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Saving what can be saved

So this doesn’t happen (from the Young Fogey):

Destruction of Transfiguration church, Philadelphia, PA

In part why the PNCC was born. This doesn’t happen when the people own and care for the building. When the Bishop is the sole decision maker you get a merely dollars and cents approach. Even in situations where PNCC parishes have moved to the suburbs they’ve taken everything with them, the art and furnishings donated by their ancestors, and have integrated them into their new buildings.

From the Buffalo News: Windows from a bygone Catholic church and other relics find a safe haven

A Buffalo museum founded last year to preserve art and artifacts from area religious groups has made its biggest acquisition to date. More than 30 stained-glass windows from the former Queen of Peace Catholic Church on Genesee Street are now part of the growing collection of the Buffalo Religious Arts Center, which is housed in another former Catholic church on East Street near Amherst Street in Black Rock.

The center also recently received word that its home building, the former St. Francis Xavier Church, completed in 1913, has been added to the National Register of Historic Places.

Removing the ornate windows properly from Queen of Peace took months. The former church, which was sold in April to a Muslim group, now functions as a mosque and community center, and the windows depicting a variety of Christian imagery and Catholic saints were considered inappropriate.

So the Muslim group brokered a three-way deal with the Buffalo Religious Arts Center and church restorationist Henry Swiatek, who spent several weeks on the project.

—They’re in good hands now,— Swiatek said.

—These windows are of extremely high quality. Surprisingly, they were in very good condition. Some of them were in excellent condition.—

Most of the windows, crafted by Buffalo glassmaker Leo Frohe, eventually will be displayed at the center, which is still in an acquisition phase.

So far, the center has acquired more than 100 pieces of art from a dozen churches and a synagogue.

A few windows from Queen of Peace featuring Polish saints also have been installed in the chapel at Corpus Christi, a traditionally Polish Catholic church on the East Side.

—They really look like they belong here,— said the Rev. Anzelm Chalupka, pastor.

Organizers of the Buffalo Religious Arts Center initially planned to lease or sell a three-story, 33,000-square-foot school building next to the former St. Francis Xavier Church on East Street.

Now, they figure the school is large enough for them to rent some space for income and still have enough room for displays of stained glass. A full renovation of the school, however, is expected to cost about $3 million.

The historic designation of the basilica-style church, built in 1913, and its accompanying buildings, will help the center get access to more grant opportunities.

In addition to artwork, the center has started collecting vintage photographs of religious celebrations, such as weddings, baptisms and First Communions, church anniversary books and rosaries.

—Each and every church has a history,— said Mary Holland, executive director of the center. —It’s not only a museum of artwork, it’s also about history.—

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The PNCC in Springfield and Westfield, MA

From CBS3 Springfield: Roman Catholic Alternative

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield announced this summer that 19 Catholic Churches are closing leaving many fighting to keep their places of worship open or looking for another church. We found local Catholic churches that are not part of the Roman Catholic diocese but are Catholic and run their church democratically.

Laurie Costello, member of National Catholic Church, says, “We came from the Roman Catholic Church and we just weren’t happy with the way things ran.”

Laurie Costello and her family changed churches 5 years ago when the Springfield Diocese closed the Roman Catholic school she grew up in.

Costello says, “We did fight to keep it open and we came to find out that no matter what you were going to do it has been decided.”

But at St. Joseph’s National Catholic Church in Westfield parishioners claim that would never happen to their church because they don’t answer to the Springfield Diocese or the Vatican.

Costello says, “The parish won’t close unless we vote on it.”

Susan Teehan, a life-long member of St. Joseph’s says, “The church is a democratic church. We own the property, the buildings.”

Teehan’s grandparents helped found St. Joseph’s 80 years ago. She’s been going to mass here since she was a little girl.

Teehan says, “I think other people feel they come to Sunday Mass and they leave and they have no voice in the church whereas we feel as if we are an important part of the church.”

Father Sr. Joseph Soltysiak says, “The people of this church have very much a say in the affairs that go on.”

Father Sr. Joseph Soltysiak has been the priest at St. Joseph’s for more than 15 years. He says everyone gets one vote, including him. But it’s very much a Catholic church.

Father Sr. Soltysiak says, “We are a very high church. We are a Catholic Church. Our main method of worship is the Holy Mass Eucharist.”

The National Catholic Church was founded in Pennsylvania in the late 1800’s by Polish-Americans who broke away from the Roman Catholic Church partly because of disputes over who owned church property. Currently, there are 8 churches in Massachusetts and have 25-thousand members in the United States. It used to be called the Polish National Catholic Church until recently. They changed the name to welcome all people.

Father Sr. Soltysiak says, “The majority of people coming here and who become part of our family are people who left their Catholic faith and they can find it again here but not under the jurisdiction of Rome.”

