Posted on 04/25/2013 6:35:58 AM PDT by NYer
.- Residents and religious of a small Chicago suburb rallied to celebrate their so far successful campaign against the opening of a multi-million dollar strip club across from a convent.
“We came together as a community, as people of faith and stood together fighting for family values against what some thought was an unbreakable giant,” Sr. Noemia Silva of the Missionary Sisters of St. Charles Borromeo, Scalabrinian said at an April 22 press conference.
“It’s not only for the sisters, but for the community itself,” she told CNA in a later interview.
Outrage has erupted locally over the building of the strip club, particularly because of its location next to the missionary sisters' convent and retirement home. Proprietors of the club have been accused of breaking state law, which requires a 1,000-foot “buffer zone” between places of worship and such businesses.
“They haven’t respected state law and so we’re going to tell them, ‘You need to respect that,” Sr. Silva said. “This should not have even happened so close to a worship area.”
Although the $3 million “adult entertainment” club, “Get It,” was slated to open during Holy Week of 2012, it has yet to open its doors to the public largely due to community protest and a legal battle between the landowner and building owner.
Sr. Silva said the sisters, who are spread throughout 18 countries, have been praying for the intercession of St. Michael. “All of our communities are praying for this; it’s just constant, constant prayer.”
She likened their fight against the club’s opening to that of David and Goliath. “David won the battle because he trusted in the Good Lord,” she explained. “He’ll fight this battle for us.”
Many locals are worried about what kind of community such an establishment would foster, especially in an area where many young families as well as long-time residents live.
“I raised my children in this community,” Pat Zito, who has lived in the area for 45 years, said. “My children were concerned for my safety if this place opened, for what it would bring.”
Opposition to the club has been steadily growing since last year as other community leaders have joined the sisters in their fight against the club.
Recently with the help of West Suburban Action Project the community gathered in its largest-ever public demonstration as some 500 people assembled for a prayer vigil. Additionally, over 3,000 people have signed petitions against the club.
The community has called on Mayor Beniamino Mazzulla of neighboring Stone Park – which boarders Melrose Park and is home to the massive strip club – to enforce the “buffer-zone” law or to support the case when they take it to court.
If it opens, this would be the sixth strip club in the community.
The Thomas More Society has offered free legal support to the sisters should they choose to take legal action, which they most likely will.
“If the Village of Stone Park does not heed the call of the Sisters to enforce the buffer law,” executive director, Peter Breen, said, “we are ready with a diverse coalition of individuals and organizations to seek relief from the courts.”
SAINT MICHAEL
THE ARCHANGEL
St. Michael the Archangel,
defend us in battle.
Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.
May God rebuke him, we humbly pray,
and do thou,
O Prince of the heavenly hosts,
by the power of God,
thrust into hell Satan,
and all the evil spirits,
who prowl about the world
seeking the ruin of souls. Amen..
Go sisters!!
Where are the Nuns on the Bus? Why are they not here, praying along with their sisters?
What difference does it make? Houston has a lesbian mayor and now the strip joints cannot have bare nipples (and I’ve heard talk that thongs are out, only booty shorts) and she tried to impose a “rape tax” on admission fees.
Yet anything goes (on and off) at the annual Gay Pride Parade (one of the nation’s largest).
Perhaps I am not understanding you correctly. It appears you condone the placement of a strip club next to a religious convent. There can be only one motivation behind such a decision and that is to disturb the prayerful life of a religious community.
Yeah sisters, you wouldn’t want any sinners wandering around your neighborhood........
Strip joints today aren’t as they were in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, or 1990s. There is no nudity these days (not just in this town but in many major cities from coast to coast). You could see more on a trip to the beach.
That said, they are within their right to protest such an establishment (or even a beer garden) opening in their neighborhood.
In Houston, there was an existing church and a private school adjacent to the land where Houston's newest baseball park was built. To avoid the prohibition on alcohol sales, the measurement was done using a convoluted "maze" path to secure the necessary exemption. Other restaurants and bars in the area saw through the double standard.
Regardless, what sort of clientele is drawn to strip clubs? Are these considered family establishments, like a restaurant?
I don’t support the construction of the strip club, which is already against local code, leading to the possibility that they are being granted a special favor by someone along the way for some reason.
I was making the case that a strip club isn’t always what people think they were whent they were growing up.
If it were “just” a bar, it would be equally in violation and unwelcome.
Also “What difference does it make” is the liberal stock answer these days. It can be a sarcastic critique of the Left.
Especially in an unside down world where homosexuals engage in public sex at civic events championed by an alternative lifestyle mayor who flaunts her “wife” in a state that does not recognize same sex marriages.
Bless them indeed. Can’t help though imagining a comedy skit on the subject. </evil thoughts>
This anti "Mafooch" ( Mafia ) as it is a spiritual battle, and it make take your name ending in a vowel to see it...
Look at their names, the name of the other mayor and the whole aroma of Chicago and the it's soft underbelly.
Man these Nuns are tough, they are telling the Mob, not here....
I'd take either one of them to replace our Leadership in a heartbeat.
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