The Post must have a frustrated comedy writer..for headlines
Posted on 02/27/2007 9:27:29 AM PST by ELS
February 27, 2007 -- Edward Cardinal Egan pulled a fast one on a lower Manhattan parish pastor yesterday, summoning the priest to meet with him - then dispatching security guards to permanently lock the cleric's church doors.
The priest returned to Our Lady of Vilnius to find himself locked out - a brusque Egan move that left parishioners stunned and saddened.
The cardinal's move also occurred right before a scheduled meeting with Lithuania's consul general, who was set to make a plea to save the church, parishioners and the Archdiocese of New York said.
"Cardinal Egan again shows his true colors," said Peter Borre, a Boston man who is advising local parishioners in their efforts to avoid planned church closings by the archdiocese.
"This church has been here for 102 years. We're supposed to have a 12:15 p.m. Mass today and people were turned away crying," said the church's secretary, who gave only her first name, Joy.
"I find this unconscionable."
Egan's sneak attack came just days after The Post revealed that Lithuania's president had written a letter asking that he reverse a plan to close Our Lady of Vilnius on Broome Street, originally founded to serve natives of his country.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The Post must have a frustrated comedy writer..for headlines
I would say this church didnt meet their scheduled payments to the Diocese. Churches with big donations dont get shut. Thats for sure. Perhaps the diocese itself was kicking in to keep it open.
Catholic Churches may be places of worsip and faith,but its a business as far as the Diocese is concerned. Like any other business if it doesnt show a profit it has to go.
I have been expecting my parish church to be closed for a few years now,especially since priests are getting scarce.
Lack of attendence means lack of resources,lack of funds going in the box. The land and buildings can be sold.
ping
I'm sure it was in a bad shape financially, but he handled it in the worst, most high-handed way possible. As usual
The land and buildings can be sold.
Not always a good move and the Church has a relatively new policy that properties valued over a certain amount cannot be sold. Besides, there are MANY churches in Europe that are older than the U.S., let alone the churches built in the U.S., and they don't tear them down when the demographics change. As usual, the Americans are very short sighted.
You are, perhaps, unfamiliar with the New York Post? Clever headlines have been their stock in trade for twenty-five years.
The Cardinals and the Bishops are absolute dictators who treat the diocese as their personal feifdoms!!!!!
Wasn't Cardinal Eagan involved with shuffling between churches pedophile priest in connecticat?
Want I find interesting in these comments is a situation that might seem to indicate that the Roman Catholic Church is not practicing what it preaches to the world.
It has a "communitarian" (my word) approach to economics from which it criticizes "the rich" and capitalists in particular (in a manner in which that criticism sounds no different that the Marxian left) for not sharing and spreading "the wealth" to support the "marginalized" and "diverse" communities of the world.
But it seems unwilling to use those same principals (take from the rich congregations and give it to the poor ones) to save a historic New York congregation, its church, its community and its identity.
I would imagine it could reduce the bloated staff and St. Patrick's Cathedral enough to keep the historic Lithuanian Catholic Church open.
(Off course the area where the Lithuanian church is located in Manhattan has also become an increasingly lucrative real estate market.)
Our congregation, with its nasty modern building, is baptizing a half dozen adults and admitting 27 others into full communion this Easter. They're certainly not joining for the beauty of the building or because of sentimental attachments. They're joining because they can look past buildings to one not made with hands.
I abandoned what I now consider a pseudo-communion with probably the best ecclesiastical architecure in the US. Leeks, garlic and flesh-pots still tempt and beckon, but once you've located the fire and heard the voice, buildings matter less than they did.
Maybe his excellency did wrong. But maybe he had shortages and shortfalls to deal with and he had a bunch of unattractive choices to make. Much as I like the NY Post, I would hesitate to trust them to portray in all its painful detail what led to the decision.
This story represents a despicable cardinal, that's all.
And you seem to not be too familiar with Cardinal Egan's basic modus operandi.
I would be slow to say the the Church in Europe does things better than we do here.
That is quite a stretch from what I said. It is rather well established that Church attendance in France is barely measurable. Does that mean that the churches of Notre Dame and Chartres, etc. should be put on the real estate market, sold and torn down? My point is that the mentality that sees $$$ as more important than inspirational and functional architecture is misguided. It is one thing to close a church and board it up until it is needed again, or perhaps to rent it and it is quite another thing to destroy a beautiful building and sell the land. The Church is NOT a for profit business. Saving souls, rather than the financial bottom line, should be the highest priority.
When things get tough, should the church sacrifice evangelism for architectural preservation?
Please show me in the article where it said that Egan was deciding between evangelism and architectural preservation. It is not an either/or situation.
Perhaps the parish needed to be closed. Was it really necessary to have the locks changed while the pastor was meeting with the Archbishop and before there was a scheduled Mass? Does that strike you as charitable?
Thanks, ELS.
We don't have all the facts, so I really can't pass judgment on this.
I believe cardinal Egan will be 75 this April.I hope the Pope has it on his calendar.
Very extremely severely guilty as charged. I have no clue about the guy.
I quite get that the church is not a for profit bidnis. On the flip side, it can't operate at a loss, not for long. Will we praise bishops and administrators who say, "The Lord will provide," and do nothing about budget issues? When they trusted the Lord to provide a solution to the ephebephilia craze, they were roundly scorned. (This is now a general question because I have zero knowledge about this particular situation.)
And my comments generally were in response to the criticism of closing churched if they needed diocesan or other subsidies. For the third time I will say (so it is now officially true) that I do not know Egan, the situation, the relationship between him and the pastor, the possibilities of, say, demonstrations or other behaviors less than filial on the part of the clergy and the congregation. I don't know anything either way.
But I do know that there are two sets of cheap shots available. One set is to say things like the Church is now in the museum business and that all 'round the world people are not hearing the Gospel (or are being charged for the sacraments, as they are in parts of Latin America, where some or too poor to have their children baptized) because money is being spent preserving architecture and so forth. The other is to say that to close churches shows too materialistic and profit-centered an attitude.
I don't know if closing the church in so precipitous a manner was charitable or not. It sure looks bad. Either Egan is at best a fool or there was some ugly stuff preceding this closure. Or he is at best a fool AND there was some ugly stuff preceding this closure.
In general, eleemosynary institutions are a bitch to run (btdt), and the criticism they get is not always the criticism they deserve, which is not to say that they deserve NO criticism.
The defense rests.
I hope you don't think that I have made either of those "cheap shots." If you do, then it is evidence that I don't express myself very clearly. My main concern in this case is the underhanded way that Cardinal Egan dealt with the pastor of this parish.
There are those who make the argument that the Church should sell all of its art and architecture in order to help the poor. That argument has been roundly clobbered by FReepers far more eloquent than I. Jesus said the poor will always be with us. Once the property is sold and the wealth distributed, what happens to the future generations of the poor when the Church no longer has assets to sell? Now many of the inspirational artistic masterpieces can be seen by the public. If they were to be sold to individuals, they likely wouldn't be accessible to the public. Is that a net gain? Perhaps more of a long term solution is better?
Many of the churches in Europe have existed for hundreds of years. During that time the average Catholic was far less wealthy than today and yet the churches were maintained rather than torn down. Not to mention that the churches they built were, and are, more architecturally and artistically beautiful than many of the churches built today. The Church has been able to evangelize AND maintain beautiful churches for hundreds of years.
But if it was me, I'd want a BUNCH more info before I ruled on this mess.
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