the robe of a more senior clergyman to create the false impression that Follieri had close ties to the Vatican.
Follieri, Follieri, why does that sound so familiar? Oh yeah! Because I wrote this back in January 2005:
This has at least the appearance of improriety. If [they’re] smart, they’ll keep the Follieri Group at arm’s length, and other dioceses should too.
And this in 2006:
Interesting. I just got an email this morning from a high-end private investigation firm looking for more information on the Follieri Group for a client. I wonder who’s doing the asking and why.
I wonder if it was really a private eye or if it was the FBI. If it was really a private eye, maybe they were representing “supermarket billionaire Ron Burkle’s Yucaipa Cos.” who sued Follieri after accusing him of misappropriating more than $1 million.
Wow, it’s funny to be caught up in the middle of all this, especially since I really don’t know anything about it.
Photo of Cardinal Angelo Sodano is in the public domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Voice of America quoting me on Steubenville church closings (sort of)
Funny, the places you find yourself being quoted. Ted Landphair does a weekly radio segment on Voice of America called “American Life.” This week he looks at the suppression of Catholic parishes in Steubenville, Ohio, home of Franciscan University of Steubenville, my alma mater. He discusses the sad decline of the city and the decrease in population from the steel mill heyday.
He also quotes one of my blog posts from back in May on the closing of Immaculate Conception Parish and the Jesuit Urban Center in Boston. I think he slightly missed the context. The way he quoted me changed the sense a little, I think. See if you agree. Here’s what I wrote:
Do we want churches that are merely monuments to artistic expression and museums of our cultural history? Or should our parishes be places where families gather in community to worship the Lord as a body of believers that image the whole Church and Christ Himself?
And here’s what he wrote:
As the Boston Globe wrote about a constriction of churches in that city, “Each church closing means an irreparable loss of history, continuity, and culture.” And tears for the hard-working families who, in many cases, paid money they could barely afford to make their home churches elegant.
Some Steubenville Catholics have stoically accepted a viewpoint, recently stated by Dominico [sic] Bettinelli Jr., a former editor of Catholic World [sic]magazine, in response to the Boston situation. Churches are not meant to be “monuments of artistic expression,” he writes on his Web log, but rather, in his words, “places where families gather to worship the Lord as a body of believers.”
St. Edmund’s Retreat Center
Cardinal O’Malley of Boston in this week’s blog entry mentions that he was on retreat with his fellow bishops of the New England province at St. Edmund’s Retreat Center on Ender’s Island in Mystic, Connecticut.
I agree with him that it is a beautiful place. I’ve been on retreats there, twice, I think (or was it three times) including the most recent time in 2004 right after Melanie and I started dating. It was our first public event together with our crowd of friends. I have a photogallery of our trip up here.
Incidentally, the chapel has a wonderful Stations of the Cross. All of the stations incorporate locations around the small island that is the retreat center as well as local flora and fauna and of course the traditional Christian imagery, culminating in an additional station showing Christ the King, Resurrected, and St. Edmund on New Year's Day.
They are quite beautiful. I’ve had them on my computer for a while and only just now uploaded them to a set on Flickr.com.
If you ever get a chance to go to Ender’s Island, leap at it.
St. Louis Cathedral
Check out this beautiful photo of the Cathedral in St. Louis as well as this close-up shot of the baldacchino. Click on the links to the larger versions here and here. Just gorgeous.
Photo: creativity+
Sputnik in 17th century Italian church?
Some people say that a 17th-century painting in an Italian church depicting the glorification of the Eucharist also includes a very strange object that looks like Sputnik or something out of Star Wars.
Or are our 21st-century brains supplying an explanation based on matching patterns we already know? Are we just imposing ideas upon something even as we lack the context of the artist Salimbeni?
Technorati Tags: art | science fiction | painting | Italian | Tuscany | Salimbeni |
Cardinal O’Malley explains how property sale will affect seminary
Boston’s Cardinal Sean O’Malley has penned a letter to priests of the archdiocese about the sale of the chancery property to Boston College and most specifically how it affects the seminary.
Among the details he highlights that I hadn’t seen before:
The buildings we have agreed to sell to Boston College include the Chancery, Creagh Library, the former priests residence adjacent to the Chancery, the Seminary Library, and Bishop Peterson Hall.
[…]
As the Archdiocese retains ownership of St. John’s Seminary, by way of a very favorable management agreement Boston College will maintain the building and exterior grounds and provide food service to the seminary. This agreement is of significant benefit to the seminary and assures high quality services for the long term. In addition, Boston College has committed to work exclusively with the seminary lay employees impacted by this agreement, to review possible employment opportunities.
The agreement with Boston College will also provide significant improvements for the Library, which is in need of capital investment to address deferred maintenance issues and upgrade the building’s systems and technology. Seminarians and seminary staff will have unrestricted access to the Library and St. John’s will retain ownership and control of the important and highly regarded seminary library collection.
