Father Peter Lenox celebrated a Missa Cantata today for Ember Saturday at St. Roch Church in Greenwich. This ancient Mass contains five Old Testament prophecies, an epistle and a Gospel

Reliquary in the Cathedral of Syracuse, Italy – her home town.

(Above and below) Closer to home, the epic neo-baroque decoration of the Church of St. Lucy, Newark, NJ.

(For even more images from St. Lucy’s Church, see our report.)

(Above and below) Finally, tragically, two statues from the now-shuttered parish of St. Lucy in East Harlem (photos from 2014).

Last year The New York Times featured an article on the Archdiocese’s disposition of the contents of closed New York Churches:

Gill, John Freeman, “These Churches Have Been Closed, but Their Artifacts Live On,” Tne New York Times, December 24, 2021 (1)

IN this report we encounter “artifacts” (the reporter’s term) from several churches on which we ourselves have reported over the years. We provide links to the relevant articles.

First, St. Lucy’s in East Harlem:

“This is my last Mother Cabrini,” Mr. Amatrudo (the manager of the warehouse)said, resting his palm on the head of a waist-high plaster statue of the canonized Italian-American nun Frances Xavier Cabrini, rescued from St. Lucy’s Church in East Harlem after the church’s deconsecration in 2017.

(Above) This statue of the pieta was in the Church of St. Lucy in East Harlem (photo taken December 2014); (below) a pieta identified in the article as having been removed from St. Lucy’s in the Archdiocesan “Patrimony Warehouse” in December 2021 ( but repainted? or with a newer overpainting stripped off?).

Then, there is the grandiose former parish of All Saints, Harlem:

“Two of the most striking items in the warehouse are a pair of white-marble angels that once flanked the high altar at the Church of All Saints, on Madison Avenue and 129th Street. The splendid Italian Gothic Revival-style church, built starting in the 1880s after designs by the architect James Renwick Jr., is sometimes called the St. Patrick’s of Harlem — a reference to St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Fifth Avenue, which Mr. Renwick also designed. All Saints is a city landmark, a designation that protects its exterior, but not its interior.”

All Saints was deconsecrated in 2017

“Workers disassembled the great marble altar with power saws fitted with masonry blades. To reach the clerestory windows high above the pews, some four stories of scaffolding were erected inside the church, and most of the stained-glass windows were taken out — over the objections of preservationists — and replaced with clear glass. The city Landmarks Preservation Commission approved the removal of stained glass and exterior sculptural masonry associated with religious imagery.“

“The altar and stained glass now reside in the warehouse. The 16-foot-high gilded crucifix is stored in crated sections, Jesus lying akimbo in the garage.”

“The church’s richly carved pews, among the city’s most elaborate, went to a church in Chicago. And marble statues of Joseph and Mary landed in Bridgeport, Conn. (The All Saints complex, which includes an attached parish school and parish house, was sold in March for $10.85 million to the developer CSC Coliving. A modernization of the school and conversion of the church into a school auditorium, designed by Tang Studio Architect, is underway, and the Capital Preparatory Harlem Charter School plans to move into the two buildings next fall on a long-term lease.)”

(Above) The crucifix high above the main altar of All Saints (photo taken 2012): (below) as packed away in the warehouse (December 2021 photo).

Then, there is the parish of St Thomas the Apostle, Harlem:

“In 2008, some 30 stained-glass windows from the imposing neo-Gothic Church of St. Thomas the Apostle on West 118th Street in Harlem, designed by the Mayer of Munich studio in Germany, were removed and reconditioned after a preservation campaign failed. Those windows were later installed upstate, in the new Saint Kateri Tekakwitha Church, in LaGrangeville. Other windows went to St. Brigid’s Church in the East Village. And last year, 14 smaller windows from St. Thomas depicting angels were shipped to a church in Taiwan. (As for the 1907 church complex of St. Thomas the Apostle, it was sold to Artimus Construction for $6 million in 2012; the church was truncated, and its remaining front portion now serves as a vaulted event space called Harlem Parish.)”

Mr Zwilling, the Archdiocesan spokesman, repeats mantra-like, everything he has been saying for years:

“Our churches, beautiful as they are, are not built as museums — they’re built to serve the spiritual, the pastoral, the faith needs of the community,”

Mr. Zwilling does not explain why the closing of parishes (and schools, and Catholic residences) has to be repeated again and again. Nor does he enumerate the “spritual, pastoral and faith benefits” so far achieved by Making all Things New (the last big restucturing push). The Times reporter is not inclined to press him on such things. Nor does he comment on the apparently disproportionate impact of these closures on the churches of Harlem (and, I should add, of other poorer areas of the city). The reporter duly notes on the margin the objections of preservationists (he doesn’t mention the parishioners). But what significance do their views have? After all, according To Mr. Zwilling, the works of art assembled (in “museums”) over generations are:

“artifacts that ‘help tell the story of the history of a church that is important to people who, back when the church was being built, contributed either monetarily or through their labor…’”

Yes, these “historical artifacts” were once important to those people who built these churches – but no longer are to us. In this manner, the great artistic heritage of the Catholic people of New York is appropriated by the Archdiocese and scattered all over the world.

