Letter of Rev. Fr. Charles Murr to Parish and Parents

To the Parish of St. Francis de Sales and the Children and Parents of the St. Francis de Sales School/St. Lucy Academy:

On Friday, April 2, 2004, I resigned as pastor of the Parish of St. Francis de Sales. I am writing to you now to explain the circumstances that led me to make this decision.

Our parish school, the St. Francis de Sales School/St. Lucy Academy, currently faces some grave problems. One concerns financial management. Contrary to the policies of the Archdiocese, no financial statements for the school have been prepared for any period after August 31, 2001, and thus no one knows what the financial condition of the school actually is. It is clear, however, that for several years the school has not been making required payments for insurance and pension benefits, and the Archdiocese calculates that the school owes the Archdiocese over $638,000. Although I attempted to work with the administration of the school to prepare the needed financial statements, the school’s administration consistently failed to cooperate with me, and, on the advice of the Parish Council, I notified the Archdiocese in January that I intended to replace the principal and vice principal of the school. The Archdiocese accepted this decision and last week resolved to send officials from the chancery to begin preparing and auditing financial statements for the school.

The second problem at the school concerns religious instruction. On the most recent administration of the Archdiocese’s standardized religion test last June, approximately 66% of our students failed. The major reason for this was that several of our teachers were not committed to teaching the Catholic faith. One teacher, for example, was taking her students to non-Catholic religious services on Sunday mornings. Another refuses to teach her students to make the Sign of the Cross. Others do not teach those doctrines of the Catholic faith with which they disagree. To rectify these problems, I appointed a new Director of Religious Education for the school this year, but the teachers who were hostile to Catholic doctrine disrupted his classes, belittled him in front of his students, instructed his students to ignore him, and even spread slanderous reports about him. I thus determined that the employment contracts of these teachers would not be renewed for the coming academic year, and on April 1, I informed these teachers accordingly.

It has been reported to me that, on April 1, at least some of these teachers held their students after school, read to them my letter declining to renew their employment contracts, and provided their own comments on the matter. Predictably, they reduced many children to tearful hysteria. The behavior of these teachers was reprehensible; they intentionally inflicted harm on innocent children in order to advance their own private interests. On behalf of the school, I apologize to these students and their parents for the grossly unprofessional conduct of these teachers.

On Friday afternoon, Msgr. Thomas Gilleece, the Chancellor of the Archdiocese, informed me without further explanation that, by order of the Cardinal, I was to renew the employment contracts of the principal, the vice principal, and all the affected teachers. Since I could not in good conscience, as a pastor charged with the care of souls, comply with this order, I resigned as pastor of the Parish of St. Francis de Sales and as administrator of the Parish of St. Lucy. On Saturday, April 3, the members of the Parish Council wrote Cardinal Egan informing him that they shared my views regarding the need to reform the school and had concluded that they could not in good conscience as faithful Catholics be associated with his order to reinstate the principal, the vice principal, and the affected teachers. The members of the Parish Council thus resigned their positions. The Parish Trustees likewise resigned. As of the date of this letter, none of us has received any reply from the Cardinal.

It has been a great honor to serve as your pastor. You will all remain in my prayers.

And if I still don't know whatof I speak, after being harangued to death by my holier-than-thou acquaintances and friends walking around with their Latin-English missals and holy cards, I guess I never will.

Don't worry about what they think, or what I or other internet posters think for that matter. People are more likely to seperate you from God than bring you closer.

The reason you would seek to understand it is for closer communion with Him, while understanding the "source" of every Christian religion in existence and the source of Western civilization for that matter.

Without His grace and blessing, none of this would have been possible.

The ancient right is our most direct and intergral line to Jesus the human race has. It's is certainly not coincidence that during the centuries that it was practiced we grew the church to be the greatest most dynamic force in human history, while during the last few decades of supressing it we've deflated and devolved terribly.

The reason for our current problems is because we regard Him less, most blatantly during the mass which is supposed to be about Him.

