St. Mary's parishioners have made some interesting observations lately. Part 3 in our series, here are a few more of them:

• Though St. Mary's has been threatened with closure, (and make no doubt we continue to fight and do not believe we will be closed because it is not God's will), it is interesting that no mention has been made regarding the closure of either of the two churches in Buena. Now, we at St. Mary's have always held and continue to hold the position that no church closures are necessary or justified and we are loath to see any church close. We nevertheless wonder what sense it makes to leave Malaga with no church while leaving two churches in Buena. (Here we are not even counting the proposed large chapel planned to be built at the Padre Pio Shrine, also in Landisville.)

As you can see from the map below, Our Lady of Victories and St. Michael's, the two churches that make up Queen of the Angels Parish, are only 1.1 mile away from each other. According to Google Maps, you can walk this in about 20 minutes and drive it in 3.


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• Fr. Namiotka has proposed--with a pastor still in place in Newfield!--that the St. Rose of Lima rectory should be turned into office space. (Out of the other side of his mouth, he claims that he has always shown respect and deference for St. Rose's existing pastor.) Let's be realistic. If it is already "too far" to come all the way from Buena to St. Mary's for Mass or Benediction, then what sense does it make to put office space in Newfield??? Though St. Rose is supposed to be the seat of the unwanted merger, the most Namiotka has held out to them is the hope of office space along with the phrase, "for now." Anyone who believes in the practicality or the plausibility of these plans ought to have their head examined.
  

• Despite the fact that the Core Teams have pointed out gaping holes in the supposed "process" practically every meeting, including the fact that their voices are not being heard or respected and that the steps are not being followed, our convener, Fr. Namiotka, has utterly disregarded them and continued to plow through, continuing to do nothing but pretend to go through the steps. Members of the Core Teams feel utterly powerless because they believe Namiotka just does whatever he wants, the Core Team "process" itself being a complete farce. They fear that they will become the "fall guys" for the church merger/closure fiasco that no one is in favor of (except Ed Namiotka and the bishop).
  

For those of you who received the July 2nd Catholic Star Herald propaganda sheet (oops, we mean the Diocesan newspaper), you may have noticed an article on page 13 about the "Marriage Encounter" weekend. There's a little inset picture on the bottom with gray haired couples in matching turquoise t-shirts embracing each other. Needless to say, we're really glad we weren't there. Fr. Ed Namiotka, our current "pastor" at St. Mary's (at least officially), is really big into this Marriage Encounter stuff. Good to know he's got time for something, because he certainly doesn't seem to have any for us at St. Mary's! 

Fresh from the desk of our "pastor," Fr. Edward Namiotka, comes this "bright idea. Here is another example of why we continue to fight to save St. Mary's. Over the past two years and, arguably, since the 1970s, more and more strange ideas in the name of "Catholicism" have been made, and so many have been suggested in the past two years by the Diocese of Camden. But never you fear! Rest confidently that this particular innovation is the brain power of a Sacred Heart High School administrator. Is it just a way of getting you to part with your cash, or is it a new-fangled spiritual practice? You be the judge. However, we wouldn't recommend you try this at home. Let us give you some background, first.

Father says in his Jan. 3 bulletin that since the light bulbs in St. Michael's Minotola need to be replaced, members of this parish ought to sponsor a light bulb ($25 a bulb). Apparently the labor cost of changing light bulbs is into the thousands. He calls this the "Guiding Light" project. In the interest of spirituality, he says that light bulbs are just like votive candles. Ya know, candles give light and so do light bulbs. Yeah, we see the similarity. We quote:

It is not that far removed from the practice that we have of lighting candles in a church in memory of someone. And these light bulbs should radiate in the church for a significantly longer amount of time than a candle--potentially a couple of years or more. [emphasis his]

However, from our point of view, as Fr. Namiotka has previously pointed out that nothing is permanent, including our churches, and that they are nothing more than just buildings, we're not sure we understand the point in making that sort of an investment. A light bulb that lasts two years? Gee wizz. All things are changing, right? As he pointed out a few bulletins back, our churches could get bombed out tomorrow just like the ones in Europe during World War II (or, alternatively, stolen by a bishop and his conspirators). Therefore we're not sure that kind of investment is warranted. A more practical approach might be for each of us to just bring our own flashlights to mass. Heck, that might be fun, like a camp out, but we digress. Father goes on, imploring us to think:

Think about it. Every time you enter the church you can look up and think of someone who shone like a light for you. Hopefully it will help you to remember them and to pray for them. [again, emphasis his]

Ummm, I could remember my loved one or I could go blind from staring into a lightbulb. Uh-huh!

Then he goes on to say, and we could not possibly make this up, that there are "three mouths to feed in our rectory household while the weekly collection has not increased proportionately." Ain't that cute? They're like hungry little kittens who've come scratching at our back doors or something. Remember to put out a bowl of chow!

