Anecdote

A funny thing happened the other day. There's a well-known and well-liked lady in our town who has for ages run a restaurant. She recently changed locations (again) and I wanted to get a look at the new spot, so we stopped in for a bite.

Now this is the type of woman who has at least one prominently placed crucifix in her place and gushes over your "babies" (kids). She's the Catholic grandmotherly type, gregarious, enthusiastic, easy to talk to, a great cook. True to form, my younger son, who happens to be austistic and who also happens to have a great sense of direction, starts crying out, "St. Martin's!" which sounds similar to, "St. Mark's," neither of which were very far from us.

Hearing this, the woman says, "Yes, sweetie, St. Mark's. That's my church. It's right up the street." Confused and rarely one to keep my mouth shut when I'm curious, I say, "I thought you belonged to St. Martin's."

"Oh yes, I used to go there. But I sang at a wedding at St. Mark's and just fell in love with it. They're just like Catholic, you know, they even use our same books. They just don't believe in the pope." And on and on about how great a place it is, how wonderful the pastor and his minister wife are, and how she donates food for their dinners and things.

In case you haven't guessed, St. Mark's is an Episcopal church. To be honest, although I don't know her well, this is one of the last people I expected to suddenly leave the Church. But she doesn't see it that way. In fact, I would doubt she has refrained from considering herself to be Catholic, since by her own standards, her beliefs and manner of worship have not changed at all.

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Listening to her talk about her new community, though, my husband and I realized that what was likely going on was not necessarily conversion to a different Christian denomination in the sense of a change in belief or theology, but conversion to a community. Having been to St. Martin's many times, I can honestly say that there just isn't much going on there. It's a fairly large, impersonal church. The priest turnover has been incredible, not to mention the ongoing uncertainty of the status of any of our town's (and diocese's) churches. Let's face it, when people go to church, that's the one thing they want to be sure ain't goin anywhere! The church is central to their religion, it's the House of God, and in the midst of life's day-to-day craziness, it's reassuring just to walk or drive by. Stability: it's Who God Is and what the Church is supposed to be.

Now if you were to see St. Mark's, you'd notice its small size. I'm unfamiliar with its typical attendance, but physically it's about the size of St. Mary's. And it's not so hard to feel at home and quite a bit easier to get to know people in a small church. Our assessment is that that's what she was looking for. Something clicked for her. She felt welcomed, noticed, valued, at home.

But is it all the Same?

In the midst of this transition, though, probably unbeknownst to her, she has in fact migrated to a group whose beliefs and history are, in fact, different from the Catholic Church. The Anglican/Episcopal church(es) were begun by King Henry VIII in the 16th century and spurred, along with Martin Luther on the European continent, the Protestant rebellion/reformation. Henry wanted to divorce (and murder) his wife/wives and did not want to be beholden to the pope, so he made himself head of his own church. Many Englishmen and women died for their Faith rather than leave the One, True Church. Over the course of time, belief and practice has diverged from Catholic belief, and today the Episcopaleans/Anglicans disagree with one another over many things, not the least of which are the role of women and homosexuals in the priesthood/bishopric. So we are seeing schism among those who orginally schismed from Rome. But that's a subject for a different day.

The Perfect Storm?

My point is this. Right now, in our diocese and elsewhere throughout the country, we have the perfect storm. Perhaps I'm being too dramatic, but I don't think so. Think of it as a simple equation. We have:


We're starting to see it already. Church attendance is down most places. But it will be masked significantly with church merger since when a church is closed, those who still elect to go to Mass will appear to be taking up valuable parking places and pew space in the "new" church. Those who leave won't be noticed, particularly in churches where there's already a sense of anonymity.

In Closing

I use one woman's story only as an example. I don't mean to imply that massive amounts of Catholics are going to turn Episcopalean or Lutheran or Calvary Chapel or anything else, for that matter. On the contrary, I think what we're more likely to see is large numbers of formerly practicing Catholics lose what faith they have and stop going to any church, anywhere. It's just a matter of whether or not we're willing to pay attention to what's going on. Can American Catholics hang on through all this or will we lose our religion, too?

St. Mary's parishioners have been hard at work! But not only building booths...

• Joanne always puts together wonderful baskets for the Chinese Auction,
• Marlene sells our 50-50 tickets,
• Jeanie and Ramona, among others, work hard on the Rosary and other gardens.
• Steve and Jim prepare the grounds.
• Jim also helps build the new booths, organizes the talent show, plays the organ, rehearses the choir, and plays with his band.
  
• Bill and another Steve help organize the chicken barbecue.
• Steve gave the feast buildings a new coat of paint and cleaned them out.
  
• Tim and the Knights handle the seafood and beer.
• Diane covers the "snack" foods like funnel cake, cotton candy, and cheeze fries.
• Carmella organizes the cakes and baked goods.
• Leah does...well, everything...signs, permits, tents, donations, all level of organization, and on and on and on.
• Dan and Mike get the tractor and hay ride ready, among many other things.

