Category Archives: Mater Dolorosa

What Church Really Is – A Consecrated Building But, Most Importantly, Consecrated People!

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joachims closed copy

This post was written by Gregory Minetola, a member of St. Joachim Parish and Keep the Faith in Frankford!

Recently, Joe Taylor and I had a meeting with Fr. Higgins, Pastor of Holy Innocents and Dean of Deanery 12, Lower Northeast Philadelphia, and Joe Paesani, Business Manager. I would not want to comment on the specifics yet I will tell you that it was an open dialogue full of passion and principles on both sides. As I have reflected and prayed on that meeting, a few ideas keep playing in my mind.

The first thing that I have not be able to get past is the idea that they really think there is a Catholic Church in Frankford. When I made the statement there is not a Catholic Church in Frankford I was looked at in disbelief. Joe Paesani stated, “There is a Catholic Church in Frankford, it’s Holy Innocents.” Yes, Holy Innocents does share part of the 19124 zip code yet, we, in Philadelphia, are strongly defined by our neighborhoods. Not only is it where we live, it is where we have loyalty. Some, especially Archbishop Chaput do not understand that because, especially, in his case since he has been in Philadelphia he knows the stats but really doesn’t know his people or the connections we, as Philadelphians, have. In a lecture at St Charles Seminary in Oct 2013 during the Q&A at the end of the lecture he alluded to the fact that Philadelphians often introduce themselves by which parish they are in. He stated no where else do they do this. That is right! We are deeply connected to our neighborhood and the parishes in them. There is a disconnect with our Archbishop. If you look at his public calendar he is very often somewhere else in the country or in the Frankford mapworld other than truly leading his flock. If he was here long enough to learn about our neighborhoods he would learn that Juniata is 1.025 sq miles with 23,000 people to Frankford’s 2.6 sq miles with 56,000 people. The question arises, How can one parish serve so much area effectively and with no one falling through the cracks?

It was interesting on their understanding of why we have an active appeal. They think it is only about the building. To a certain extent it is. It is our Church! In 1843, 20 people meet in a small home to consult and devise plans to build a Catholic chapel. They knew the people in the area needed it. Our ancestors saved, built and sacrificed during the depression for much needed renovations, scraped to send their children to Catholic School and volunteered to do things to make up the difference of what they could not contribute. They were doing it for their faith community. The understanding was that this was our Church with ties to the Archdiocese and in turn Rome. Well, one would say we have been baited and switched. A little known fact is that The Bishops changed that and put our churches “in trust” for the people.

Then, years later the Archdiocese of Philadelphia creates “the PPA process”, which is copied around the country. Then, in our wave of parishes under study with little conversation with the people and very hush-hush meetings, it is decided that St. Joachim and Mater Dolorosa, which St. Joachim helped to establish for the Italian immigrants of Frankford, will close and in one document by the Archbishop dissolve and suppress 172+years of history, honor, tradition and leave the community with no church to worship in. Wait, didn’t we build and maintain it? Why have they decided our fate? Church is not about numbers. Where two or more gather in his name! So it is IMG_5982about the building even though it is the third St. Joachim Church. It is our ancestor’s legacy and what they left for us – a comforting place where we can meet socially and spiritually.  Our Church is an inheritance from our grandmothers and grandfathers, mothers and fathers. How would you feel if after you parents died your childhood home was taken with no one asking?!! This is what has happened, Our church has been taken!

Fr Higgins and Joe made it clear that without the rental income from the school, we could not have been able to operate the parish.Those properties, too, are our ancestor’s legacy as well. The rental income fact may be true but we did not decide. Pope Francis has called for a smaller church overall that reaches out to those in need. Should we have been the ones to decide our fate? Maybe a storefront church on Frankford Ave. Maybe we sold one or two of those properties? We were not given the chance, it was decided for us. When St. Joachim closed, in one of my letters to the Archbishop, I asked where all of the rental income from the school & convent building went. He,or someone writing for him, stated it stays in the parish. Since St. Joachim Church was closed in June 2013, the parish of Holy Innocents has realized $600,000 plus in revenue from the school alone not counting the convent. What the Archdiocese doesn’t realize many people know is that parishes are required to keep a certain percentage of their funds in a Archdiocesan account that the Archdiocese borrows on and makes investments with.

