Don’t close Polish churches in Dunkirk, Fredonia

[Jaga]

I received a couple of e-mails about it and I thought this is worth for you to know:

Don’t close churches in Dunkirk, Fredonia
Updated: 06/12/07 6:41 AM

Catholic Parishioners Against Church Suppression is an organization supporting the predominantly Polish parishes of St. Hyacinth and St. Hedwig in Dunkirk. We are opposed to the closing of any of the six parishes in the Dunkirk/Fredonia area because all six are financially selfsufficient. We feel the shortage of priests can be dealt with by importing priests from Poland where there is a surplus of clergy. We strongly oppose the closing of churches and schools to pay for judgments resulting from clergy sex scandals and we certainly will not sacrifice our quality of life while the bishop lives in a million-dollar mansion.

There are many in our group who say if our churches close they will simply watch Mass on television. Others will give their weekly donation to another charity. The vast majority of our members are submitting reverse pledge cards to the diocese indicating that if their church closes, their weekly donations will be substantially reduced or eliminated.

We invite comments and suggestions from other Western New York Catholics at our Web site: www.catholicpacs.com.

Bill Parks, Fredonia

Mary Ann Herrington Phil Julian,

Dunkirk

[george]

Jaga.... We have had the same problems in our Diosese and the same requests for priests from poland to alleviate the problem. Our Bishop resists this request for priests from Poland (and other countries for that matter ). The Catholic church in Poland has a different culture than the American church and vice versa. Certainly not saying one is better than the other. We once had a priest from Lithuania. It was a disaster. His accent was tough to understand, i think he was perplexed by American catholics and he just seemed to be lost in more ways than one. He darn near drove this church into closing.
I talked to someone who works for the Diosese and he told me there were many examples of this type of problem thru out the Diosese. Priests from countries with a surplus of priests is not always the answer. Our Bishop knows the culture of our faith and shies away from priests from other countries.
The churches who are threatned with closing are usually closing NOT from a lack of priests, but are threatned with closing because of a lack of attendance and financial health. If the Church is well attended and is financially viable it will not close because of a lack of priests. They will find one even if a priest has two or three parishes.

[george]

One more thing. It drives me crazy when people say if their Church closes, they will not go to another church but will instead watch mass on TV. Are they worshiping a building or a faith?

[rdywenur]

Jaga, My reply is very much like George's. We had St Thresas close here and it was do to not enoguh attendance to keep it going and so they merged it with St. Stanislaus a much larger church but it is being threatened also. We have nice Polish priests though. Watch mass on tv maybe if you are bed ridden othewise to me does not count.