We are blessed to have so many committed parishioners who do these things for love of their parish and the Blessed Mother! We couldn't begin to list them all. For our little church, this high level of participation is supposed to be exactly what the bishop wants. Problem is, we're volunteers, not paid staff they like to call "ministers." (And, of course, we're not a huge "McChurch.") We tend to do things for love, not for money. So many of the people we've mentioned have spent their own money, not to mention tons of time, to make this Feast a success. Now that is real community, not something artificially concocted. We don't need to "make community work," a phrase I've recently read in a nearby merging parish's bulletin, because ours already does, even with zero pastoral support.

The Booths:
Joe puts together the adbook, which is a ton of work in and of itself, but he also built our beautiful barque for the Blessed Mother last year. This year he's built new booths for food and games, and boy is he a perfectionist. In one of the pictures you'll see Jim, wearer of many hats, finishing up with some of the last things on the booths. Take a look at our little slideshow.
 

Created with flickr slideshow from softsea.

St. Mary's parishioners have made some interesting observations recently. Here are a couple more of them:

Two parishioners (of many) believe that lack of belief in and reverence for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament on the part of priests is to blame for the merger/closure crisis. In our own parish, we have seen lack of regard for the Blessed Sacrament not only in the desire to unnecessarily "reduce" Masses and Eucharistic Adoration, but in attitude on the altar. For example, once, when the pastor accidentally dropped a host on the floor, the proper dignity and procedure was not followed. When this was later pointed out by an elderly parishioner, the parishioner claims our pastor continued in a flippant attitude of defiance, insisting he had never heard of such things and had done nothing wrong. It is a sad day when the laity have to point out the importance of revering Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament to a priest. But the bottom line is, if you don't respect Jesus' Eucharistic Presence, it's all downhill from there!

• One parishioner pointed out how frequently he sees priests without priestly attire. He believes that this reflects a lack of respect for their own vocation. We can attest to our own experience at a diocese-sponsored event at which multiple priests were in attendance. To our recollection, only one of them was wearing clerical attire. One was at our table and we did not learn that he was a priest until about an hour or more into the workshop. At a nearby table in a plaid, flannel shirt and jeans sat the pastor of the parish! Not only was he not dressed like a priest, he was not even dressed particularly neatly.

The parishioner who pointed out this problem believes that this is one of the reasons why Catholic identity as well as respect for and understanding of the role of the priest are so confused. We wonder, if there are a significant number of priests who misunderstand their own true role as shepherds--and fail to take that responsibility seriously--how are the laity to understand or follow? Certainly this has been the case at St. Mary's since the departure of our last pastor, and it has been very sadly true at the diocesan level as well.

Is it a matter of being willing to stand out and be different? Is it a matter of fear that the general public may no longer view priests favorably due to the child abuse and church closure scandals? Or is it merely an unwillingness to stand up for the Faith and what is right and true, even though it may be unpopular, unpopular even with one's superiors? Who knows.

• Along these lines, many parishioners have also expressed their observation of a certain worldliness that is prevalent, while on Sundays being told that the priesthood is about sacrifice. To most this smacks of hypocrisy at worst, a double standard at best, since so many ordinary Catholics struggle from day to day to make ends meet. It also seems ironic to them because we are being expected to give up those things that are most precious to us--our church and our religious devotions, particularly to Jesus in the exposed Eucharist--but we are continually told that as a priest, our pastor is "entitled" to X, Y, or Z. Needless to say, this does not go over too well with anyone at St. Mary's. The bottom line is that people can tell a true shepherd from, well, an impostor. So do pray for your priests, but be careful to know your Faith, for the devil is the Father of Lies.
  

People at St. Mary's have raised some very interesting questions recently. Some are not new concepts, but they bear repeating:

• One of the premises of "merging" churches is that there will ultimately be far fewer priests. In our particular scenario, we currently have three priests living in a large, "3 suite," recently upgraded rectory in Landisville, Buena [right]. Fr. Namiotka has multiple times expressed his desire to have this be the main residence of the pastor/priests of the entity he would like to see merged because it can house multiple priests comfortably. If we are expected to have only one priest in the future,* why have such a big house? Wouldn't it make more sense to rid ourselves of an expensive and too large property in Landisville and make use of perfectly sufficient, smaller, more economical rectories in either Newfield of Malaga [left]?
  

• Of the four churches involved in the St. Mary's merger/closure group, St. Mary's is, to date, the only one to lose things. We have lost our Saturday evening Mass, a day of Eucharistic Adoration (which we were willing to extend!), and other devotions on top of it. None of these losses has been necessary! Not only that, despite the number of priests, we do not have a priest available to us consistently and we have office staff forced upon us that do not do their job efficiently. This makes it difficult to even get in touch with a priest, get a Mass card, schedule baptisms, or other such simple things. We have been forced to accept staffing that our pastor himself would never accept at "his" church. Point is, ironically, we have as many if not more priests now than we have in the past. Why, then, are we losing ANYTHING?

• Although it has been pointed out to us that church attendance is down (truthfully, it fluctuates to the point that some Sundays the church is very full and others less so), it is our understanding from talking to other surrounding churches that attendance is down at all the local churches. Not down as in, "well, people just aren't religious anymore," but down as compared to a year or two ago. We can only conclude that people are not necessarily choosing to go to different churches, but not to go to church at all. The fact that the diocese not only expects this decrease, but accepts it reflected in the fact that it says to only consider 75% of a church's ordinary income going into a merger. So they expect to lose 25% due to attrition or decreased giving, both of which would reflect dissatisfaction to say the least.

