Back by popular demand, this was originally published Dec. 23, 2008. Apparently our "dark humor" is appreciated. It is sad that the American Catholic Church has come to this.

Twas the night before merger, when all through the church,

There were lists of new ministries for all to search.

The coffee mugs were hung by the cappuccino bar with care,

In the hopes that the barrista soon would be there.

 

Most parishioners were nestled all snug in their beds,

And visions of mocha lattes danced in their heads,

And Mama in the labyrinth and I with guitar,

Were amazed the Spirit of Vatican II had come so far.

 

When out in the coffee bar there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from my "pew" chair to see what was the matter.

Away to the "community gathering area" I flew like a flash,

Tore through the spiritual dance practice area and fell into the full-immersion baptismal tub with a splash.

 

Whipped cream on the top of the freshly brewed jo,

Gave rise to a grumbling in my tummy below.

When what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But a hungry bishop with a New Age liberal agenda near!

 

With a bright shiny plan so vibrant and new,

I knew all our stodgy, old fashioned ways were through.

More rapid than eagles his closures they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:

 

"Bye, St. Mary's! Bye, St. Anthony's! Bye, St. Gregory's and Holy Name!

"Bye, St. Jude's! Bye, St. Ann's! Bye St. Maurice, and St. James!

"From the top of the steeple to the floor of the hall,

"Now sell away! Trash away! Smash away all!"

 

As Wawas with crosses point up to the sky

When they meet at the Chancery, everything is a lie.

So out to the parishes the vultures they flew

With all the Conveners and Womonpriest Vollmer, too.

 

And then, at the door, I noticed a sulferous smell,

I looked up to see the director of priest personnel.

As I drew in my head, and was turning around,

His lackeys pushed the man next to me down to the ground. 

 

Another was dressed all in black, from his head to his feet,

The prettiest priest I ever did meet.

With shoes so shiny, every time he looked

He saw himself shining back and he was quickly hooked.

 

His eyes, how they twinkled! His teeth, how white!

His cheeks were like roses, his abs really tight!

If he worked really hard and kept his nose clean

He would surely climb to the top of the corporate machine.

 

But Terry Odien and Peter Joyce, they did not come alone,

With them was the man who sits on the Cathedral throne.

He had a mean face and a round belly crossed with a chain

That shook when he bellowed like a bowl of chow mein.

 

Bishop was chubby and plump, a right grumpy old elf,

And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself!

But the magnitude of his ego (the size of his head),

Soon gave me to know I had everything to dread.

 

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

And emptied the bank accounts, then turned with a smirk.

And laying his fingers on everything he saw,

"To Follieri," he said, "I will sell it ALL!"

 

He climbed up in his minivan, to his deacon gave a whistle,

They smiled at each other, which caused me to bristle.

And I heard him exclaim as they drove out of sight,

"For some change is difficult, but for me a delight!"

 

My parents were married at Sacred Heart Church in Vineland, the church my ancestors helped to build (both the original Sacred Heart as well as the "new" Sacred Heart, that is). My grandmother's side was from St. Mary's Malaga northern Italian "cousin," the East Vineland St. Mary's. (Apparently, they  used virtually identical blueprints for both St. Mary's churches.) Anyway, my mother went all through Sacred Heart grade school and high school way back when it was...well, back when there were habited religious sisters teaching there.

My mom died back in 2000 just after she turned 50 following a long, long, long battle with cancer, and my father has recently remarried. He let me borrow the wedding album awhile back to scan in these pictures of their wedding day. As you can see, they were clearly awesome! This was back in 1974, the height of blue eyeshadow, side burns, chunky heels, and general awesomeness all around.

On a serious note, it is nothing short of a complete and utter travesty that the bishop wants this beautiful church, every bit as beautiful and comparable in size as the cathedral in Camden, closed. It is totally unnecessary. This is the sort of thing that devastates people and drives them from the Faith in complete disgust, mistrust, disbelief. But hey, I guess it looks too...Catholic. Time to make way for the generic McMegachurch. Change the mass, change the church, change the religion. And hey, St. Isidore's has got plenty of land behind it...

On Friday November 20th, I attended one (of two) days of the "Lifelong Faith Formation" seminar/workshop/conference/whatever. It was held at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Absecon. Honestly I had no idea what to expect in terms of particulars, but my expectations were fairly low. (This way I could be pleasantly surprised.) I hoped to come from the day with a few ideas for our parish pertaining to RCIA or adult religious education, and maybe some curricula to flip through. Well, I really didn't get either of these. As it turns out, the seminar was mainly intended to help parishes implement a specific "faith formation" program. It was largely an "insert Tab A into Slot B" type of thing, with some options to make the program suit your own "community," but it was definitely a program. And yes, it was alarming, but I'll talk more about the program generally in the future.