That’s exactly what Laurie Costello and her family did and they found a new religious home.

There are differences between the National Catholic Church and the Roman Catholic Church. One of the most obvious is the priests can marry. Father Joe has several kids. One of them is also priest.

…

The National Catholic Churches in Western Mass are in Chicopee, Northampton, South Deerfield, Ware and Westfield.

Perspective, PNCC,

Rulers or democratic governance?

Bishop Hodur understood that the Church – something that is fixed and infallible – and democratic governance in issues of church property are not mutually exclusive. Members of a closed parish in rural Kansas, Ohio see it that way too.

From the Toledo Blade: Ex-parish members seek help from court to oust Toledo bishop as trustee

LIMA, Ohio – A group of ex-parishioners from a closed Catholic church in rural Kansas, Ohio, yesterday asked an appeals court to remove Toledo Bishop Leonard Blair as trustee of the former church’s property and finances.

The ex-members argued that the bishop failed to act in their best interests.

Nicholas Pittner, representing the St. James Parish ex-members, and an outside expert both said the Ohio 3rd District Court of Appeals case could set precedent if it restricts Catholic bishops’ ability to sell property and transfer funds of parishes – closed or otherwise – in Ohio and possibly nationwide. “If the parishioners win, the bishops will be trembling in their pants,” said Stephen Brady, president of Roman Catholic Faithful, an activist lay group based in Petersburg, Ill. “But I think the parishioners have a tough row to hoe.”

Sister Mary Ann Walsh, a spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington, and Sally Oberski, communications director for the Toledo diocese, both said that to their knowledge, it is the only lawsuit of its kind.

Mr. Pittner, of the Columbus firm of Bricker & Eckler, told the appellate court during oral arguments yesterday that the

St. James situation was not the typical court case of a disaffected faction seeking ownership of church property after a schism.

“In this case, the church left the plaintiffs; the plaintiffs did not leave the church,” he said.

About 15 ex-parishioners of St. James attended the hearing.

Thomas Pletz, of Toledo’s Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick law firm, represented the diocese, which has 301,000 members in 19 northwest Ohio counties.

Arguments on both sides centered on Bishop Blair’s role as the trustee of parish property.

“It has nothing to do with the restoration of Kansas St. James as a parish in the Roman Catholic Church. That issue is over and done with,” Mr. Pittner said.

He acknowledged the Vatican upheld Bishop Blair’s decision to close the parish. “We don’t ask the court to tread into religious matters of that nature.”

At issue are the rights of ex-parishioners as beneficiaries of a trust under Ohio civil law, Mr. Pittner said. “Property made to a bishop of the Catholic Church is made in trust for the benefit of the parish or congregation.”

Presiding Judge Stephen Shaw and Judge John Willamowski tossed numerous questions at Mr. Pittner and Mr. Pletz. The third judge was Judge Richard Rogers.

The ex-members appealed after losing in Allen County Common Pleas Court earlier this year.

Mr. Pletz argued that civil and church law “are not mutually exclusive” and that their combination gives the bishop the right to make administrative decisions for the good of the diocese.

“[The] rural fashion of living, and traveling with horse and buggy has changed and you may not be able to maintain small, family, rural, greatly beloved churches in many highways and byways,” he said.

“I do not believe there is any vested perpetual right to be entitled to have your church – and really what they want to keep is their church – forever in their place and bind the hands of the trustee inexorably forever to maintain that church,” Mr. Pletz said.

Mr. Pittner argued that trusteeship of church property is a matter of civil law alone, and Canon Law does not apply because it is not an internal religious issue.

Mr. Pittner said the plaintiffs hope to have the bishop replaced with “a trustee who will abide by the interests of the congregation and allow them to worship in their building.”

The court would name the trustee, he said, but the preference would be for someone linked with the former parish or a nonprofit corporation formed by ex-members, called the Kansas St. James Parish of Ohio Inc.

One of them, Ginny Hull, said afterward the ex-parishioners have spent “well over $100,000” on legal fees, but have not decided what they would do if they win. “We’ll deal with that when we come to it.”

St. James, the only Catholic church in Kansas, about 40 miles southeast of Toledo, was founded in 1889 and had about 215 members when Bishop Blair closed it as part of a diocesewide realignment 2005.

The ex-parishioners meet every Sunday for prayer at a Methodist church in Kansas – the village’s only other church – and celebrate Mass once a month with a priest from the Polish National Catholic Church in Detroit.

Perspective, PNCC, Poland - Polish - Polonia, , ,

Light on history, heavy on propoganda

This article: Diocese’s recommended consolidations reflect move away from ethnic parishes, which appeared in The Citizens Voice was such a propaganda piece that I just had to comment.