I was a member of St. Francis de Sales Church before Fr. Murr was made pastor. It followed Jesus' call to feed the poor, house the homeless, opened its doors to everyone in need. Fr. Murr, as I was told, closed down the homeless shelter (which was in the basement of the school), closed the soup kitchen, stopped the Weekend Meals Program (which delivered meals for Sat/Sun to homebound seniors, those disabled with mental and physical problems and people with AIDS), we supplied grocery bags for people in the neighborhood who were without food for reasons we didn't go into (how can you look an 87 year old woman in the face and tell her there is no food to tide her over until her social security check comes or a woman with two small children who wasn't able to feed them since breakfast the day before?), these are just a few things that St. Francis de Sales Church used to do BEFORE Fr. Murr. The Academy was financially separate from the Church - it was set up that way when it was established by the Christian Brothers who run the school... when St. Lucy's school was combined with St. Francis de Sales school the Christian Brothers took over leadership of the new Academy and there was much fanfare in the diocese of the great job it was doing. One of the main religion problems was the fact that the majority of the students were not children of the parish or even Catholic, there were many Muslims, Protestants, etc. as a matter of fact the majority of the students were not Catholic - they attended mass every week in the Church but it was difficult to teach religion in a class where only a few students were Catholic while the others didn't have to take the lessons. The majority of students didn't even live in the neighborhood because there were waiting lists to get into the school due to its scholastic renown.
If the Archdiocese was having problems with the finances of the school they should have had someone sent in by the Supertendent of School from the Archdiocese to audit the books and deal with the problem. The pastor was not only responsible for one church but also for St. Lucy's in a deal worked out with the previous pastor, Fr. Robert Lott, so with all the work of two active NYC parishes, Fr. Murr should have turned to the Archdiocese to deal with the Academy financial and religious problems.
It would be interesting to find out the process that was taken, the meetings with staff and administrators at the school and with the parents board.
Also it would be interesting to know who was on this Parish Council and where they lived, for I was told that there were a number of "non-parishioners" on the Parish Council. That they came in from other parts of the city to run the parish.

I have asked one of the former parish council members to clarify:

First of all, let’s stay with what’s relevant here. Fr. Murr made wanted to make some personnel changes at the school because the school was grossly mismanaged financially and because two-third of its students were failing standardized religion tests. You may not agree with other decisions Fr. Murr made, say about the soup kitchen, but those matters are not relevant here. The question is whether Fr. Murr was right about the school.

Most of the points this post makes about the school are demonstrably mistaken.

First, it is true that the St. Francis de Sales School/St. Lucy Academy is financially separate from the Parish of St. Francis de Sales. This is true about every parish in the Archdiocese that has a school: the parish and the school prepare separate financial statements. In fact, this arrangement highlights the problem: the parish has prepared and filed its financial statements with the Archdiocese through the most recently completed fiscal year (which ended on August 31, 2004). The school has not prepared any financial statements for any period after August 31, 2001—over two and a half years.

Second, it is absolutely false that a majority of the students in the school are non-Catholics. For 2003, the statistics were as follows:

Third Grade: 42 of 50 students (84%) Catholic
Fourth Grade: 50 of 59 students (85%) Catholic
Fifth Grade: 38 of 55 students (69%) Catholic
Sixth Grade: 34 of 51 students (67%) Catholic
Seventh Grade: 39 of 46 students (85%) Catholic
Eighth Grade: 37 of 60 students (62%) Catholic

It is also false that non-Catholic students in Catholic schools do not study religion. They are required to receive religious instruction just like other students. In any event, since about 66% of the students were failing the Archdiocese’s religion examination, even if we assume that all non-Catholic students failed, the failure rate would still be tremendous, ranging from about 28% in the eighth grade to 51% in the fourth grade.

It is true that a majority of the students do not live in the neighborhood, but this has nothing, unfortunately, to do with the academic quality of the school. The school attracted children from various parts of upper Manhattan and Bronx because its tuition was about $400 below the Archdiocese’s average (about $2300 versus about $2700).