Why are people leaving? Our guess is disillusionment and despair. People see what's going on, for goodness sakes. How is this helping the Church? Or souls? We at Save St. Mary's predicted this would happen, but do the diocese, Church leadership, or even local priests care? Apparently, they do not care enough to see the writing on the wall and stop merging and closing churches.

* Frankly, we have no idea if a reduction in priests is realistic or not. Right now we have more priests and fewer services. One of the three priests in Landisville is a religious order priest who is in the process of incardinating into the diocese.

"Always do right. This will gratify some people, and astonish the rest."

What are we implying  here? Certainly not that St. Mary's wants to merge. Here we are showing that our convener, Fr. Ed Namiotka, is only superficially going through the steps of the "Destroying God's Gifts" process. He has made it perfectly clear that he has no intention of actually completing the steps, but just having the meetings so it looks like he's done what the Diocese requires.

The input of the various Core Teams, who were selected by the conveners, is totally and completely dismissed by him. Namiotka dismisses any input contrary to his agenda, which seems to be to destroy our parish and "merge" us against our will. While stating that he "has no intention of closing St. Mary's" numerous times to many people, he has also threatened to close us up if we don't do what he wants us to do, which is to go along with his merger process. In fact, at our little rosary rally last night, an elderly member of our parish asked us this: "I thought he said he was not going to close St. Mary's?" We think you can probably guess what our answer to his question was.

Despite the lack of substance, and the fact that the conveners previously stated a 3-5 year timeline was likely, Namiotka has suddenly decided that he wants us merged by January 2011. Someone breathing down your neck, Fr. Ed? Let us again state here that St. Mary's has NO intention of merging.

Have a nice second vacation, relaxing on those Caribbean beaches, Fr. Ed Namiotka. Must be nice. More to come.

ITEM #	DESCRIPTION	STATUS COMMENTS
1-1	Decide who will take minutes at this meeting.	COMPLETE.
1-2	Review the overall process of merging to ensure common understanding.	COMPLETE (more or less).
1-3	Prepare a common announcement to inform parishes that the merger process is starting. Decide the date of the announcement so all parishes receive the same information at the same time.	COMPLETE.
1-4	Decide how to introduce the CORE TEAM members to the merging parishes.	Not done.
1-5	Set the date, time, and place of the next 2, 3, and 4 meetings. Rotate the locations among the merging parishes whenever possible.	Not done during Meeting 1.
1-6	Ask Pastors to complete the "Facts About the Parish" form for Meeting 4 and make the needed number of copies (see Merger Manual, Appendices: Section B, Forms)	Not done or at least never distributed.
1-7	Decide who will inform the participants of meeting 4 of the venue and whether you will have written agendas, how they will be created, distributed, and who will take minutes.	Not done - probably why Meeting 4 was a disaster.
1-8	Prepare for the Meeting 2 agenda, setting a typical format, and normal length of meetings.	Not done, but then neither was Meeting 2 agenda.
2/3-1	Orientation to the role and focus of the work of the CORE TEAM in the merger process. The focus should always be to bring the merging parishes into one, to prepare for the administration and staff of the new parish, to strengthen ministries toward greater vibrancy.	COMPLETE (more or less).
2/3-2	Decide whether there has been sufficient attention paid to the grieving process. If needed revisit and arrange for any of the six processes for Coping with Change (see Section A-6) to aid the merging parishes with grieving.	Not done.
2/3-3	Discuss and decide on some community-building events or processes which can bring the merging communities together.	Not done - discussed having event on Feb 14, but never did. Communicated some Christmas events to other parishes. "Community" Penance service - around 25 attended from all 3 parishes - almost all from Q of A.
2/3-4	At Meeting 2, distribute and discuss the information provided on the form "Facts About the Present Parish" (Appendices: Section B) completed by the pastors. Parish Profiles already completed for priests applying to be CONVENERS should also be made available.	Not done.
2/3-5	Arrange to gather information about the history, customs, and traditions of each parish.	Not done.
2/3-6	Name the values, skills, and present feelings the parishes hold in common.	Not done.
2/3-7	Brainstorm effective ways to communicate to the parishes as a whole.	Not done.
2/3-8	Prepare for Meeting 4 with the Pastoral Councils, Finance Councils.	Not done other than to set date and place.
4-1	Orientation to the merger process to ensure common understandings.	COMPLETE (more or less).
4-2	Clarification of the different leadership roles in the merger process.	COMPLETE (more or less).
4-3	Pastoral Councils members discuss their own Parish Overview Worksheets (Merger Manual, Appendices: Section B Forms) and the Financial Summaries.	Not done - at time of meeting only Q of A had been given the worksheets. Financial summaries not discussed at all - only cost of priests discussed in generic terms.
4-4	There is no meeting 4, agenda 4 item listed.	N/A
4-5	Observations and discussion areas should be reflected in the minutes.	Not done.
5-1	Decide which values and priorities need to be brought forward to the new parish based on the data gathered about each parish in the merger and the input from the Pastoral Councils and Finance Councils, Parish Profiles, history, customs, and traditions will need to be considered in accord with the Facets of a Vibrant Parish. It is important that the new parish moves toward vibrancy. Past practices of all the parishes need to be considered to see which ones should be brought forward, modified, improved, or consolidated.	Not done.
5-2	Discuss an initial outline of a plan and timeline, using the general outline of sections in the Merger Manual, to accomplish tasks in order to establish the new parish.	Not done.
5-3	Decide what committees are needed to assist their work. Be clear about their goal, the scope of their task and put that in writing. Decide on the means of selecting membership and chairpersons and how committees will report. (Short written reports are very helpful to keep CORE TEAM meetings moving).	Never discussed what committees are needed - mandated, then discussed each committee briefly.
5-4	Decide on ways to communicate with the parishioners and councils of the merging parishes (see Merger Manual, Section A, "Communicating during a Time of Change," p.7).	Not done.
5-5	Set a visit time to walk through each of the facilities of the current parishes.	Only partially done prior to Malaga having CORE TEAM members . Convener stated that he has no intention of completing.
5-6	Prepare for the Meeting 6 agenda.	Not done.
6-1	Written reports given by committee chairpersons.	Three committees presented written reports - all were very formational/preliminary.
6-2	Continue discussion regarding a draft of an overall plan. In the planning always focus on ways to bring the parish communities together, spiritually, socially, and ministerially.	Not done.
6-3	Begin to develop a comprehensive draft of a plan of how the new parish will use the existing facilities. Ultimately this plan is presented for diocesan review to ensure that it complies with both canon law and civil law.	Not even started - listed some of facilities to be considered.
6-4	Begin working with the naming process for the new parish. This is not intended to be accomplished in one session (See sample process, Merger Manual, SECTION D-7, page 51-55.)	Not even started.
6-5	Prepare for Meeting 7 agenda.	Not done.
7-1	Report on the social, liturgical, and information calendar for promoting unity among parishes.	Pushed off until September for social. No mention of liturgical or informational.
7-2	Complete the draft regarding the use of the facilities so it can be submitted for review by the Diocesan Merger Review Committee.	Not even started - committee has not met.
7-3	Report on the continuing engagement of the parish with the process of naming the parish.	Pushed back to September.
7-4	Discuss how to blend parish ministries and what methods are appropriate for each ministry and program.	Talked briefly of what will do in future, mostly related to music. No substantive discussion.
7-5	Discuss the composition and role of a staffing committee to assist the PRIEST CONVENER and CORE TEAM with the hiring of personnel for the new parish.	COMPLETE.
7-6	Prepare the Meeting 8 agenda.	Not done.