Some of us have lost our jobs, are struggling during this recession, have families to feed, and don't own Rolex watches, nor do we have our auto insurance, rent or mortgage, gas, utilities, and other life expenses paid for us by our employers. No one shops for us, cooks our meals, or cleans our houses, either. To top it all off, they're threatening to steal our churches away from us, but that's not enough. They want more, more, more. Their mouths need feeding.

The pastor's hungry? Well cry me a river. We've made you pierogies, taken you out to eat, and had you over for dinner. Not enough? We'll set an extra place for you any night of the week at our dining room table. Come on over. Open invitation. Again, we've digressed from the light bulbs. Sorry.

We're supposed to mark our envelopes "Guiding Light" and bring our contributions, along with the names of our dear departed loved ones, to the rectory. In the spirit of the "Guiding Light" project, we have furthered the innovation. A natural extension of the prayer rock, we now have the prayer light bulb, intended to remind us to pray for our loved one.

Step 1: Select a bulb.

Our Lady of the Lakes in Collings Lakes, formerly part of the St. Mary's Malaga, St. Rose of Lima Newfield, and Queen of Angels Parish (St. Michael's Minotola & Our Lady of Victories Landisville) merger/closure group was just permitted to remain stand-alone. Why? We have received no answer to this question. From their Nov. 15th bulletin:

I have received word from the diocesan Vicar General
that the bishop has approved the Core Team proposal that
our parish would remain a stand alone parish. But we are
encouraged to share resources and programs with the
merging parishes of Buena, Newfield, and Malaga.
This is great news for our Parish because we can continue
as usual serving the needs of the Collings Lakes area.
This is a good news 'short term' situation considering the
underlying problem of a priest shortage in our Diocese.
As more priests retire the present active priests will be
called on to do more. All of us must be ready for the future
when there may not be a priest in residence here. In the
meantime lets be a vibrant sustainable community.
To celebrate this good news we will have a wine and
cheese, coffee and cake celebration in our hall after the
Saturday evening Mass next week. Invite your friends and
family to the 5pm Mass which will have our new
'Lures of the Lakes' choir singing. Then socialize,
celebrate, and relax with your friends and neighbors.

What a slap in the face to the "process" and to all of the other churches in this diocese that would also like to remain stand-alone. "Core team" arm twisting is, apparently, part of the open and honest "process," but how such decisions are made remains a mystery to all of us. Political expedience, string-pulling, and personality conflict at high levels seem to be the order of the day. In truth, we the Catholic faithful have no real input at all, though we are required to speak the Truth by virtue of our baptism and confirmation.

Sent to savestmary's from J:

In sad news, the Diocese goes to settlement on St. Bridget's School in Glassboro on Thursday. (That happened awfully quickly, didn't it?!)

From Kate, submitted today:
We, the parents at St. Bridget's, have for a long time wanted to expand to have a multipurpose room where students could gather for gym, lunch, and other activities. We explored several options and due to the very limited space on our property, could not expand.
 
Although a painful experience, the decision to recommend merging with St. Catherine's presented the opportunity to have a larger school campus in a neighborhood where police are not conducting drug raids two doors down from the school on Lake St and netting an AK47 and ammunition for their troubles. (See Glassboro crime log from Summer 2007)
 
The school is right smack in the middle of the Rowan Blvd/ Glassboro Redevelopment project. (Google Rowan Blvd) Not only is the construction itself an ugly, unsafe mess, but having a hotel or strip of stores and college apartments next to our school probably wasn't the best thing for our kids either.
 
Fr. Mazz made us a promise that if we moved to another location he would use the profits from the sale of the school building for two things: to pay off St Bridget's parish debt (which he had worked to lower since coming to St B's) and to give the balance of the money to the 'new' school (now called St Michael the Archangel) for classroom space and improvements to the property. Hopefully we didn't "miss the boat" on the sale of the property. If we had sold last summer before the housing bust, we would have gotten a cool $2.5 million easily due to the greedy developers who want in on the Glassboro redevelopment.
 
Again, although painful to leave St Bridget's, the school merger has been good for both school communities. St Catherine's got enough students to keep their school open. St Bridget's got a gymnasium and hot lunch program. Through the excellent leadership of Ms Jan Bruni and Sr Janice Novak a strong St Michael's family is developing, we now have a middle school electives program we didn't have before. And being double-graded brings other social and psycholohical benefits to students who otherwise would have spents 9 years of their education with only the same 15 - 30 people, thereby limiting their experiences during the bulk of their waking hours each school year.
 
I still hum our school song- St Bridget watch and guide us, bring your wisdom here. St Michael protect and defend us. (He already is- we will keep our church, our convener is already the pastor.)


Response:
Indeed the area nearby Rowan is a complete mess. We certainly hope that the new school is everything it should be, and that the money indeed goes where it is supposed to. We've requested that any follow-up information be sent to us, along with photos and updates. We welcome information from throughout the diocese on any school or parish changes, closures, "reconfigurations," etc.


