With its plain white clapboards and a cross atop a small steeple, the former Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church in Brant looks every bit like a postcard country church.
Since closing last year, it has been little more than an image.
But on Christmas Eve, the building at 10708 Brant-Angola Road reopened as an active house of worship for the first time in 18 months.
And many of the same faithful Catholics who had worshipped there showed up to celebrate the unique holiday gift.
—God knew how hard we struggled or how much we wanted this, and we thought we were going to be able open on Thanksgiving,— said Joan Reickart, a longtime parishioner. —But I think God gave us our Christmas gift. This was our Christmas gift. I truly believe that. And it’s a wonderful Christmas gift, the best we could hope for.—
About 50 people were expected at the inaugural Mass of the Parish of Our Lady—”a new congregation affiliated with the Polish National Catholic Church.
—Opening on Christmas Eve seems pretty divine,— Brant Supervisor Leonard Pero said. —I’m just thrilled we save our community church. The community is getting a wonderful Christmas present, and the thing is, we’ll always have it.—
The congregation, composed of several people who were once part of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, purchased the building last week from the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo for $75,000.
—The excitement among the people is just unbelievable,— said John Chiavetta, who with Pero led efforts to reopen the church.
Some members of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, which was merged with St. Anthony Catholic Church in Farnham, openly objected to their church’s closure and immediately sought a way to keep it open.
—I was praying all the time to the Blessed Mother,— Pero said. And at the final Mass, Pero sat in the front row and cried.
Reickart said she felt —kind of lost— since the church closed.
—I’ve really been hurting for a place to go,— she said.
Ultimately, Pero organized a meeting between potential parishioners and officials of the Polish National Catholic Church, a denomination formed in 1897 as a result of splits within Catholic communities of Polish-Americans from the Roman Catholic Church in disputes over property and lay governance.
Unlike the Roman Catholic tradition, in which bishops make property decisions, individual congregations in the Polish National Catholic Church, as in many Protestant traditions, control such matters.
Bishop Thaddeus S. Peplowski of the Buffalo Pittsburgh Diocese of the Polish National Catholic Church has assured Buffalo Bishop Edward U. Kmiec that the church won’t actively seek to recruit former members of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.
Any Roman Catholic who joins the Polish National Catholic Church is considered excommunicated in the eyes of the Vatican.
—People who are fearful of that, we’re telling them, ‘Just attend,’ — Chiavetta said.
Some former Our Lady of Mount Carmel members aren’t bothered by the prospect of excommunication, but —for others, yes it has been difficult,— he said. —Especially for older people, they hear this thing excommunication, and they think that’s a very serious matter.—
But church laws were far from the minds of most worshippers Thursday.
After Mass, they celebrated in the church hall with a sausage dinner and a birthday cake in honor of Jesus.
—Christmas, it is the birth of Christ and a new beginning here,— Reickart said. —It’s wonderful.—