We all remember this Looney Tunes episode. Against his will, Bugs Bunny is forced into a rocket to the Moon [the crazy world that is the Diocese of Camden] where he discovers Marvin the Martian [priest "convener" or bishop, take your pick] who casually informs him that his plan, "Project Earth" ["Gathering God's Gifts"] is really to destroy the Earth [St. Mary's and other churches in the Diocese]. However, Marvin the Martian seems to be a congenial little alien, so Bugs is not immediately alarmed.

"One man's meat is another man's poison, I always say...[he walks away munching his carrot]...[delayed reaction] BLOW UP THE EARTH???!!!"

Bugs is finally lured onto the rocket (while previously he had been kicking and screaming), with a truckload of carrots. How many carrots (and sticks) have the people in the Diocese been lured with? A [Catholic] friend of ours said to us recently, "Can't fight the Church. You'll never win." Well the bottom line is this (and this is what we said to our friend): Whether the wrong comes from outside the Church or inside, it's still wrong. Evil is evil no matter who perpetrates it. No matter what the seeming chances are of "winning," the battle for all that is good and true is always worth waging.

We can't sit idly by and let these people blow up our worlds! "All the people I know are on the Earth! The nerve of this character!" We must warn others to take precautions when they are about to be destroyed. "Come in, Bugs Bunny to Earth! Urgent! Urgent!"

Enjoy the video.

In a recent bulletin,* Fr. Edward Namiotka used his bully pulpit to elaborate on his pipe dream of destroying our parish in the name of "merger." We will elaborate on his points in coming posts, but today we will begin with his desire to ensure his continued comfort.

In discussing what supposedly was accomplished at a core team meeting, he says,

During the meeting I suggested that Queen of the Angels Rectory is best suited as the future residence of priests since there are 3 suites (bedroom, sitting room, and private bath) in this building. It easily and comfortably accommodates three priests without any necessary renovations. The parish office could be located in another building.

Of course, this parish, "Queen of the Angels Parish," is where Namiotka has been located and it is the parish that he has repeatedly referred to as "my parish." (We at St. Mary's are like sheep without a shepherd other than Our Lord Himself.)


We find it interesting that in the face of devastating so many people, Namiotka is concerned primarily with his own personal "comfort." If you were to see the exterior of this rectory building in Landisville [above and below], you would probably notice that it is a rather large house to accommodate only three adults. It is certainly much larger than the homes of most people we know. Of course, we don't happen to know anyone who has a one-bathroom-per-person home.

As tends to be the trend lately, even on holy days of obligation, the sermon has turned to subjects generally unrelated to the readings. Today the sermon was used as a platform to reiterate to St. Mary's parishioners the importance of the sacred office of the priesthood. Unfortunately, having respect for the office of the priesthood, like having respect for the office of the bishop, has nothing whatsoever to do with expecting priests to do what they are supposed to do. (Namely, so far as we can tell, priests should protect the faithful, defend the Church, bring the Sacraments, lead holy lives, teach the Faith, and evangelize those who do not know Christ.)