1. Just in time for Christmas!

This morning at 6 am Canon Estrada celebrated a Rorate Mass at St. Patrick Oratory in Waterbury, CT.

From the Sheen Center description:

“Just in time for the Advent and Christmas season, this stunning exhibit features mosaic icons created in the tradition of Byzantine masters. Exquisitely fashioned from tiny bits of colored glass fit together to bring forth a divine image, the icons are created by Oksana Prokopenko, a Ukrainian artist. They offer radiant reminders that, despite the darkness in our world, a Light still shines and is not overcome.“

ABOUT THE ARTIST

“Oksana Prokopenko was born and raised in Ukraine. She was educated at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, one of the top three universities in Ukraine, and at NYU. She studied formal art practices at NYU, SVA and with Philip Vanderhyden. Oksana has a cross-disciplinary practice in which micromosaics, painting and sculpture overlap. Rooted in the ancient contemplative practice of icon-writing and inspired by the current research in chaos theory, Oksana’s work explores the interaction of human and divine. Oksana’s artworks have been acquired into the permanent collections of museums in the USA and Italy, religious communities and private collections. Exhibition curated by Patricia McGuinness.”

We wrote this on the occasion of an earlier exhibit by the artist in 2018:

In the present wasteland of Christian art, the relatively intact Eastern Tradition is a good starting point for recovery. For the restrictive rules governing images in Eastern ecclesiastical art impose limits on the artist’s unhinged fantasy yet provide him with a clear model to follow. Now Oksana Prokopenko’s images and icons, executed in the difficult and expensive medium of mosaic, confirm both the continued vitality of the Tradition and its ability to accommodate individual creativity.

At the Sheen Center (18 Bleecker St NY). The exhibit will last until January 6, 2023.

The library of the once famous French Oratorian school of Juilly, closed in 2012. Now a monument to Catholic intellectual decline.

Courtesy of Le Forum Catholique (posted by JVJ).

The discalced Carmelite nuns of the Monastery of Our Lady of Mount Carmel and St. Joseph have scheduled their final Mass in their Brooklyn monastery this Monday, Dec. 12 at 6:45 am. They will be moving to a new monastery in Pleasant Mount, PA. Here is the announcement on their website:

It is with both joy and sorrow that we share with you the news that our Community will be moving to a new location at Pleasant Mount, PA . Please keep us in your prayers, and be assured of our continued prayers for you.

The website explains the reason for the move:

“Our Carmelite Monastery, in the Diocese of Brooklyn, is located next to a park (just 10 feet away from our enclosre wall) which has proved to be a real problem and in recent times, even a danger for our Community.  The noise level coming from the park has always been a difficulty, but this past year it has grown to be unbearable, especially following the outbreak of the pandemic and the curtailment of the police. The area directly behind our wall has become a hangout for gangs who blast horrendous music (if one can call it music) all hours of the night.

“Worse than the noise, however, is the late night carousing, drinking and drugs, as well as the evidence of satanic rituals just feet away from us. Under such conditions it is impossible for our Community to grow and flourish.  We have several inquiries from young woman who feel called to our Carmel; however it would be impossible to receive them at our present location.  In addition, a rural setting would be a great help and stimulus to contemplative life and with the uncertainty of these times, it would afford us the opportunity to be more self-sufficient.”

A 13-acre property near Scranton “abounding in silence” was donated to the nuns. The nuns plan to build an authentic Spanish carmel  “like those in which Our Holy Mother, St. Teresa of Jesus and her daughters lived.”

The nuns are looking for donations. For more information visit their website

Strolling by the locked and forlorn Centro Maria today – in the distant past the parish of St.Ambrose. Closed by the Archdiocese in 2020 and reported sold (resold?) in January 2022 for $25 million. (Hells Kitchen Development Site Sells for $25M (Bldup Newsletter, 1/10/2022)

It now awaits demolition – how long before that occurs?

For the historical background of the parish, the womens’ residence and the sale, see these reports:

Soon to Go. The School and Church of St. Ambrose–539-547 West 54th Street (Daytonian in Manhattan, 10/12/2022)

The End of the Churches – the Former Parish of St.Ambrose (The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny, 10/28/2021)

The Churches of New York XLVI: Losses 5 (The Society of St Hugh of Cluny, 10/1/2013) (On the two former parishes of St. Leo and St. Ambrose)