Third, Fr. Murr was dealing with the Archdiocese to deal with the problems at the school. He informed the Archdiocese as early as last November about the severe financial management problems at the school, any by January the Archdiocese had agreed that the principal and vice principal would be replaced. At Fr. Murr’s request, the Archdiocese agreed, in writing, that the financial problems at the school were so severe that the Archdiocese was going to send its own accountants to prepare and audit financial statements for the school for the past periods for which no financial statements had been prepared.
As to the entirely irrelevant issues raised in this post, I shall say but a few words.

Yes, Fr. Murr did close a soup kitchen and other activities operated out of the church’s basement, but only so that the basement could be renovated. This work is now almost complete, and when it was completed, the soup kitchen was going to reopen. All this was announced to the parish at the time and is well-known. The implication in the post is that Fr. Murr closed the soup kitchen permanently merely because he is unsympathetic to the poor, and that is a slanderous falsehood. Everyone in the parish knew why the soup kitchen was closed and that it was planned to reopen in the near future.

As to who the parish council members are and where they live, the members of the parish council are the following:

Robert T. Miller, Esq.
John M. Olin Research Fellow in Law
Columbia Law School

Jennifer L. Marino-Miller, Esq.
Attorney-at-Law
Wachtel & Masyr, LLP

James Caravelli, M.D.
Attending Radiologist
Sloane Kettering Cancer Center
Professor of Clinical Radiology
Weill Medical College of Cornell University

Paula Caravelli
Board of Directors
The Narnia Clubs

Demetrio J. Aguila, III, M.D.
Resident Surgeon
The Mount Sinai Medical Center

Jennifer Aguila
South Campus Residential Life Coordinator
Pratt Institute

John Palmer
Metropolitan Artisans, K.F.T.
The John D. Palmer Trust

Abigail Palmer
Department of Classics
Fordham University

Noel Cordero
Director of Religious Education
St. Francis de Sales School/St. Lucy Academy

Mr. and Mrs. Miller line on East 90th Street. Dr. and Mrs. Caravelli live on East 93rd Street. Mr. Cordero lives on East 106th Street. Dr. and Mrs. Aguila used to live on East 105th Street, and Dr. Aguila continues to work at Mt. Sinai, which is located on East 102nd Street. Mr. and Mrs. Palmer, who joined the parish council only in the last two months, live on West 92nd Street. So the claim is that these individuals are “non-parishioners” is untrue.

I have already written the Cardinal's office, the Diocese of Boston and discussed this situation with my confessor. He reminds us of the following: All four gospels come down to two words: Take Action!

And giving aid and comfort to the spiritual enemy is not action but appeasement. In my view, it would be better to act in truth and be wrong, than to fail to act and be wrong. To be condemned by history is one thing; to be condemned by the truth is quite another.

Consider James Ch 1:

2. Count it all joy, my brethren, when you meet various trials,

3. for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.

4. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

5. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives to all men generously and without reproaching, and it will be given him.

6. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.

7. For that person must not suppose that a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways, will receive anything from the Lord.

I feel strongly on the subject as I have been sending my granddaughters to Catholic School for years. I do not live in this particular diocese, but must believe this is not unusual. It reminds me a a couple instances which were dismissed by me in the past. For example, a lay Religion teacher telling the one in high school there is no reason for women to be denied ORDERS as they were allowed in the early Church--deaconess. This one also spoke of an assembly with abortion as the topic. She said many of the girls told the priest giving the talk that women "had the right to choose." The eight grader said she had never heard you could sin in THOUGHT, WORD, and DEED. Said she knew nothing about the THOUGHT thing. Or how about avoiding sex because they were TOO YOUNG; nothing about SIN. I did question the principal regarding the last--it was denied, and I was assured it was discussed as a sacramental matter. I will admit the other things mentioned, and more I chalked up to "sleeping in class". After reading of Fr. Murr's situation I really do wonder. Perhaps the time for presuming, or assuming the children are receiving the same solid teachings we received as children is long gone.

Welcome!

Perhaps the time for presuming, or assuming the children are receiving the same solid teachings we received as children is long gone.

