The Next Few Weeks will be a “Difficult Time” for the Archdiocese….

So says Sister Patricia Anastasio, a member of the Archdiocesan Advisory Group:

“a difficult time” for the Archdiocese and its parishes and parishioners, as final recommendations are considered and made. ..”I know people love their parishes,” she said. “Each parish is the heart of the church in the Archdiocese. People love their parishes and identify with their parishes.”1)

Strange, this feeling of foreboding. For elsewhere (such as in the rest of the above article) we hear that everyone’s on board and in agreement, that all participants are in raptures of prayer, that the planning is considerate and perfect…yet we also are given to understand in the same article that it’s going to be difficult, that protests and petitions have started, and that the subjects of parish closings and the use of funds from closed churches are in the forefront. There seems to be here two parallel tracks – or better, two parallel worlds. On a visit today to several churches I detected concerned murmuring about what will happen next.

Some people, though, received happy news well in advance:

“CORPUS CHRISTI TOWN HALL MEETING, April 27, 2014

Cortpus Christi will not be closed or consolidated with another parish. We will collaborate with neighboring parishes as part of Cluster 18, Upper West Side, Manhattan.” 2)

In the same issue of Catholic New York cited above we read about what is becoming almost a monthly ritual in the greater New York area:

“The Sisters of the Divine Compassion are exploring the sale of all or a portion of their 16-acre Good Counsel campus in White Plains. The decision comes after a 10-year strategic planning process and two-year review of the property, located at 52 N. Broadway. The campus features 12 buildings comprising a total of 162,180 square feet. The buildings include the order’s motherhouse, the Good Counsel Academy elementary and high schools, a counseling center and the Chapel of the Divine Compassion. The sisters have retained the real estate and investment firm CBRE Group Inc. to market the property.” 3)

The decision seems to leave the high school and elementary school conducted by the sisters with a combined total of 560 students up in the air – although the order has restated its commitment to these schools (while planning to sell their buildings with no immediate plan for substitute locations). The order had sold its college in the 1970s to Pace University Law school.

There is no comment from the Archdiocese.

At stake is the sisters’ beautiful chapel containing the tomb of their founder. Fr. Thomas Preston, convert, chancellor and vicar general of the New York archdiocese, Pastor of St. Ann’s, minister to both the rich and the poor, enemy of incipient modernism and patron of the arts. His beautiful parish church, St. Ann’s, was destroyed some ten years ago. His monument there, stripped of its dedication, now adorns Cardinal Egan’s residence at the former church of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. What will now become of his tomb?

As to “Making all Things New,” things are moving fast. On a visit today to St Benedict the Moor(on the “hit list” since at least 2007) I found the church locked and the information regarding masses removed. The order that had care of this church had removed suddenly to Jersey City just a short while ago ago. This, after I had visited this church during what I was told was a “parish retreat” featuring exposition of the Blessed Sacrament (and a full congregation for such small church) just 3 or 4 weeks ago…..

1) Catholic New York, June 12, 2014, at 1; Woods, John and Chicoine, Christie L. “Recommendations for ‘Making all Things New’ Due Soon” (this article is apparently not online)

2) http://www.corpus-christi-nyc.org/making-all-things-new/

3) http://cny.org/stories/Sisters-of-the-Divine-Compassion-Explore-Sale-of-Their-White-Plains-Campus,11165. See also: http://www.divinecompassion.org/news/sisters-of-the-divine-compassion-retain-real-estate-firm