Will Wonders Never Cease – Part 3.

FROM THE PASTOR
As many of you were, I was shocked at the announcement of the closing of St. Stephen’s Church. The recommendation did not come from our cluster of parishes (St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Our Saviour, St. Agnes, St. Stephen/Our Lady of the Scapular, and the Chapel of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary), which is where such recommendations were supposed to emanate. After a month of trying to get an explanation, I received the following from Bishop John O’Hara who has the unenviable job of guiding “Making All Things New.” “The recommendation to merge St. Stephen with Our Saviour was made by the Archdiocesan Advisory Board on June 25. The action of the Advisory Board was accepted and ratified by the Priest Council in early July. As you know, Cardinal Dolan elected to accept the recommendation. ” As you may have seen in this past Monday’s New York Times, additional mergers and closures have been announced to be followed by a third group before next August. “In the new cases, however, the proposals came directly from Cardinal Dolan and other senior archdiocesan officials, who felt the advisory group had not gone far enough in recommending changes,” said Joseph Zwilling, the archdiocese’s spokesman.

Rev. Robert J. Robbins, K.C.H.S.

(From the December 21 Bulletin of The Church of Our Saviour)

What is at stake is the loss of one of the greatest Catholic churches on the island of Manhattan – with the architecture of Renwick, the murals of Brumidi, the Munich stained glass windows and intact sanctuary with its altars and statues…

And after the first two tranches there is now a potential “third group” of Making all Things New? Or is the formulation just a little unclear?