It's long gone. I was educated in Catholic HS in the 70s and we learned very little about the Catholic Church. It was the same among my peers - in all different schools, same archdiocese - Boston. In fact, my freshman religion teacher (a lay man) told us that the Virgin Mary wasn't a virgin and she and Joseph had other children. I knew it was untrue then and I always remembered it (30 years later! YIKES!). At least that led me to study the issue but I always wondered about the kids who accepted what he said on face value.

My daughter is in Catholic HS as a freshman. All of her classes are beyond reproach except for religion class which is a joke content wise and also among the students. Assigned reading is "Joshua" by Joseph Girzone (book basically says all religions are the same) and to illustrate family ties the class sat through the movie "The Lion King" - I could go on, believe me. Only two kids in the class have seen "The Passion" and the teacher has made it plain that he will not go and see the movie until it is a $.99 rental and then maybe he still won't rent it. No discussion of the content of the movie and no move to put it in larger context.

The good news for me is that I know what this teacher teaches and what he doesn't and so I can fill in at home - which is my job anyway. We recently found a true shepherd priest who is holy and who my children love. Thank God!

It's tragic that you can't trust a Catholic school to teach Catholicism - worse yet, most parents really don't care anyway.

Yes, it's nice that your daughter got a picture of a child making the sign of the cross. But what's SAD about it was that it was thought NECESSARY...this isn't something you should HAVE to teach a catholic child at the age of 5 or 6. If you're having to teach that at 5 or six, rather than at age 1 or 2 that should tell you that SIGNIFICANT numbers of Catholic children are NOT being taught this at home. If a supposedly catholic child of 5 or 6 doesn't ALREADY know the sign of the cross, the Our Father, Hail Mary, or Glory Be, it should be obvious that the PRIMARY teachers of religious instruction are NOT DOING THEIR JOBS AS PARENTS AND CATHOLICS. This is something that should have been taught when they were toddlers and first learning to talk. I taught CCD for about 6 years, and I always KNEW the little ones who were going to be "lost" or have a difficult time being taught the faith, because it was evident that if a child didn't know the most elemental things by even K or 1st grade, they were NOT living in a truly catholic home, because they were NOT shown "by example."

I know some parents can not afford tuition, I know how difficult it is now, but if you can, PLEASE get your catholic kids educated in catholic schools. At best CCD is only a stop gap...and if you have to avail yourself of CCD classes because of lack of affordablity or availability, PLEASE do yourself as a parent to make sure YOU live the faith in front of your child. All the teachers in the world can't make up for it. Please try the best YOU can to know as much about the faith as possible. No good TALKING about reading the bible, saying your prayers, attending mass faithfully, showing your kids the courage to do the RIGHT thing in the face of a lot of easy, wrong choices. DO IT.

If you do these things as a WAY OF LIFE, they will do them too. If you don't, it's IN SPITE OF YOU, and not BECAUSE of you that they will do them at all....if ever.

The reason this person you describe doesn't know anything is because he wasn't taught anything. An acquaintance of mine went through 4 years of Catholic High School and was shocked to find out just a few weeks ago that Catholics fast on Fridays. Nobody told ever him because they don't teach Catholicism anymore. The catechism and the Catholic schools are an abject disaster and getting worse as we speak.

okay, you blame the Catholic schools on this one? I suspect your acquaintance most likely wasn't paying attention. He never noticed his PARENTS doing days of fast and abstinence? He supposedly went to mass and happened to miss EVERY Sunday before Ash Wednesday...where it was a "given" that the priest had an announcement reminder re: the rules/ages/conditions of fast and abstinence? WHERE THE HELL WAS HE?

I think it's safe to BANK ON the fact that many people, no matter HOW MANY TIMES YOU TELL THEM are "clueless." How many times have you run into some half-assed older catholics who insist that they were told "never to read the bible for themselves" or that "sister said it was a mortal sin if we drank water right before mass." Or countless idiots who are "shocked, shocked" to learn that Teddy Kennedy supports abortion. [My own former pastor used to tear his hair out over these people wondering wherever they got these notions from.]