He also briefly remarks on the moved-up departure of the seminary rector over the property sale. Fr. John Farren, OP, who nearly everyone agrees has done a great job turning St. John’s around over the past four years, including tightening up the faculty and improving formation by leaps and bounds, was being reassigned by the Dominicans and was set to leave on June 30. However, when the sale was made public, he announced his immediate departure because of his disagreement with the action. The cardinal made an indirect response by saying: “We do not believe that the sale of additional property from our Brighton campus will harm or hinder the essential work of St. John’s. The independence of the seminary, its ability to prepare candidates for the priesthood, and to be the source of the formation and training for lay ministries, will be preserved.” He added his gratitude for Fr. Farren’s service.
Technorati Tags: Catholic | Boston |
Mass. court rules archdiocese can close parish
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled that it can’t interfere in parish closings by the Archdiocese of Boston because of First Amendment restrictions. The ruling was in response to a lawsuit brought by parishioners from St. James the Great Parish in Wellesley.
The challengers said the land had been donated by a family and subsequent donations were made to renovate to the archdiocese on the condition that a church would always be located on the land.
The court wrote in its decision that “the claims in this case raise matters of internal church governance that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution forbids us to consider.”
The court said it can get involved in some property disputes between churchgoers and church leaders, but this case did meet the standard.
“Among the religious controversies off limits to our courts are promises by members of the clergy to keep a church open,” the court wrote.
Attorneys for the archdiocese wrote in their legal brief that the transfer of the property to the archdiocese was in a charitable trust, to use the property as a church for the benefit of the public and for the advancement of religion.
They argued that only the state Attorney General has legal standing to file lawsuits over alleged breaches of trust by a charity.
Technorati Tags: Catholic | Boston | parish closing | court | lawsuit |
No longer a rumor: Boston archdiocese moving its chancery
The rumor isn’t a rumor any more. Now it’s fact. The Archdiocese of Boston is selling its Brighton property and moving the chancery to the suburbs, specifically Braintree. The new offices will be in an office building owned by billionaire developer Thomas Flatley, located just off Route 128/Route 93 between the Randolph exit where Lantana’s function hall is and the old drive-in movie theatre by the South Shore Plaza exit.
(Local trivia: The same stretch of highway is designated as both north and south —- going in the same direction. Thus one can be traveling on Route 128 North and Route 93 South at the same time and vice versa.)
Here’s a link to a Google map showing the location.
The Archdiocese is selling the whole Brighton property, except for St. John’s Seminary, to Boston College for $65 million. BC expects to submit a master plan for the site to the city within the next month. They’re already calling it their Brighton campus (as opposed to the Chestnut Hill campus), even though they’re essentially across the street from one another.
All 200 chancery employees plus some other archdiocesan offices not located in Brighton are expected to be moved to the new location by July 2008.
The new building, which is currently home to Boston Financial Data Services but who is in the process of moving to my hometown of Canton, is 140,000 square feet of office space. No word on whether they will take the entire building. However, if you’ve ever been in the chancery offices, especially the Peterson Hall building, you’ll know that this will be a good thing. The present accommodations are a conversion of old seminary classrooms and dorms, whereas now they have a chance to create a good space from the ground up.
My guess is that with Flatley being the devout Catholic he says he is, the archdiocese is getting a very good deal on the space too. (He was quoted in a local newspaper as saying he couldn’t possibly charge the disciples of the Man he admires most market rates or something to that effect.)
This is a significant development. Now I wonder how long before this is spun into a negative. Boston Mayor Tom Menino has already started the ball rolling. We should expect to hear from Voice of the Faithful, the Council of Parishes, and lawyers for sex-abuse plaintiffs next.
Technorati Tags: Boston | Catholic | Archdiocese | chancery | real estate |
More parish closing complaining
Here’s yet another op-ed in the Boston Globe criticizing the Archdiocese of Boston for closing parishes. Ironically, the photo used to illustrate the story is of the closing parish’s altar in 1949, in all its glory. That’s probably about when this inner-city parish was last full of families. That’s because this is Immaculate Conception Church in Boston’s South End, also known as the Jesuit Urban Center, which is a gay-magnet church and which was “wreck-ovated” not long ago in a disaster of modernism.
Unfortunately, the perspective in this column, like in too many other defenses of closing urban parishes, is not that of parish life and worship, but of cultural and architectural continuity.
With the imminent closing and sale of the Church of the Immaculate Conception in the South End comes yet another stage in the slow and agonizing cultural suicide of the Catholic Church in Boston. Each church closing means an irreparable loss of history, continuity, and culture, whether it be the closing of a feisty and proud ethnic parish, like the South End’s Holy Trinity, the closing of beloved neighborhood churches, often of some architectural distinction, such as Blessed Sacrament in Jamaica Plain, or the closing of a rare and important center of high culture and dedicated urban ministry like the Church of the Immaculate Conception.
The whole column lists the artistic and architectural significance of the church, the fact that it used to be “fashionable and elegant” with guest preachers and famous musicians. We are told of the former rector who ensured that there were enough funds to maintain the church. It’s not until halfway through the column that we hear of any type of service provided by the parish in the past. There’s certainly nothing about worship and community life.