Below are some comments from readers of the Gloucester City News (Cleary's Notebook) entry referred to in the previous post:

my son is in St Mary's(GC) and when Annunciation closed 3 boys came over to our school and a few more to surrounding catholic schools; but most went to the public schools.The Bishop may be a good man; but he is making a horrible mistake and this will go down in history as one of the churches biggest mistakes.
He is capable of making mistakes just like the Bishops did with moving or hiding the priest who molested the children

Posted by: | February 19, 2009 at 06:32 AM

It's refreshing to see a Priest with the integrity to stand up for what is right. It's quite depressing to watch a bishop indulge his greedy desires, supposedly in the name of God, and to watch so many Priests stand by silently for fear of retribution. I understand that our Holy Priests have so much to lose if they stand up for what is right, but where is their faith that God will reward them? Thank you, Father Romanowski, for being a true servant of God.

Posted by: suzanne p. | February 18, 2009 at 04:11 PM

I fully support the Bishop. He is a man of great piety, who has taken on a task that has to be done. The personal attacks upon him are a poor reflection of our faith to the rest of the people of South Jersey. Fr. Romanowski made a promise of obedience upon his ordination. I hope he keeps his promise. I hope the people of St. Mary's in Malaga can mourn their loss and move on. The people of your neighboring parishes will welcome you. You may be surprised at the experience of becoming a new parish with these neighbors of yours. They also love Jesus, the Mass, rosary and all of those other elements of our faith. Easter followed Good Friday, even for those who doubted.

Posted by: Tom Jennings | February 16, 2009 at 10:49 AM

I totally agree, i think any bishop that spends his time trying to close churches is nothing but true evil, with so -so many things going on in the world and this is the best project or issue that he can come up with to do, are you kidding me!!!! bishop you should be a shamed of yourself, so many more things in this world that you could be doing to make it a better place , but what do you do, you aqre all for yourself , i can not believe that you are doing what you are doing why? why? why can you not be a true man of god and say why you are trying to close such beautiful parishes? just once step down from your high (*whatever you call yourself) and please really tell us all why you are doing this?????????? do you know that you are taking away beautiful things you are making no sense, do good not evil try, just be a good man and admit that you are making a terrible mistake, it truly takes a true man of god to admit anything you do wrong, we would truly respect you and understand you if you would just try to make some sense and leave the church alone, question ???? DO YOU HAVE NO FAITH? DO YOU KNOW THAT THE CHURCHeS ALWAYS PROVIDE? THEIR HAD ALWAYS BEEN PRIEST , JESUS HAD 12 MEN, HE COULD HAD THOUSANDS, MILLIONS WHY????? YOU THINK BIGGER IS BETTER??? TELL ME WHY DO YOU THINK PARENTS PUT THEIR CHILDREN IN PRIVATE OR CATHOLIC SCHOOLS ??? BECAUSE OF THE RATIO, AMOUNT THE SIZE, I LOVE A PARISH AND A SCHOOL THAT HAS ONLY A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF PEOPLE OR STUDENTS THIS IS FAMILY WAYS, YOU PICTURE THIS***** GREAT BIG CHURCH WITH THOuSAND OR MORE PEOPLE PEAS IN PODS YOU COME IN WOW LOTS OF PEOPLE BIGGER BASKETS WITH MONEY OVER FLOWING HMMMMMM I KNOW FAMILY LOVE FAMILY SETTINGS YOU ARE TRULY MASKING THE BIGGEST MISTAKE FOR THE CATHOLIC FAMILIES MAY GOD HELP YOU BISHOP GALANTE I WOULD NEVER WANT TO BE IN YOUR SHOES YOU ARE TRULY NO ROLE MODEL FOR MY CHILDREN NOT IN A MILLION YEARS YOU ARE DESTROYING THE CATHOLIC FAMILY, THING AND JUST THINK PLEASE FOR THE CATHOLIC FAITH LEAve all the ALL THE BEAUTIFUL PARISHES ALONE THAT HAS BEEN THERE FOR YEARS AND WILL ALWAYS STAND STRONG, SPEAKING WORDS OF WISDOM LET IT BE!!!!!!!!!!!