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Cornerstone for the new church in 1874

Then there is the fact that Fr Higgins is the Dean of our Deanery and pastor of the merged parish. Is this conflict of interest? As he has said many times “I thought there should be a Catholic Church in Frankford, but the Archdiocese didn’t think there should be”.  Why would he say that if he didn’t feel it was right or if he thought our Church could not be supported? One would thinks as the Dean he would say “I think there should be a Catholic Church in Frankford and I am going to fight for one”. This is about obedience. The Archbishop likes to used this word especially with initial contact with us. The clergy with important positions know they have to be obedient to look good in front of their boss and keep those positions of power, potentially even move up. In 2011 now retired Msgr. Rodgers who was the mastermind behind the PPA process said “The role of the Deans is to offer a better means of communication between the Archbishop, the priest and the people”. This quote is very telling. We are told what to do from communication handed down from our Archbishop never having a chance to participate in this process or in communication with the Dean and then Archbishop. This is the PPA process in a nutshell.

I was told to my face in this meeting that “There are very few Catholics in Frankford”, that “The Parish was on life support”, that “There will be no cooperation or collaboration as long as there is an active appeal”, that “We are not going to have people look over our shoulders” , that “Lots of time and money has been wasted on this appeal”, and “Don’t continue”.  Well, our ancestor’s legacy, our history, our spiritual life and our neighborhood is too important to not continue.

Keeping It Real – Is St. Joachim a Worship Site…Or not?

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Do you believe that St. Joachim RC Church should be used more often, providing pastoral care now lacking? Is St. Joachim a “Worship Site”? As Advent draws to a close, I wanted you to know our efforts to have St. Joachim truly be a “Worship Site” as the Archdiocese itself defines one. We have written to Father Higgins (cc’ing Archbishop Chaput) several times during this year requesting services at St. Joachim other than for our funerals and weddings. You can read our latest letter for yourself here – Letter to Father Higgins Nov 17 2014. In this letter, we asked for:

  • A weekly Advent Mass or allow us to conduct a weekly Prayer Service inside the Church (after approval of the Prayer Service);
  • A special Feast Day Mass on Monday, Dec. 8, as our beloved Blessed Mother’s parents were Sts. Joachim and Ann; and
  • A Mass on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day

We also said that “We, the laity, are willing to provide what spiritual care we can for the parish, why not let us use the Worship Site to do that?” We can do a prayer service or a blessing of the Advent Wreath by the rights given to us with our Baptism.

For the first time in over 50 years, our Church made me feel like a “guilty Catholic” on Thanksgiving Day. Bob and I went to Mass at Holy Innocents, where we are registered. It was a beautiful Mass. It was trilingual, there before us, the Spanish choir, the Vietnamese choir, the English choir and three priests and a deacon on the altar. I felt guilty because I could get to Holy Innocents but what about my brothers and sisters in Frankford who cannot? I also thought, as beautiful as that Mass was, did we need three priests and a deacon on the altar. Could not one of them be spared to say a Mass for the parishioners of the two churches that were closed in Frankford?

Here is what the official church document says regarding “Regulations for the Use of a Worship Site Within A Parish Other Than the Parish Church”. This can be found on the Archdiocese’s website. There are “just causes” for establishing a worship site and two of them are particulary relevant to us here in Frankford:

  • to allow greater accessibility of the faithful to liturgical services; and
  • to reduce the inconvenience of the faithful traveling a great distance for worship;

These are indeed reasons we should be using St. Joachim Church more often for worship. We know from our parishioners, themselves, that many cannot get to church – except the Mass that’s provided on TV. The Route 89 bus runs every hour on the weekends. These regulations go on to further state that:

  “4. One Mass is permitted to be celebrated on Sundays in a worship site within the parish in addition to those celebrated in the parish church. For pastoral reasons, and when sufficient priests are available, Mass may also be permitted in such a worship site on a holy day of obligation and/or on a weekday. There are 3 priests at Holy Innocents.

   6.  For pastoral reasons, devotional services (such as ceremonies associated with a patronal feast, a public novena, stations of the cross, etc.) also be permitted in a worship site within the parish other than the parish church.”  Here, again, “pastoral” care justifies the use of St. Joachim more often.

David Harris did a report on closed/merged churches regarding their use as a Worship Site. You can see his report here – “List of Worship Sites PPA 2012-2014”.