Sadly, the "you have no respect for the priesthood" cudgel has been used too many times to speak of in order to try to shut up the lay faithful when they see wrongs being done in the name of Holy Mother Church. In our particular case, ever since we began the campaign to save St. Mary's, we have been called "disrespectful" when we disagreed with things expressed by the bishop and his priest supporters who have sought to close our church. Somehow, we are not "loving" if we disagree with a priest or the bishop. (Strangely, the reverse rationale has not applied to the laity. Apparently, no one is obligated to be "loving" and "respectful" towards us.)

We must never lose sight of the fact that priests and bishops, like the lay faithful, do not always do what is right or Christlike, even though they are "in persona Christi." In the wake of an "evangelization" meeting sponsored by the Diocese of Camden in which they seriously intend to "market Jesus," there are those of us who beg to differ with the crass commercialism and un-Catholic sentiments being expressed in these dark times.

Yes, we beg to differ. Bigger isn't necessarily better, a lie does not become true just because we keep saying it, and we cannot and should not "market Jesus." Yes, we seek to save our church and shield those in the pews (or potentially in the pews) from these offenses to Christ and His Church. If that makes us offensive to those who wield political power over us, so be it. It is not our job to please our pastor, but to defend our church and in so doing, defend The Church.

We have a good friend who grew up in another country. This country is predominantly Catholic and our friend is very devout. The interesting thing is that we agree on just about everything pertaining to the mess our Church is turning into. But our reactions are different. While I have been surprised in so many ways by the behavior of those supposedly representing the Church, my friend has not. Why? Because, she said, back in her country the vast majority of the priests were (fairly openly) corrupt. The pastor of her parish was even widely known to have fathered a child, and many priests, she said, drove expensive cars when most people could barely afford crappy ones. But she said there were some holy priests and they were easy to spot. They rode bikes.

The funniest thing she said, which I thought was at the same time very sad, was that "Americans have such high standards." After discussing what she meant by this, I learned that she meant that we Americans expect our priests to live out, well, what they're supposed to do. While we don't expect them to be perfect by any stretch of the imagination, we don't expect them to be corrupt. We Americans, she said, generally expect our priests to stand up for what is right and when they fall so far short, we are surprised.

I think that what were living through at this moment in time--between the child abuse scandals and the subsequent mass closure of Catholic churches throughout the country, as well as so many other things that have come to light--is a major American Catholic shift in attitude. Too many American Catholics, while respecting the office of the priesthood, no longer believe it possible to live a holy life as a priest. They no longer trust priests generally. As a result, there is a trickle-down effect. They no longer believe it possible to live a truly holy Catholic life as a lay person either.

We cannot let this happen. We must hold our priests and ourselves as lay Catholics to the same high standards. It is possible to live a good and holy Catholic life! We are called to obey God in all things and must not feed ourselves rationalizations of actions we know to be wrong. Things like eliminating masses, screaming at parishioners, stealing church funds, "merging" and closing churches, bearing false witness (lying) are all wrong for both priests and laity alike.

The long and short of it is this: Want to be respected as a priest in persona Christi, as a pastor who will lay down his life for his sheep? Act like one.

 But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea.

...But never you fear! The fight continues on!

What was said?

When we questioned a core team member (who, by the way, was not from Malaga) about the April 6th "core team" meeting, they stated that "priest convener" Fr. Ed Namiotka,  intends to ram through a merger no matter what anyone says. He apparently stated that, as he has done to the present, he has no intention of actually following the steps outlined in the merger manual, but only having the meetings and not actually doing what the merger manual states should be done. In this way he intends to push a merger through by January 2011, even if he has to meet "without St. Mary's core team." How can you have a "process" with "representatives" but then refuse to meet with them and listen to what they say? What's the big rush, Father? Someone breathing down your neck?

It is ironic that out of one side of his mouth he claims that this process is honest and open-ended, but in reality he intends to do precisely what he wants, even if it means just superficially glossing over the steps and forcing the merger and consequential closure of our church. For shame!

Moreover, more than once he has threatened to replace core team members if they fail to do just as he wants them to do. Yes, it's a puppet process.

St. Mary's is Unified in Opposition

St. Mary's parish has been completely unified in opposing this merger and closure since day one and has been consistent in this position. St. Mary's core team, our "representatives" according to our "convener's" own words, have consistently advocated that the "process" needs to be re-started from Step 1 since none of the steps have even been followed in the least. Our "representatives" have not been listened to but have instead been told that their "representation" of us will specifically not be listened to and that our "convener" will do what he wants to do. Some representation! What a farce!

Secrecy is the Name of the Game

Further, he has told us, the parishioners of St. Mary's, that these meetings are "closed meetings." He has previously told the core team members that what goes on at these meetings is to be kept "under the veil of secrecy" due to all the arm-twisting and intimidation that goes on there. If this "process" was truly a "representative" one, if this "process" was truly honest, there would be no secrets because there would be nothing to hide. Apparently there is plenty to hide in the Church and too many bishops and priests are well practiced at employing the "veil of secrecy" method of doing business. This veil of secrecy gives our religion a bad name.