A Total Aside...
In somewhat related news, I was listening to an NPR piece today about Catholic schools in the Archdiocese of Washington D.C. who have given up altogether and decided to "go public" as "charter schools." It was sad to hear how, in the piece, they were taking down crucifixes, images of saints, and an altar at St. Cyprian's School. I will see if I can find that piece for you online, perhaps tomorrow, since it's very late right now. It was on All Things Considered this afternoon, if you'd like to look for yourself and listen online.

The diocesan argument was, of course, a financial one for all the schools making the switch, but being in the midst of a similar situation that involves nothing but one lie after the next, it's hard to know what's really going on down there in D.C. and what was really in their books. Sadly, you just can't take anything at face value. If it really was that financially dire, how'd it get that way?

Anyway, the archdiocese reported that it costs them something like $7500 per student and that the diocese can only realistically charge parents, on average, around $4500, therefore subsidizing $3000 per pupil. However, I personally find it appalling that other alternatives were not explored before closing these schools altogether. I find it really difficult to believe that parents in one of the most financially strained states in the country, Michigan, can successfully open and maintain their own Catholic Catholic school that is reasonably priced and cooperatively run, and yet diocese with all the bureaucratic advantages--bequests, staff, consultants, grants, etc.--cannot figure it out.

On the other hand, I am well aware that many Catholic schools are Catholic in name only. My own high school I did not find to be overly "Catholic" even at the time, and I was coming right out of nine years of public school so you'd think there would've been some amount of culture shock. The only real culture shock I recall was lack of resources. That was 18 years ago, too. I wonder, though, if diocese shouldn't be looking to different types of radical change, like how to get back to the roots of the true essentials in Catholic education, and perhaps shifting to a cooperative model, if possible? I'm sure that there are all kinds of options out there if one prays enough and thinks creatively. But who knows.

In any case, I took the long way around to say that the closing of any Catholic school for any reason is pretty sad news since we know that the alternative for most kids is public school, which is not to say there isn't something to be said about that. I happened to love public school when I was a kid, but that was a long time ago and things have changed over the past 20+ years, and not all for the better. Ideally, as Catholics, we ought to want our kids' educations to be utterly penetrated with the things of God and the teachings of Holy Mother Church. Sometimes we homeschoolers are able to do this, but it costs quite a lot for a parent to forsake career in order to school her children in an age when two incomes is practically a necessity. At one time in America's not-so-distant past, Catholic schools did this and were affordable for normal families. How sad that our Catholic school standards have shifted to such a degree that even Catholic school education is all too often, well, far from it, and ridiculously priced too.

Our thanks is due to all the good teachers who ever taught at St. Bridget's Glassboro and at all schools everywhere. We owe them a lot, don't we? Lord knows, they don't do it for the money or the fame. (Now my sis and I are both teachers. So was our mom and our mom's mom, both of whom went to Glassboro State College/Glassboro Normal School.)


Another Total Aside, But That Never Stopped Me Before...
A long overdue thanks to some of my teachers, the people responsible for feeding my love of learning and perhaps partly responsible for my insanity (just kidding). I encourage you to look up your former teachers and thank them, if possible.

• Fr. Lyons, who I saw last week, English, Journalism, Mythology, 10th & 11th
  
• Mr. Galliger, English, 9th
  
• Mr. Day, History, 7th
  
• Mr. Phillips, 3rd Grade
• Mr. Rogers, Gym, Cross Country, Track, Gymnastics, & How to be a Good & Decent Human, 4th-8th and beyond
  
• Mrs. Benevento, Sprint, 4th-8th & summer
  
• Mr. Harrison, 5th Grade
• Mrs. Foster, Sprint, 3rd Grade
  
• Mrs. McGarrity, 2nd Grade
• Miss Hansen, 4th Grade, may she rest in peace
• Wacky Mr. Finnerty, Science (and of course, county politics...), the only person I've ever known to drink Drano regularly and also don an ugly green tux just to keep us interested, 6th & 8th
  
• Mrs. Schaffer, Home Ec, simply the best, 6th-8th
  
• Sr. Regina, Religion, "Stay close to Jesus," may she rest in peace, 10th
  
• Mrs. West & Mrs. Gilchrist, Art (K-3, 4-8 & summer)
  
• Miss Berrell/Mrs. Stein, Music (K-3 & 4-8)
  
• Mr. Lewis, my gymnastics coach
• Sr. Rita Francis, CCD & Bible School (VBS), K-8
  
• Mr. Leek, Shop, 6th-8th
  
• The famous "Deborah J," English, who definitely kept me entertained, 12th
• Mrs. Taylor, Mrs. Kingsley, & Mrs. Bingham, Nursery School
• My grandmother, Laura P. DeMarchi, and grandfather, Jacob DeMarchi, may they rest in peace
  
• And of course my mommy, Doris, my #1 teacher, may she rest in peace. I owe you everything.