Father Higgins, Pastor of Holy Innocents, responded that “..the services … requested for St. Joachim’s for December, we already celebrate at Holy Innocents. We are not able to provide these services at any of our Worship Sites, except our weekly Spanish Mass at St. Joan of Arc”. Well, according to the Holy Innocents Parish bulletin dated 11/16/2014, at St. Joan of Arc, there was a Novena to Our Mother of Divine Providence ending Nov. 16 at their weekly Mass. There was a bilingual Thanksgiving service at St. Joan of Arc on November 25, 2014 according to the 11/23/2014 parish bulletin. What to think?

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We rescued this tree from the dumpster when Holy Innocents was cleaning out our Rectory. Bob and I usually have a “real” tree but this is our tree this year!

Father Higgins also stated “Just for the record, Pat, I as dean, did not recommend that St. Joachim and Mater Dolorosa be closed…I proposed to keep St. Joachim open…” In all sincerity, did you go to the mat for what you believed, Father? I’m sure you can understand that we don’t think it’s so easy for you to just “wash your hands” of this decision. Sadly, too many don’t find it worth fighting for what they believe or what they think is right.

You can read Father Higgins email response to our letter below:

From: Thomas Higgins <[email protected]>
Subject: Response to your letter
Date: November 26, 2014 at 3:12:56 PM EST
To: [email protected], Archbishop Charles Chaput <[email protected]>

Dear Pat,

Thanks for your November 17th letter.  As you know, all the services that you have requested for St. Joachim’s for December, we already celebrate at Holy Innocents.  We are not able to provide these services at any of our Worship Sites, except our weekly Spanish Mass at St. Joan of Arc. This was decided by our Transition Team last year.   We have discussed these possibilities in the past, so nothing has changed in the past 18 months.
Just for the record Pat, I, as dean, did not recommend that St. Joachim and Mater Dolorosa be closed.  I explained at our first Transition Team meeting that I proposed to keep St. Joachim open, with Mater Dolorosa and St. Joan of Arc as Worship Sites.  However, the Strategic Planning Committee of the Archdiocese did not accept my proposal.  They did not see my proposal as viable for the long term.  This planning committee then put forth the current configuration which was approved by the Council of Priests and the Archbishop.  And now we are doing our best to make it work.  So, I can only continue to encourage you and anyone appealing this decision to become active members of the new Holy Innocents.
Blessings on your Thanksgiving.

Sincerely yours,
Fr. Tom Higgins

Archbishop Chaput has not answered us as of the writing of this blog post. What shall be our answer? What response will open their eyes and hearts to know that a Catholic Church is needed in Frankford? That is our mission and I hope that you make it yours as well!! I would love to hear your thoughts!! God bless us all!

 

“Here I Am, Lord! Is It I, Lord?” That You Want at the Basilica on Sunday, Nov. 30., at 5:00 PM?

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7 Reasons for Nov 30Hello, please take a moment and read this blog post on our sister website, Philly-Catholics.com. We’ll be looking for you on Nov. 30th!

 

You Don’t Want to Miss This Event!

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What’s the hottest ticket in town? No, it’s not along the Avenue of the Arts! It’s the ticket for tonight’s presentation at the Historical Society of Frankford, 1507 Orthodox St. See you there! The most fun for $5 you can have anywhere!!!!

HSF September 2014 program half page

From Pope Francis to the “Dear Lay Faithful”!

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pope and doveToday, on the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord, the Pope announced the newest Cardinals that he will install on February 22, 2014. You can read about it here, “The Scarlet is Served – Pope Reveals 19 New Cardinals”. If you have been “cardinal watching”, you know that it was speculated that there would be no new American cardinals. Our own Archbishop Chaput and Archbishop Jose Gomez of Los Angeles were thought to be under consideration. However, their predecessors, Cardinal Rigali and Cardinal Mahony, respectively, were still under the age of 80 and it is unusual to have 2 Cardinals within the same diocese.

Now, I must be honest. I have said this before but it bears repeating. I recognized the difficult job Archbishop Chaput undertook when coming to Philadelphia. I watched his intial welcoming to the city, his installation and felt strongly that he was doing the best job he could do, so I supported him and his efforts. I was genuinely sorry the Archbishop wasn’t a Cardinal so that he could participate in choosing our next Pope after Pope Benedict XVI retired. However, his Area Pastoral Planning Process failed the faithful people of Frankford, who last year had two churches, St. Joachim and Mater Dolorosa, and today, have none. Reaching out to the Archbishop directly, and those representing him, we were told there would be no meeting, no consideration, as we repeatedly heard, “the decision has been made and we are not considering any changes.”