But we all know this is not a process and St. Mary's Parish has said so since the beginning. It is a program of intimidation and the forced closure of churches. Well we at St. Mary's intend to fight this sabotage and evildoing because it is wrong. WE WILL NOT BE COMPLICIT IN THE CLOSURE OF OUR CHURCH. WE WILL FIGHT IT EVERY STEP OF THE WAY. We will continue on as we always have, functioning as a true parish family, not an artificially concocted one.

Whose Will is it these "Priest Conveners" are Doing, Anyway?

Again we say, what kind of priest goes around and closing churches? And whose will is he doing? Surely not God's, because God would never advocate lying, intimidation, secrecy, and the closure of His House. One can only wonder what such a priest hopes to obtain in the end, after doing such nefarious work.

But the Church Herself teaches that one cannot do evil in the name of good (or even in the name of some reward one hopes to obtain someday for one's obedience/complicity). Just because a bishop says, "Jump!" does not mean one should respond, "How high?" If nothing else, the fallout from the child abuse scandals should be proof enough of that. No, we must be ever-vigilant and remember that although evil will never prevail against the Church, evil can certainly penetrate.

There is only One's will to be done here and that is God's. There is no gray area. God requires our obedience to Him first and foremost, and nothing can contradict that. As St. Thomas More said, "I am the king's good servant, but God's first." In the end, before His throne, we the faithful have to answer to Him and will have to explain how we defended the Church (or didn't). Priests and bishops will also have to answer for how they defended the Church--or were instrumental in leading souls away from the Church by closing churches down.

The Semantic Game

When I first met our current pastor/priest convener, I made it clear to him that, "You won't have an easy time closing us, Father." Looking startled, he responded, "I'm not here to close the church." I looked right at him and I said, "Good. Glad to hear that." Needless to say, I intend to hold him to his word. Though I fully realize that to him it's probably merely a game of semantics, that he feels that somehow he's not technically "here" to "close" the church but only to "merge" it and attend to our spiritual needs (although he's shown his intense dislike of us so many times since he first arrived that it seems that's just as much his role). Others at St. Mary's have likened this "I'm not here to close the church" response to going to the movies and using the restroom facilities. We did not go to the movies specifically to use the restroom, we just happened to do that while we were there.

Anyway, we all know what happens at the end of "merger." The people of St. John Vianney and other parishes can attest to that outcome and to the many lies they were fed in the "process." Therefore we must be so careful to listen to what is being said and not said, sift through the verbiage, and figure out what is really happening. We must be careful that we ourselves do not fall into the devil's trap of lies and semantic games. God doesn't want us to play fast and loose with semantics. The Lord Himself said, "But let your speech be yea, yea: no, no,"* We should be direct and truthful with our words, and our lives ought to follow suit.

In any case, at St. Mary's, we're not stupid. We will clearly see if he was telling the truth over a year ago. What's he really here to do? So far as we can tell, he's a convener, and as a convener he's agreed (not been forced, but has agreed) to try to "convene" (force the merger of) four churches. But what's the carrot? Time will tell.

I personally have always believed Fr. Namiotka's here to try to shut us down, and every action has been to that end. If that is the case, and that seems to be what he came right out and said at the core team meeting the other night, then we have different interests a heart and have chosen up sides. Everyday when we wake up in the morning we choose--will we do God's will today or someone else's?

* Matthew 5:37, James 5:12 

Please excuse this rough video! (Scroll all the way down.) I just happened to have our little (old!) camera on me that only takes up to about two minutes of video, so it is not high quality and even cut off most of the video. But my point was this. Our churches are not only sacred places for lofty spiritual and theological reasons, but also serve very practical purposes. How?

Historically, most people have not been literate. They were not able to read about the lives of the saints or Church teachings. They did not own Bibles. Even long after the invention of the printing press, books were hugely expensive. There was no CCD. So how did they learn about their Faith?

One of the ways was by simply going to church and seeing the statues, the stained glass, the paintings. My kids learn the Faith the same way people have for centuries; by looking at the stained glass windows, stations of the cross, and statues in our church. And he does it on his own because he loves it. If I did not utter a word about the Faith but only just took them to church, they would still learn an awful lot.

At St. Mary's, my kids feel safe. They feel surrounded not just by the care of the community they know, but by the love of the angels and saints and God Himself, all of whom so tangibly surround them.

In short, my children would be nothing less than devastated if their church was unjustly stolen from them. Our Lord said in Matthew 18:6,*

But he that shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in the depth of the sea.

Those responsible for merging and closing St. Mary's (and we believe it will not come to that) will have the wrath of the mothers with which to deal because they are not the ones who will have to pick up the pieces for the devastated children.

This American Life Episode 404

• Honestly, unfortunately it's easy to deal with because these people never go to church again. These people see the priest as representing God...so they just disappear, honestly.

• We need to protect the sheep and not the shepherd.

The piece the show gets wrong is their assumption at one point that the interviewee was fighting the Church. It seems that he was not; rather, it seems that he was fighting for the Church.

Springtime is picketnic time at St. Mary's.  Since the "merger" is being rammed down our throats without even following the diocese's own "merger manual," we decided it was time to dust off those old picket signs, and even make a few new ones.  