Posted by: j zeilman | February 16, 2009 at 01:52 AM

I have to agree Galante is destorying the church in South Jersey. He is nothing more then a pawn. There were so many better qualified bishops then he was. I cant wait to the church recieves a new bishop in this diocese. At St. Mary's he transfers the incompetant associate pastor that we had and made him a pastor somewhere and has left Monsignor to tend to the parish all by himself. Monsignor would never complain but lets get real the guy almost died a few years ago and the bishop still has not appointed a new associate pastor. Galante's a joke, I wish you could recall bishops like you can politicians.

Posted by: Galante Is On The Titantic And He Should Go Down With It | February 15, 2009 at 06:44 PM

This is the first piece in a new category called "Following the Money Trail."  Over the coming weeks, we will be taking a detailed look at various financial transactions of the diocese and key players in the diocese.  I'm sure you'll find the results very interesting.

Let's start with the diocese's purchase of a new "Convent" at 425 Langley Road in Pittsgrove.  Tax records show the property was purchased in July 2008 for $800,000.  Since it's so close to us, we snapped a few pictures so you could see this humble convent for yourself.

 The description from its listing reads:

Enticingly Elegant is this lavish 5-6BR, 11+ ac. Country estate of ¨White Fence Farms¨ Cust. blt. Cape. Home incl grand entr Foyer, Liv/GreRm w/FP, DR, sensa. kit, GameR w/Wet Bar, & SunR! Full walk out bsmnt onto fab grou. incl. circ dvwy w/fount., 3 car att./2 car det. gar, rear patio, 6+ stall barn, 3 run in sheds! Call today!...

 

 

If you're thinking, "That doesn't look like a convent to me" or "If I'd known, I would have taken a vow of poverty too," you're not alone.  It's certainly anything but humble living.  The fact that it's financed by the donations of people who work just as hard as or harder than the mystery nuns who will occupy it, and could never afford such a lavish lifestyle, is a scandal.  So much for the often quoted "option for the poor" the diocese uses as a justification for funneling money to Camden and away from our own parishes and schools.  Also, the disparity between the way the nuns from St. Jude's were treated by the diocese and the way these mystery nuns are being treated is bewildering.  We'll follow up on that later. 

Of course the real irony is that the two closest churches to this property, St. Ann's in Elmer and St. Mary's in Malaga, are supposed to close in the near future.  If both churches were sold, the revenue generated would probably not exceed the amount spent on this "convent."  Ask yourself, what would Jesus do?  If your answer is close two churches and replace them with an "enticingly elegant" convent that will house a maximum of six nuns in complete luxury, then you probably went to the same school of Catholicism as Galante, Vollmer, McGrath and Peter "My Shoes Are So Shiny, I Can See My Reflection in Them" Joyce.   

Of course, while we were taking pictures, we noticed this sign on the ground.  After all, what's a diocesan real estate debacle without Budd Realty?  In this case, the McIlvaines appear to be the listing agent as well as the exclusive real estate consultant for the diocese.  Double bonus super deal! 

As an aside, when Follieri resold the Bishop's former condo, guess who the listing agent was?  Yup, Budd Realty, all the way from Woodbury to North Wildwood.

Anyway, back to the main topic.  So who is the Diocese so generously spending our donation dollars on?  (We are not aware of any  orders of equestrian nuns.)  Well, it looks like we'll find out soon enough! The home sat empty for awhile, but Raymour & Flanigan delivered furniture last week, and heating/cooling workers were there earlier this week. So we'll let you know just as soon as our new neighbors move in.

The Nicene Creed states that whoever wishes to be saved must, above all,  keep the Catholic faith. For unless a person keeps this faith, whole and entire, he will undoubtedly be lost forever. The Church teaches that God is the final judge of a person's salvation. Since the Lord gave St. Peter the keys of the kingdom, the power to bind and to loose, then we must obey the teachings of the Church. In order to do so, every person must be steeped in the teaching of the Church. We must never back off, deny, or water down the keeping of the Commandments as the Church interprets them.

The Catholic Church teaches that people may come together as a parish and have available a church whereby they can worship God in the proper way through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The effective way this happens is through stability of that group and that structure. Primarily, souls are saved by this action of the Mass with the priest as the leader of the sacrifice because of his sacramental gift he receives in the Holy Orders. The worship is strengthened by the Sacrament of Penance and a strong devotional life. When someone attacks this primary duty to worship properly, that person must be opposed, be he bishop or governor.

True Catholics always face this dilemma: to play it safe and risk the salvation of souls or to profess and defend the true Faith and church at the risk of our very lives. This is exactly what the Catholic Church teaches. When we confront a person who has a false concept of autonomy--which means he professes to believe he is the last word on everything that the Savior and thus the Church teaches--we justly and righteously protest that false pretense of power because that person is not teaching the Truth. Autonomy belongs to God alone and anyone who tries to usurp God's domain is offending against the First Commandment and it is a sin that has consequences in every part of man's existence.