Well, we can take heart in Pope Francis’s words to us, “Dear Lay Faithful, be close to your priests with affection and with your prayers, that they may always be shepherds according to God’s heart.” We believe strongly that we must, each of us, take charge of our faith and be living witnesses to all we meet and to expect that we share in the priesthood of our clergy as well through our Baptism. (Today is, after all, the Baptism of our Lord that we celebrate.) That is our call to continue to reach out to all with the “Good News”, the joy of being Catholic.

christianpost.com

christianpost.com

As for our dear Archbishop Chaput, perhaps his heart could be more open to the Pope’s call as captured in his words on Holy Thursday at the Chrism Mass,

“Those who do not go out of themselves, instead of being mediators, gradually become intermediaries, managers. We know the difference: the intermediary, the manager, “has already received his reward”, and since he doesn’t put his own skin and his own heart on the line, he never hears a warm, heartfelt word of thanks. This is precisely the reason why some priests grow dissatisfied, become sad priests, lose heart and become in some sense collectors of antiques or novelties – instead of being shepherds living with “the smell of the sheep”, shepherds in the midst of their flock, fishers of men.”  (Refer to link in post to read the entire message.)

We have heard the Archbishop refer to himself as a manager. We have tried to thank the Archbishop. Even after he told me, at one of his Sunday night Masses, (and I was being pushed along by his security) that this was not the time or place to discuss such matters, (yet he would not make or give us any time or place to discuss such matters), I, instinctively turned around and said, “We love you, Archbishop”. I later wrote to him asking if he heard me.

The Archbishop is a good man, a holy man but we need to find another way besides closing churches, selling nursing homes and leasing cemetery grounds to balance our budget and reach our objectives. The very people that would help you, Archbishop, are the very people you are shutting out and turning away.

Isn’t that what all people want – just to be heard? So we continue. St. Joachim’s appeal was turned down by the Congregation of the Clergy. The ruling was that the Archishop did not do anything canonically wrong – he didn’t break canon law – but it was still not a right and just decision. Just this weekend, we filed an appeal with the Apostolic Signatura, the Vatican Supreme Court. I believe we will be heard. I believe we will continue to do all within our power to reopen St. Joachim Church to continue the work of our ancestors in a community that wants to be heard and wants the healing that only our Lord Jesus Christ can provide.

Thank you for reading and God bless you!

We Are One Church and We Want One Church in Frankford!

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Mater Dolorosa RC ChurchSt. Joachim RC ChurchThis Saturday, September 14, 4:00 PM, Mater Dolorosa RC Church will open its doors to celebrate the Feast of Our Mother of Sorrows. Who better than a mother to understand our sorrow? Who better than the mother of our dear Lord to turn to and to implore her help to reopen a Church in Frankford?

When it was announced that both St. Joachim and Mater Dolorosa Catholic Churches would be closing, to say that there was great disbelief in our community would be an understatement. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia can always make up contrived reasons for their actions but doing so doesn’t justify those actions.

As each parishioner was trying to make sense of the closing two neighborhood churches – Mater Dolorosa established in 1911 and St. Joachim in 1844, many asked questions and sought answers as to how this event came to pass. It has been 2 1/2 months since these churches were closed. That’s not a long time when one’s memories are much, much longer. So where are we now?

St. Joachim parishioners grouped together and formed Keep the Faith in Frankford. This name is really dual-purposed – to reopen one of our Catholic Churches and to use our faith to help Frankford become an even better place to be. St. Joachim filed an appeal to the Vatican as allowed under Canon Law. However, this can be a long and arduous process with no guarantee of success. Our overriding goal is to have a Catholic Church in Frankford as we have had for over 169 years.

To achieve that, it is time to unite and to bridge any divisions between us! If we truly want a Catholic Church in Frankford we need to stand together, to show the fire and strength of our faith and to act with the belief that God can accomplish all things if we are willing to let Him work through us! It is not easy to do this but we have been blessed with an opportunity to show that our faith doesn’t reside in these church buildings but in our God and in each other as we Live Jesus!

We must make this effort, not just for ourselves, but for our ancestors who passed on the faith to us and who believed in the goodness of God even during the darkest of times. We

(l-r) Pat Smiley, Shannon and David Harris

(l-r) Pat Smiley, Shannon and David Harris

must do it for our children, our grandchildren and all who will come after us.

Following his visit to Brasil for World Youth Day, the Pope shared the following words during his Sunday Papal Audience:

“the encounter with the living Jesus, in the great family that is the Church, fills the heart with joy, because it fills it with true life, a profound goodness that does not pass away or decay.”