           

Forty-five people turned out for the rally, which included a picnic.

            

We had just finished eating as the core team members started arriving, including Kathie Ramos (pictured on left), from St. Mary's, and Kathy Valla (pictured on right), from St. Rose of Lima.  

            

Finally, Fr. Ed arrived, driven by Buena core team member Kitty Finn.  Fellow Buena core team member May Vassallo is seen in the back seat.

                                       

Fr. Ed started to get out of the car, but decided to flee the scene instead, shouting from the car to the other core team members that the meeting would be moved to Newfield.

Luckily, our new banner is lightweight and easily portable.  It can go anywhere - Newfield, Buena, or even Sacred Heart High School.

                                        

Here is a slideshow of Easter 2010 at St. Mary's. Unfortunately we did not have the opportunity to get many pictures during Holy Week, so our apologies for that. These are photos of the 8:30 AM mass and the Easter egg hunt that followed. Mass was packed, as usual, and the egg hunt was well attended.

As we were looking at the pictures, it occurred to us that what makes St. Mary's different from some other churches is that most of what we do, we do ourselves out of love for God and our c/Church. For example, each of those eggs was filled by the people of the parish, the tulips and daffodils and other plants were planted by the people of the parish, the Rosary Garden was weeded by people from the parish. Our organist and music director and piano lesson man (!) is a volunteer from the parish. Our choir sings for love of God and not for money. The church basement was decorated beautifully for the Easter party by people from the parish and the church itself was decorated by people from the parish.

So no, we don't necessarily hire people to do these things, and we aren't the fanciest church in the world. But we like it that way. When we go to church, it gives us a special sense of being loved and cared for because people at St. Mary's do these things from the bottoms of their hearts. We will not just throw this away because the Diocese wants to have everything bigger, slicker, and fancier. We are a family.

We would like to give a special appreciation to Jim Wilson and the choir for their absolutely beautiful singing at mass, and particularly for the Panis Angelicus. Fr. Bernard Gannon celebrated the 8:30 AM mass and we are, of course, always so happy to see him.


Created with flickr slideshow.

I held onto this from back on Jan. 17th. It was from the first reading in the [novus ordo] mass, from Isaiah 62:1 (This link is to the Douay-Rheims translation.)

For Zion's sake,  will not be silent,
for Jerusalem's sake I will not be quiet,
until her vindication shines forth like the dawn
and her victory like a burning torch.

Interestingly, if you read further down, you see allusions made by the great prophet to the bride and the bridegroom. The bride is the Church that was to come, and the bridegroom Jesus Christ, the Savior who was to come. Jerusalem, however, is also representative of the Church, which is the holy ones, the holy land, for whom the Lord Himself would make even the impossible possible. The Church, of course, is composed of churches composed of the faithful, without which there is no outward manifestation of the Church here on earth. From the Douay-Rheims:

Upon thy wails, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen all the day, and all the night, they shall never hold their peace. You that are mindful of the Lord, hold not your peace, And give him no silence till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. (62:6-7)

Who are those watchmen? Surely we have been given the Scriptures not just to ponder on the events of thousands of years ago, but because they apply to us today. So what watchmen has God appointed? The watchmen are every baptized and confirmed member of the Church who by virtue of these sacraments has vowed to protect Her. The long history of the Church has demonstrated that attacks come commonly not just from without, but from within, and sadly even from the highest places. Our day is certainly no exception.

Therefore, as citizens of Jerusalem the holy city, we are to "prepare the way for the people, make the road plain, pick out the stones, and lift up the standard to the people" (62:10). We, the Church, are "a city sought after, and not forsaken" (62:12).

We have had lots of reasons, all of which we have previously debunked, (including the priest shortage lie,*) thrown at us as rationale for the merger/closer of our church. One of them is that, at approximately 250 families, we have no right to exist because we are simply too small a parish to justify.

Partly because my (Julie's) husband is not Catholic, my [largely evangelical protestant] workplace, extended family, and other acquaintances, we happen to know a lot of non-Catholic Christians. We also happen to have fairly frequent houseguests from all over the country because my husband's denomination is so small and geographically disparate, they often travel just to get together or for meetings. Currently we have a twenty-something couple, recently married, staying with us. They are both originally from the midwest but they are currently living in Washington, D.C. They both grew up in protestant churches, she the daughter of a pastor.

When the subject of, "and where do you attend?" comes up, the church closure fiasco inevitably arises. In the past our "priest convener" has said something to the effect of, "what must the protestants think of your not going along with your bishop?" It has always struck me as strange that anyone would think that protestants would not be sympathetic to our plight because they always seem to be. But why are they sympathetic?