When we see a place like St. Mary's giving honor and glory to God, resisting and refuting every every temptation to give into the popular and false type of living, we can never give in. It is the Holy Spirit through the intercession of the Blessed Mother, St. Joseph and all the angels and saints who sustain us. St. Paul to the Ephesians and the Malagans:

So stand your ground with truth buckled around your waist, and integrity for a breastplate, wearing for shoes on your feet eagerness to spread the gospel of peace and always carrying the shield of faith so that you can use it to put out the burning arrows of the evil one. (Ephesians 6:14-16)

More to come on thie subject of highest importance.

Praise be Jesus Christ!
Now and Forever.

Fr. Jerome Charles Romanowski

Bishop Galante, be advised: If you should choose to keep up this unholy battle to close the shrine parish of St. Mary's Malaga, you will have a tremendous uphill battle ahead of you. We will fight you all the way to Rome if that's what it takes. The pressure will not cease, it will only increase. We will use canon law and civil law to protect what is holy and True.

Warning: Plainspoken Julie below. Feel free to add you two cents about this evening!

Tonight, Bishop Joseph Galante visited our little church. It was packed to overflowing and people picketed out in the street. It was an impressive turnout, to say the least. Interestingly, Bishop Galante brought a whole cavalcade of people along with him, including Roberta Small and "Sister" Marilyn vollmer, commonly known around the diocesan offices and beyond as "the other bishop." (He brought her along with him from Texas when he came to NJ.) You'd never know she was a "religious." He also brought along Fr. Carmen Carlone, pastor of St. Joe's in Hammonton.

As an aside, I joined St. Joe's awhile ago even though I never, ever attend (except once a year for the Feast of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, and that's about all I can stand). I joined hoping that I might be able to request "as a parishioner," that they offer Eucharistic adoration there. While I'm no longer a member there (and was in name only--the "liturgies" there were that appalling), when I attended the "welcome to the parish" event "Father" Carmen sported a salmon pink tank top, capris, and leather thong sandals. He's a real character. I have never seen him in a collar, actually, until tonight. He must've had that suit specially dusted off and pressed for the occasion. He looked good. But I digress.

The bishop and Msgr. Joyce, the slick moderator with the shiny shoes, gave us "one hour and ten minutes," with 2 minutes per person, to say our piece. Lots of incredible things were said, I couldn't even hope to repeat them all here. There was so much courage and conviction in the room, and lots of applause for points well-made. If the bishop got nothing else from our meeting, he must know this: that we are not, I repeat NOT going to give up until we obtain victory not just for St. Mary's, but for Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament who must be so outraged and offended by the actions of this bishop.

Friends of St. Mary's, let the Blessed Sacrament be at the very center of our struggle. So many tonight spoke to the bishop about their love of the Blessed Sacrament. Several children spoke about their experiences at Eucharistic adoration, and one girl who looked to be about ten said that she'd gone to adoration at 3AM this past night for the sake of our church, and walked off in tears. One little boy of about eight told the bishop he wanted to be a priest at St. Mary's! One man, who does not drive, takes the bus all the way from Margate to attend St.Mary's and to go to adoration there. How inspiring. And he wasn't the only one. Person after person stood up and said how far they go to get to St. Mary's and how they pass this church and that one because what St. Mary's has is truly special. And yet to the bishop, the level of commitment and love for the Lord that exists at St. Mary's is simply not "vibrant" enough.

I myself witnessed to the bishop of the heresy preached on the website of the parish of St. John the Evangelist, the millionaire South Florida church he holds up as the model he believes South Jersey churches should become. At St. John the Evangelist, they believe that the bread and wine remain after the consecration as the Lutherans do and as the Council of Trent condemned. That's called consubstantiation. It's heresy. He just sat there smugly and shook his head at me. But I spoke the truth, and he knows it. The truth cannot and must not be hidden!

One wonderful woman spoke with such conviction about the fact that clearly, this whole thing must be about money, and that we must withhold our money from the diocese if they won't listen to us. They're our churches, we've paid for them, and they want to take them away from us anyway. I completely agree with her--I will not give a dime until St. Mary's is safe.