We are family and the joy that Jesus gives us is lasting and cannot be taken away! Let us join together this Sunday as one family to celebrate our God and our faith! God bless you!

 

 

 

 

Archbishop Chaput Says It’s His Fault

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In a wide ranging interview on September 6, 2012 with John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter, Archbishop Chaput went into depth about his first year.  You can read the entire interview here.  It is the best I have come across and gives some perspective.  Still this quote comes home:

Have parishes and schools at risk of being closed been informed?
I’m committed to telling them. We have reviews of many of our parishes going on now, and it’s been my insistence that the parishioners become part of those reviews so they can know what the problems are and suggest solutions.

People won’t be surprised [if their parish or school is closed], but they’ll still be angry, I’m sure. If they are surprised, it’s my fault.

Mater Dolorosa and St. Joachim parishioners are the case that proves the point.  As I said before, nobody was surprised that a church was closed but nobody expected the decision to close both churches.

We were not part of the process.

 

Parish Closings and Avoiding Bankruptcy

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When the history of this episode is written, the issue at the top of the list will be the money.

Harold Brubaker, in the Inquirer on July 5th, lists the financial woes that drive Archdiocesan financial planners.  Years of financial mismanagement have brought it to the brink of bankruptcy.

There has been a problem with balancing the books every year.  If they came up short, in the past they borrowed.  That might mean not paying into the retirement fund.  That solves the cash flow problem for a year but kicks the can down the road.  The result is listed below.  The long term liability could be $354 million or more.

$82.0 million – Shortfall from the trust-and- loan fund, which invests or makes loans from money collected from parishes.

$89.9 million – Shortfall from the priests’ pension fund.

$151.7 million – Shortfall from the lay employees’ retirement plan.

$30.4 million – Shortfall from a self-insurance reserve.

The $82 million gap also includes investment losses and reserves for bad loans to some parishes.  The plan to pay that money back by selling real estate was formalized last year in a promissory note, essentially an IOU, to the trust-and-loan fund.

Translated into English, this means that the Archdiocese made loans to parishes that are not going to be repaid and some bad investments.  They have not fully funded the retirement accounts for lay or priests.  This is something that a lot of companies and governments do because its easy in the short run.  In the end, that money is owed and has to be made up.  Guess who is going to pay the bill.  There is nobody else, it is you.

The issue is clear enough for now.  They closed Mater Dolorosa and St. Joachm, both of which were financially self sufficient.  Why would they do that?  I believe the idea was that those assets would be better used by transferring them to another larger parish.   Small parishes like ours are expendable.

On the other hand, some may be too big to fail.  Does that sound familiar.  From Harold Brubaker and the Inquirer on October 1, 2012:

St. Martha parish in the Far Northeast, with 2,200 registered households and nearly 7,000 people on June 30, 2011, owed $637,500 on an archdiocesan loan for a parish center that opened in 2004. Between 2009 and 2011, St. Martha paid no principal on the loan, and the amount of unpaid interest climbed to $202,929 from $160,985.

St. Martha, which was founded in 1966, was also far behind in its assessments, insurance bills, and pension payments. Those debts were $2.1 million on June 30, 2011.

The Rev. Alexander Masluk, pastor at St. Martha, said in an interview this month that parish debt “is not growing at the same rate it was. We’re on a five-year plan that we put in a year ago to stop the bleeding.”

It is rare to get this kind of detailed information at the parish level but it should be made public.  It would be good to see for all the parishes involved in closings or mergers.   If small self sufficient parishes in the city are being closed to pay the bills of parishes in the suburbs, they should know the truth.
 

If We Ever Needed a Hero…

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PeterBorreIt just might be Peter Borre. He is our canon law consultant working with our Italian lawyers to appeal the decision in Rome to close St. Joachim Roman Catholic Church here in Frankford. Along with Mater Dolorosa, these two Churches no longer serve the Frankford community. Their loss has touched not only us but our community as well.

It has been my pleasure to talk with Peter on the phone. He is caring, insightful and tireless in his efforts on behalf of those he tries to help. I’m glad he’s on our side. Here is an article from last year’s Daily News about Peter’s work and those he is helping. Titled, “National Advocate Could Be Local Parishes’ White Knight”, foreshadowed many of the current events happening in the Archdiocese.

One of the Vatican’s top priorities is the “re-evangelization” of church members who have “drifted away,” he said, but the Archdiocese “is going in the wrong direction.

 

You gotta like this guy!