The article attempts to give a history of Roman Catholic parishes in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania:

More than a century ago, a congregation of people of German heritage decided to start St. Boniface Parish in Wilkes-Barre. Parishioners previously had to travel down to the German parish, St. Nicholas on Washington Street, or go to one of the territorial parishes for Mass and school.

—Children had to cross railroad tracks to get to school; it was dangerous,— Brother DePorres Stilp said. —So they tried to make a new church here in the neighborhood.—

Stilp’s grandfather was one of the founding members, and for years the parish, which celebrated Mass in German and EnglishMore likely in Latin only – but he wouldn’t know that., was a center for the German Catholic community in the area.

Many of the national parishes in Luzerne County that are historically attended by people and practice traditions from one ethnic background grew up in this manner, according to the Rev. Hugh McGroarty, senior priest at St. John the Evangelist Parish in Pittston.

Fair enough. Then the article goes on to say:

The first immigrants to the area were mostly Irish, and they built Catholic parishes. However, when immigrants from other areas of Europe came, many lived in the same communities and wanted to worship with people who spoke their languages and shared their culture…

Are they saying that Irish = Catholic? That sets the tone for this:

So the Catholic Church gave many of these groups of immigrants national parishes, and made the parishes built by the Irish territorial so anyone in the area could attend.

—There’s no Irish church,— McGroarty said. —There was one church in the area, and so the Polish made their own. And the Slovaks came in, and so on. The other church, which they called Irish, was for everyone.—

The problem of course was that the area church was Irish – right Fr. McGroarty. You had to fit in or get out. They didn’t want the Poles, or Slovaks, or Ukrainians, or Italians. You wore green, spoke English, and worshiped St. Patrick like a good “Catholic” or you got out.

I like the way he implies that these other nationalities were “given” parishes while the Irish parish was the Catholic one. Does that mean that the Poles, etc. had a slightly less than Catholic parish, and the the only truly Catholic parish was the Irish one? Is that because Irish = universal?

What a bad retelling of history. These industrial and mining towns didn’t have homogeneous R.C. parishes. You either fit with the crowd in the Irish parish or you did not. The Poles wouldn’t give in, and wouldn’t turn their assets over the the local [Irish] R.C. bishop as demanded of them (no one was “given” a church) thus in part the genesis for the PNCC.

Later in the article Fr. McGroarty says:

Many parishes held on to their roots, but, McGroarty said, there aren’t nearly as many traditions and ethnic bonds as in the past.

—There isn’t that much,— he said. —The tradition is with the old people.—

I guess you ought to cancel the St. Patrick’s Day parade Father, and dump the corn beef and cabbage down the Susquehanna — it’s only for the old folks anyway. Tradition is only for the old? Kind of like the all that funny old Catholic stuff like devotions, the Traditional form of the Holy Mass, etc.? Sorry Father but those are all things the PNCC hasn’t had to rediscover (í  la Benedict XVI) because we retained them – because we listened to the people. The Church’s Tradition is universal, consistent, and is for all people.

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St. Michael’s PNCC plans move

From the Post-Tribune (Sun Times): Historic St. Michael looks toward Cedar Lake

CEDAR LAKE — One of Northwest Indiana’s oldest churches is moving south.

St. Michael the Archangel National Catholic Church is looking to erect its first new building since the church opened in East Chicago in 1903. The parish is on tonight’s [July 16, 2008] Plan Commission agenda seeking preliminary approval to build a 16,000 square foot church complex at 6729 W. 133rd Ave.

If approved, the new church could be open by 2010.

Plans include a 150-seat church, a school of Christian living Sunday School and a 150-seat hall with five classrooms and offices, said Rev. John Kowalczyk Jr., who’s been pastor for the last eight years.

The church sold its former building in February after officials decided to move to south Lake County.

“Our congregation was moving further and further south,” Kowalczyk Jr. said. “We looked at the growth patterns of the county and all indications pointed here.”

Church officials consulted county and state Web sites checking out residential building permits.

“We looked at school systems and a whole bunch of categories,” he said.

The proposed new location is about 17 miles from the East Chicago site. Several of the church’s approximately 100 members still drive from East Chicago to services at 9:30 a.m. each Sunday at the After Four Club in Cedar Lake, where they’ve worshiped since December.

The parish is a member of the Polish National Catholic Church but the congregation voted to drop the word “Polish” several years ago since the church is comprised of many ethnic groups.

“We’re open to everyone,” Kowalczyk said. “We don’t want people to think you have to be Polish to join.”

The Polish National Catholic Church is not under the direction of the pope, but under same basic structure, Kowalczyk said. The church’s See is in Scranton, Pa., under the direction of Prime Bishop Most Rev. Robert M. Nemkovich.

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