The bishop admitted that the "community church" model of megachurch that attracts many people--you know, that lukewarm, happy clappy, superficial religion--should be what we model our future churches on. Boy does he have it all wrong. He thinks Catholics are going over to the evangelicals because they want to be entertained. He's wrong. They are seeking out truth and not hypocrisy. I question whether they find it there in those sorts of churches, of course, but I understand what they're looking for. Bishop Galante expressed that he thinks "young people" want a paid youth minister and all sorts of services and "ministries"--all the "ministry" money can buy. He's wrong. The bishop couldn't be more wrong. Youth want the Truth, pure and simple. They want to be real Catholics, not sugar-coated, watered-down ones. And if they can't be that or do not know how to be that, they're going to leave. More of the same old crap that they've been feeding us over the past 40 years isn't going to make the situation better, it's going to make it worse. Non-practicing Catholics (including a sibling of mine) are completely disgusted by this whole situation. Closing the churches that are their last remaining physical connections to the Catholic faith will only distance them further.

When Bishop Galante had the opportunity to speak at the end (and some of the points he made I've mentioned above), he was extremely unconvincing. It was really just the same stuff he's been saying for months, so no surprises there. However, he may have been surprised by our allergic reaction to his remarks and the continual interjections from the peanut gallery (myself included, I was very hot under the collar). His rationale is completely nonsensical and we all saw through it tonight. It was wonderful that he impressed, convinced, or persuaded no one. We were truly united as a community, a thing Galante supposedly seeks to encourage--by tearing down our churches and building up artificial communities. He came in knowing he had his own plans and that he would not truly listen to us. The whole thing was for show, really, just to pretend he actually cares, just like the "speak up sessions." None of us fell for it.

In a nutshell, Bishop Galante is still claiming there will be a priest shortage, that Catholics are not attending mass, that churches need to be open seven days a week, "vibrant" liturgies need to happen everywhere (whatever the hell that means--I guess holy, Catholic liturgies are less important), that we need to have peppier music, and that outreach is centrally important. Of course, all of us sitting in the pews, in answer to every point he made about how the churches need to change, said, "we ARE doing that." St. Mary's is open all the time. It is "vibrant" liturgically, it does do outreach (but in a personal rather than a "slick" sort of way), and does have authentic, Catholic music.

The bishop also stood up and shamefully lied about several things, such as the financial motivation. He said that the assets of a parish, once merged, remain within the new entity. He failed to mentioned all the money grabbing that would occur after the "merge" (closure) and his power to control said assets. He failed to address several questions posed by the parishioners, including one very important one posed by Leah Vassallo, which was, basically, "What could St. Mary's do to demonstrate its 'vibrancy' to you, Bishop? Do you even think it's possible for a small church community of about 250 families, such as ours, to be vibrant?" After the bishop finished speaking (after having been interrupted numerous times by the faithful in the pews), Leah demanded he answer her question, and he completely ignored her. But in a way, I think he did answer her question. He talked about nothing but numbers and "big" churches, paid ministries, and bringing in masses of people. (Of course, when you close all these churches the megachurches will have to be large and bustling--they'll be the only places left to go! May God spare us that abomination!) While he conceded that even large churches could fail to be vibrant, the definite implication was that this was an exception. Big=vibrant to the bishop.

Bishop Galante was also confronted about his use of the name "Wawa" to refer to our little churches. Wonderfully, the speaker, our cameraman and a self-identified "Catholic in name only" and "doubting Thomas," said that Wawa was so successful because "there's one on every corner" and you can easily find them! Also, you always know you can get good food there and good service. Haha! What a wonderful point. Perhaps we should claim the term "Wawa church." As in, "My church is a Wawa church! You can find St. Mary's always open on the corner of 40 & 47!"

Finally I ought to mention that Bishop Galante stated that he could have come to this diocese and had an easy last few years before retirement, to which all of us applauded and said, "Why don't you?!" He was not happy with this remark and several times over admonished us to act as Christians. Last time I checked, it's our job as Christians to stand up and tell the truth. "Nicey-nice" ain't synonymous with Christian. But again, I digress. Anyway, the bishop said his "conscience wouldn't allow him" to keep things as they are, the "status quo" as he calls it.

As the days go on, Friends of St. Mary's, I am increasingly convicted. I know that we are doing the right thing, that God is on our side, and that we are doing His will. And the more unsavory information I learn of the bishop and his past, the more I realize that something unholy is afoot. We must continue to pray for the bishop, for nothing is impossible with God, and for the priests of our diocese. And let us keep working to save A Light in the Diocese: St. Mary's!

(PS: My four-year-old son Theo would like to add, "St. Mary's is a special church." He typed that himself.)





Friends of St. Mary's Malaga: Please email me, call me, comment here, or send letters detailing your experiences of this evening and opinion of the bishop's scheme. Feel free to comment below.