Based on my conversations, I would some it up with a couple of pretty simple reasons, really. One, they understand that right is right and wrong is wrong, no matter who happens to espouse the view. Second, in their enthusiasm for growing the church, they understand that closing a church flies in the face of the propagation of the Gospel. Next, they understand that corruption causes more corruption and that it is all too common in all Christian circles for the everyday people in the pew to suffer as a result. But most of all, they are baffled by the following, which is far less abstract, and usually elicit a reply to this effect:

"Two hundred fifty families? That is considered small?" Apparently, by just about any protestant denomination's standards, a congregation anywhere near this size would be considered a great success. Last night was not the first time I have witnessed this reaction. Almost every single time the subject comes up, we are asked how large St. Mary's is. Our houseguest's (the daughter of the pastor) church back in Ohio has "no more than 200 people, probably less," and his in Kansas is even smaller. To have even fifty people in attendance over the course of a weekend would be just great to them. And if you buy into the priest shortage argument is legitimate, you should see the dearth of prospective pastors in their denomination, so this reaction is not due to their great abundance of ministerial candidates. And they should know. He (the one from Kansas) works for one of their denomination's few seminaries.

To top it all off, this apparent preference of so many priests and bishops for "bigger and better" flies in the face of contemporary trends, although they don't seem to recognize that. In their effort to be more protestant and less distinctively Catholic, they are missing the boat entirely. In this day and age of the house church movement, intentionally small Christian churches, and a movement away from the megachurch model, we are witnessng a yearning for the authentic on the part of younger generations in particular and the desire for true community. They also do not seem to be noticing the fact that there are many young protestants who are embracing distinctively Catholic practices without even knowing it,** while so many Catholic leaders seem to want to purge Catholicism of those annoying little things that they think separate us from the protestants.

Meanwhile, our protestant friends are mystified by the desire of someone charged with spreading the gospel to close a church, much less dozens of them. He (the one from Kansas) said, "That is terrible from an evangelism point of view." He took the words right out of my mouth. "Yeah," I said. "One thing I'm pretty sure of is that Christ did not say, "Go, therefore, and consolidate." They laughed and nodded. "My worry," I said, "is that what is currently happening is that so many people are so disgusted with the whole thing that they are leaving not just the Church, but any church, because they figure the gig is up and it's all a bunch of crap. Hundreds of souls will be lost." He nodded in agreement. "Yeah, that's definitely true."

Over a card game last night they asked, "Where would you go?" because they understand how important and irreplaceable a tight knit community is. Without my having to explain anything, they already know that it is not so easy to just jump from one church to another, as if where one worshiped was completely unimportant. (After about a year, they themselves are still looking for a place to worship in the D.C. area and have started a small house church out of their home that meets monthly.) "I don't know what will happen," I answered. "But I do know this. We've got to fight with everything we've got."


* You can search our site for articles regarding the stats on priests per capita in our diocese over time, as well as information on the removal of priests by the dozen, their forcible retirement, and the refusal of the current diocesan administration to allow in priests from the FSSP (headed out of Nebraska but located throughout the country) or religious orders abroad.

** Search the internet if you want, but everything from the use of incense, candles, liturgy of the hours, lectio divina, "the new monasticism," and even praying the rosary are becoming wildly popular among many young, evangelical protestants (one of our houseguests included, to my great surprise...apparently he thinks some of these things are "Episcopalian" in origin).

Make no mistake about it. St. Mary's parishioners continue to resist the merger and subsequent closure of their church. Why? Because merger is closure and we as a parish have a right to exist and to worship in peace.

Let us be clear: If our "convener" thinks that he is going to merge St. Mary's without significant inconvenience, he is mistaken. We are not like the frog in lukewarm water that is slowly boiled by turning up the heat just a little each time. We are not that stupid.

It has been argued that in order to somehow "prove" that we are all good little Catholics, we must "cooperate" by worshiping at the other churches in our "merger group." Well many St. Mary's parishioners do in fact  worship elsewhere from time to time or even regularly: St. Martin's or St. Anthony's in Hammonton, Mater Ecclesiae in Berlin, Sacred Heart or St. Isidore in Vineland, or even Mater Dei Nursing Home to name just a few. We recognize that the Catholic Church is, by definition, universal.

However, the agenda of the convener (and those pressuring him) is to get St. Mary's to merge with other churches and to eventually close. Therefore worshiping at these locations potentially undermines the cause of St. Mary's autonomy and right to existence. This would be nothing less than false unity: a unity at the expense of Truth and Justice, a unity at the expense of the continuation of the Faith, a unity at the expense of the existence of a parish, and a unity that tramples on the God-given right of the Catholic people to worship in a church they built and maintained without incident for over 80 years. This is not unity at all, but instead the unnecessary destruction of unity and of a true community of Faith.

For that reason, if necessary, it would be better to attend any services at any other Catholic church than those in our "merger group" or even to worship privately in the home on days that are not holy days of obligation. Furthermore, if we at St. Mary's have no desire to merge with these other churches, (and as we understand the sentiment is mutual,) we should not be forced to.

We are one Catholic community throughout the world, but that does not mean we should consolidate into fewer and fewer Catholic churches. May God have mercy on those in our diocese responsible for the persecution of the Church. They will one day have to answer for their actions and for the loss of souls that results.

(As a side note, it was stated in St. Mary's bulletin this week that small children should not attend the Easter Vigil. The Easter Vigil Mass, long as it may be, is intended for everyone, even "restless little children." How dare anyone state that a member of the Body of Christ should not be welcome at mass. For shame! How anti-family and anti-life to imply that only certain people are worthy to attend mass. What about those with disabilities or those who have conditions requiring them to move or occasionally make an utterance? Lord have mercy! What are we coming to? The mass is for all people and it is not always necessary to be able to hear a pin drop.)