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- St. Joachim RC Church
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- Mater Dolorosa RC Church
Author Archives: Robert Smiley
Rosary for Justice
The first Rosary for Justice in support of those who lost churches took place on Sunday August 18th. Representatives from La Milagrosa Chapel, Keep the Faith in Frankford and St. Leo’s parish prayed in front of the Basilica before Mass.
Archbishop Chaput Says It’s His Fault
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
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.
Church of the Locked Gates
Locked out of their church by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, St. Joachim parishioners are not deterred. Regular prayer services are conducted at the times Mass used to be conducted before the lock out.
Frankford and Delaware County in the Same Boat
While we are focused on our own issue, it’s important to note that it was a process that lead to a preordained result.
Holy Saviour in Linwood and Immaculate Conception of Lourdes in Marcus Hook suffered the same fate. Their story reads like our narrative.
Calling the process “terrible,” committee member Janice DiMarino said in her opinion, the closing was predestined and predetermined.
“It really didn’t matter what we did or said, the decision was made that our church was closing and that was the way it was going to be,” she said. “I worked in the corporate world for many years and I have never seen such a lack of communication.”
St. Joseph Sr. Elizabeth Hill NCR Interview
It is a great read but here are some excerpts:
St. Joseph Sr. Elizabeth Hill might be the most petite college president in the United States, but she brings a truckload of credentials and creativity to the faculty and students on two widely separated campuses of St. Joseph’s College in New York. Since assuming that position in 1997, she has become a valuable, deeply respected influence in the Fort Greene-Clinton Hill section of Brooklyn and beyond…
What in contemporary Catholicism encourages or distresses you?
Contemporary Catholicism can mean many things. If you are referring to the institutional church, I think it is in a very sad state, in which there’s little room for the real values of the Gospel, or even basic humanity. The hierarchy has strayed so far from the path of service, social justice and care for the poor that it’s impossible to take their efforts at leadership seriously. I am cautiously optimistic that Pope Francis may make some difference, but he’s clearly quite conservative, and I wonder if he will make the changes necessary to get things back on course.
On the other hand, if you mean all the things that are going on “in the trenches,” I feel very differently. The laity is alive and well and ready to take on leadership roles, if only the bishops would let them. I hope that someday (soon?) the bishops will realize what great allies they have right at hand and will be open to much fuller participation of the laity in all aspects of church life, including worship.
Is there anything you would change?
As I mentioned, I would love to see the role of the laity expanded so that the church is really the church of the people, not just for the people. There are so many gifted, generous people out there, yearning to contribute their time and talents, yet all they are being asked for is their treasure. The bishops are being narrow and shortsighted, alas!
Read the entire interview at this link.
Parishioners at St. Joachim file appeal to reopen
From the Northeast Times:
Former parishioners at St. Joachim Roman Catholic Church last week formally filed an appeal to reopen the recently closed parish.
The overview of their case was sent on July 3 to the Apostolic Nunciature of the Holy See to the United States, based in Washington, D.C. The appeal will be forwarded to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy, and there is no timetable for a final decision.
The former parishioners have raised $4,805, with another $1,000 pledged. That’s about half of what their total legal bill is expected to be.
The Archdiocese of Philadelphia closed 15 parishes, including Frankford’s St. Joachim and Mater Dolorosa and Tacony’s St. Leo the Great, effective July 1. It cited drops in weekend Mass attendance, marriages and baptisms.
The archdiocese did not consider any appeals in the month between the announcement and the closings.
Read the rest of this story at this link.
The Churches That Did Not Close in Frankford
Catholics lost both churches in Frankford on June 30th as a result of the Archdiocese decision to close Mater Dolorosa and St. Joachim. The reasons given for closing both churches are feeble at best and false at worst.
You might take a look at the other 30 plus churches in Frankford that have remained open. They are large, small and everything in between. I took a tour this past Sunday to take some pictures. They are active and looks like they will remain so. And still the Archdiocese of Philadelphia walks away from Frankford.
When St. Joachim Reopens
There are a lot of things to think about and here is one idea that hasn’t been tried here. The concept may need some tweaking for Frankford.
Coffee and Catholicism is a great combination for the New Evangelization.
The idea of spreading the faith while serving a cup of java is cropping up in parishes, college campuses and even strip malls.
St. James Coffee (StJamesCoffee.com) in Rochester, Minn., was founded on the premise of providing a space in the modern public square for fellowship, dialogue and the opportunity for people to come to know Christ and his Church.
An inspiration of Father Matt Fasnacht, a priest of the Diocese of Winona, Minn., St. James Coffee was founded in a mall across the street from a church. It opened in July 2012 — after four years of planning and fundraising.