I suspect your acquaintance may even not realize that men have walked on the moon.

I guess we're not going to agree on this, but I think you should do some research about what has happened to the traditional Catholic Mass since the time of Vatican II. The Catholic Mass is not "minutiae." Even to suggest so is sacrilegious. The traditional Catholic Mass of all time which is offered in the Latin language IS "the essentials." It's the very definition of "essentials." It is the reason and purpose for our existence: to offer to God fitting adoration, reparation, thanksgiving and supplication.

Yes, it's so obvious that ONLY Tridentine Catholics are REAL Catholics. All those other Rites, Ukrainian, Maronites, etc. are just plain WRONG. They should have gotten with the "mass of all time." [/sarcasm off]

Small clue for the Pharisees out there: There is more than one way to skin a cat. Try to figure out the TRUE essentials of the faith. A validly said mass is a validly said mass. THAT is what is "essential." No matter WHICH ritual. [As long as it's an APPROVED ritual!]

And any Catholic who thinks that if you can change around the tradition of "no meat on Fridays" that means you can change around your opinions about abortion, is a BOOB...plain in simple. They NEVER understood what was essential. They were mere CHILDREN in that they did not learn what it means to be an adult in the faith. [Hint: Your education shouldn't stop as soon as you get confirmed.]

I knew Fr. Charles Murr, both in St. Francis De Sales, and in his previous parish, Our Lady of Guadaloupe. He was a real priest, truly devoted to the faith, to the Eucharist, and to preaching all of the truths of the faith in a very clear, unvarnished manner. He inhereited a horrible situation when he took of SFDS in the fall of 2002. The previous pastor, Fr. Robert Lott (deceased) was a liberal priest, had ruined the parish financially, and had a scandalous living arrangement in his residence. Only death prevented him from being named as one of the priests in the clergy scandal list! Fr. Murr set about to see to the proper Catholic education of the children, provide valid repectful masses, exposition of the blessed sacrament, etc. He only allowed altar boys (no girls), no eucharistic ministers. In short, real traditional Catholicism within the structure of a diocesan parish. That was his mistake! Th Archdiocese of NY is run by a collection of so called priests who have no faith, and are definately anti-papal, though they cloak themselves in respectability. They are are also riddled with gay priests. So a man like Fr. Murr is seen as the enemy to them. He was set up to fail - from the beginning! So now he is gone, and a liberal will probably get the parish, and undo all the good he did, just as at Our Lady of Guadaloupe. Cardinal Egan is not a conservative, and is not really a true believer. He is a ruthless beaurocrat, who does not care about the laity, and does not really support good, conservative priests. He is also hell-bent on a program to close half of the parishes in Manhattan - most of them truly beautiful and historic churches - and sell the property to pay off court settlements, and give the remainder to the liberal upstate pastors. I wish I knew where Fr. Murr went so I could send him my sympathies!

Excellent. As someone who was directly involved in helping to make that place CATHOLIC, I dare say, most of these so called "catholic" schools are NO LONGER Catholic. The poor pastor, he tried so hard to make the school catholic, and this means that the official teachings of the church were to be taught: just as it comes from ROME, i.e. the VATICAN, THE NEW CATECHISM ETC. and for this the wonderful members of the parish who backed the pastor, such as I for one, only got persecution in return, great suffering, ridicule, and worse of all, some of us were slandered as being "liars."
I know one thing, great Pastors who have the...courage to stand up to liberal dissent (even if the dissenters have unions) to defend CHURCH teachings and DOGMA are real priests who are not intrested in church politics, nor beuracratic diocesan offices, and they deserve our love, respect, help.
I for one, and many many other young Catholics are tired of the moderate/liberal non-sense, and hence NOW only support OPUS DEI SCHOOLS, and Home Schooling (Roman Catholic Home-schooling). Very few dioceses remain catholic, the REAL Roman Catholic ones are: Lincoln, Nebraska, Denver, Omaha.

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