The secret to keep your parish from closing
Technorati Tags: Catholic | Boston | Jesuit Urban Center | parish closing | church |
A hobbit dream house
I’ve found my dream home: a real hobbit house (but not exactly a hobbit hole since it’s not built into the ground).
Asked to design a fitting repository for a client’s valuable collection of J.R.R. Tolkien manuscripts and artifacts, architect Peter Archer went to the source—-the fantasy novels that describe the abodes of the diminutive Hobbits.
“I came back my client and said, ‘I’m not going to make this look like Hollywood,’” Archer recalled, choosing to focus instead on a finely-crafted structure embodying a sense of history and tradition.
It’s actually a pretty airy and light structure and despite the architect’s claim that it wasn’t going to look like Hollywood, it is evocative of Peter Jackson’s vision of Bag End, which says to me that both men stayed fairly faithful to Tolkien’s vision.
Of course, Melanie tells me she’s not going to live in some hole in the ground that dark and dingy. I respond that this hobbit house is by no means dark and dingy and we can put in a skylight too, if she wants.
Technorati Tags: Tolkien | architect | house | hobbit |
Katrina-hit parish sues bishop over rebuilding church
Speaking of closing parishes, they’re dealing with this on a massive scale on the Gulf Coast. A parish in Pass Christian, Mississippi, is suing the diocese because it won’t rebuild their church. But the implications are more wide-reaching, raising questions of the balance between clericalism and congregationalism.
Bishop Thomas Rodi of Biloxi, Mississippi, had decided to merge St. Paul Parish with Holy Family Parish after St. Paul’s—which was located on the beach—had been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. About 150 parishioners have sued Rodi and the pastor of Holy Family, claiming that the property was deeded to the congregation, not the diocese, and that the diocese was only holding it in trust for the congregation.
This is not how the Church organizes parishes. Dioceses do not hold property in trust in that fashion and would not accept the sale or donation of property to the congregation itself and not the diocese. For one thing, the congregation does not exist independent of the diocese or bishop, that is a parish can only exist as part of a diocese or under the authority of a bishop.
The lawyer for the plaintiffs claims that the lawsuit is not about getting the parish rebuilt in the same location, but only about demanding an accounting for the assets of St. Paul’s. If that’s the case, then that’s their right under both civil law and canon law. Under canon law, a parish’s property belongs to it and cannot simply be appropriated by a bishop for his own use. He must account for it. If the parish is merged with another parish, then the closed parish’s property goes to the new parish. If a parish is suppressed, then it’s assets would go to the diocese, but they must follow proper procedure.
Bishop Rodi responded to the lawsuit with a public statement published in the diocesan newspaper and the local newspaper. In it he outlines the background of the situation, including the fact that there were originally three parishes in the town, one of them staffed by a religious order. But after the hurricane, the order decided to pull out of the parish. That left the diocese with a decision to consolidate the two parishes. At first they were going to maintain two locations, but then they changed their minds, saying that both financial and spiritual considerations led them to decide to rebuild only one.
The bottom line of the lawsuit is that it is an attempt to have the courts order the Catholic Church to have a church building at a specific place. If this lawsuit would be successful, it would mean, in effect, that the courts would tell the Catholic Church where God must be worshipped, where Mass and the other sacraments must be celebrated, and how the Catholic Church must use the financial resources of Holy Family Parish. This lawsuit attacks both the unity and liberty of the Church.
[…]
Any pastor desires to create unity in his parish and the pastor of Holy Family Parish reached the conclusion that having two churches would tend to have parishioners identify with one church building or the other rather than identify as one Holy Family Parish. One church building would also allow for a combining and strengthening of parish ministries, especially those associated with the celebration of the Eucharist, which have been weakened by the loss of so many parishioners. At present only about 700 individuals (not 700 families) attend Mass at Holy Family Parish.
[…]
This deeply saddens me since this lawsuit is not in keeping with our understanding of the fundamental nature of the Catholic Church. We are a church, not independent congregations. In faith, worship, and practice, we are in union with the successor of Saint Peter, the Pope. The Pope appoints the bishop of each diocese to serve as shepherd of the diocese. The bishop in turn appoints pastors to serve as shepherds for the parishes. The pastor is to minister for and with his parishioners. In making decisions affecting the good of the parish, he is to carefully consider the advice of the parishioners, especially his advisory committees, but the final decision is his as pastor.
I’m left with a couple of questions: The plaintiffs’ lawyer says they only want an accounting for the assets of the parish, while the bishop says that the lawsuit wants to tell the diocese where to build its churches. They can’t both be telling the truth. What does the lawsuit actually say?
Second, the tension between clericalism and congregationalism in the Church is one of the most contentious today, exacerbated by the Scandal and the perception of “a pray, pay, obey and ignore the pervert in the corner” mentality on the one hand and a “we are the church”, “it’s my parish”, “I don’t like that doctrine” mentality on the other. Finding the correct balance is one of the challenges we have to deal with.
Technorati Tags: Catholic | bishop | parish | Katrina | Pass Christian | lawsuit |
