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While watching the news on TV out of Philadelphia they reported that one of our parishes is closed. It is St.Jude's in Burlington County, in S. New Jersey. They showed parishioners sitting outside the church singing hymns. One of the parishioners said that the locks were changed.

I thought our buildings belonged to us; the trustees of the parish? How can the diocese close the building?

The reported said that Bishop Pitaki was not available for comment. I guess that our diocese doesn't have the personnel to keep the parish open. I think Bishop Andrew should have visited the parish himself to tell the parishioners. Its a shame that this sort of thing has to make the news. What do you say?

Mike,

You state:"I thought our buildings belonged to us; the trustees of the parish? How can the diocese close the building?"

Your thought was mistaken, and in fact this is what alot of the trouble in the 1930's was over. According to Catholic Canon Law the bishop owns all diocesan property, including parish churches and rectories and has every right to close them. Civil courts recognize this, as well. Not long ago the Latin Diocese of Pittsburgh closed a number of parishes and many brought legal action, every case was decided in favor of the bishop.

I know no specifics of the case you cite, but I find it hard to believe the people had no idea their Church was being closed and just showed up on Sunday to find the locks changed.

These are definetly tough situations packed with emotion and need to handled sensitively and pastorally. It is good you brought this up because I think the next ten years are going to see many more closings in NJ, PA, and OH. The demographics of these areas have changed and really hasn't been addressed because until now we have had enough priests to go around.

However, that situation is changing and we are going to have to be better stewards of our resources and that includes both the issue of closing parishes that are not sustainable and combining parishes that are close to one another and assigning the priests in an equitable fashion. I think it is unfair that missions have to beg for priests while, for example, Pittsburgh has several Churches that could have/should have been combined long ago because of declining population.

In Christ,
Lance

There is also a rumor that the Byzantine Catholic church in the West Palm Beach Fl area (Holy Apostles) is going to close and the Bishop is going to sell the Property

Dear Friends,
Christ is among us!
It certainly is very difficult when a parish is closed. And I for one do not know what could be a good way to close a Parish. I looked in the Metropolia Directory, St. Jude's evidently was served from Roebling, NJ. Could it be that with the recent loss of priests that the Passaic Eparchy has suffered, there was no priest available to serve St. Jude's? I know that many of our priests already serve two and three churches, and any decline in available priests mean that some parishes must close. Not a pretty situation, but certainly the truth.
My radical proposal would be that when it comes down to closing our next parish, the one that has not provided a priestly vocation in 25 years should be the first to close. It is something for all of us to think about, before we judge what has been done so harshly.

I was a person in front of St Jude's mission when it closed. Our pastor hinted about the closing, then said it would be around July but never gave us a date. What we actually said was that we had a vested interest in the church because we worked so hard to take care of our church but apparently we're nobody. Everything we've done means nothing, we're just pushed aside.
Some people there dug the foundation. One parishioner who is now 92 built the altar, the preparation table, carved the crosses in the pews.
The person who donated painted Icons by an artist in Roebling passed away just a few months ago. What will happen to these special treasures? Will they be auctioned off to the hignest bidder?
Yes, our parish priest, Father Lawrence Wolf, told us that we must close due to the shortage of priests, (Father Wolf is not retiring. He gave us the impression that he no longer wished to travel to us.)and yet when another priest volunteered to come serve our parish on his free time he was forbidden to do so by Bishop Pataki. Why would a bishop forbid a priest to say the liturgy for a group of faithful parishioners? It will never make sense to me.

[ 07-30-2002: Message edited by: LucyK ]

[ 07-30-2002: Message edited by: LucyK ]