CNBNews

Parishes in and around northwestern Camden Cou-nty, part of diocese Region 5, Deanery II, remain open while diocese-appointed Priest Convener Father James Dabrowski, current pastor at Annunciation Par-ish in Bellmawr, oversees the process that will lead to the eventual merger of Annunciation with St. Anne in Westville and St. Maurice in Brooklawn.

St. Mary Parish, Glouces-ter City, will remain a stand alone parish. Last week, the Gloucester City News honored St. Mary School for 150 years of quality education – the oldest school in the diocese.

With the exception of a prepared statement released to the NEWS for its first article last year on the mergers, Rev. Dabrowski, who did not respond to telephone calls earlier this year, has remained silent about the reconfigurations in his deanery.

However, as one of the subjects in a story pub-lished on February 26 in the Catholic Star Herald, about priest conveners' goals, Rev. Dabrowski said he seeks to foster “empathy and mutual respect” among everyone involved in the process, calling the latter one of the most important factors in achieving a successful merger.

Like Rev. Dabrowski, most Deanery II pastors have kept their own counsel. They did not re-turn telephone calls asking for information, or referred callers to the Diocesan Office of Communications.

OPPOSITION

If it seems these priests in Deanery II believe silence is golden, opponents of the reconfiguration, diocesan-wide, do not.

This becomes more evi-dent as the diocese steps up its efforts to prepare in-dividual churches for their consolidation into what Bishop Joseph Galante hopes will be “vibrant” parishes.

Leah Vassallo is a local attorney, parishioner at St. Mary's Malaga, cofounder of Save St. Mary's Malaga (SSMM), joint webmaster with Julie Heiland of savestmarys.net, and co-founder of the Council of Parishes' South Jersey chapter (COPSJ).

She continues a fight that began almost immediately after Bishop Galante had announced the diocese's plans for reconfiguration in April 2008.

She and fellow pro-testers, including Heiland, also from St. Mary's Malaga; Robert Walsh, from Our Lady Queen of Peace (OLQP), Pitman; and Kevin Kelton, from St. Mary's Malaga, oppose closing not only their own churches, but any through out the diocese who wish to stay open.

Vassallo wants them to keep in mind that time is running out.

“What's important for people to know,” Vassallo said, “is that if they have not filed an appeal to the Congregation to the Clergy in Rome, they should do so.”

The process begins with filing an appeal to the bishop, then to Rome, then to the Apostolic Signatura, the highest judicial level in the Catholic church.

Vassallo and Walsh said Bishop Galante had in-sisted that until he issues an individual decree to close a particular parish, there is no decision to appeal.

However, Vassallo said, “Rome has made it clear with the appeal by St. Vincent Palloti [parish],” that it is possible to file a pre-decree appeal to the Vatican, because the bis-hop's April 2008 announce-ment constitutes an ad-ministrative act.

As such, she said, the Vatican determined that the parishes may file an appeal to reverse the act at any time. Most protesters, in-cluding Vassallo, suggest filing an appeal before the decree is issued.

“It is far more difficult to do once the church is closed and the merger completed,” she said.

“Once a decree of sup-pression is issued,” Kelton said, “a parish has 10 Canonical working days to appeal the bishop's dec-ision.”

A post-closure appeal also faces long odds because a legal process to merge the churches' civil corporations occurs simultaneously.

So far, St. Mary's Malaga and St. Vincent Palloti in Haddon Township have filed appeals, while St. Jude's in Blackwood is preparing its appeal.

COPSJ has held meetings with parishes who wish to mount appeals of their own, and invites other parishes to do likewise.

According to a December 2008 blog by Vassallo on COPSJ's web site, the organization has met with St. Jude's, St. Anthony (in Waterford), St. Peter (Pleasantville), and St. John the Evangelist (Pauls-boro), among others.

Parishioners may also register on COPSJ’s site for picketing events, invita-tions to which are dis-tributed via e-mail.

MAVERICKS

Like a child sitting on his hands outside the prin-cipal's office, Friends of St. Vincent Palloti (FOSVP) at www.fosvp.org has been waiting anxiously to re-ceive the Vatican's decision on its appeal.

The wait has become more nerve-wracking be-cause the Vatican had informed St. Vincent's on February 12 that it needed to extend the appeal review period until May 14, according to Ed Pierzynski, vice president of FOSVP.

“It is our presumption that this is a necessary step to allow the Bishop to respond to the numerous concerns posited by the parishioners,” he said.

“Last week (in early Ap-ril) they (Bishop Galante, Msgr. Peter Joyce and Chancellor Roger McRath) were all over there (at the Vatican). The Catholic Star Herald said he [the bishop] was going over to meet with seminarians. Our feeling is that, since they extended the review period, he probably was sum-moned. It's more than a co-incidence,” Pierzynski said.

When this reporter asked Diocesan Spokesperson Andrew Walton about the nature of the bishop’s visit to Rome as part of a series of extensive questions submitted to him, Walton declined.

However, Walton asked to meet with NEWS Publisher Albert J. Countryman Jr. to address his concerns about the questions, which he felt were biased toward the opponents of the parish closures. Also, he further explained the overall plan of the diocese.

DIOCESE OPTIMISTIC

Walton explained the diocese’s position and its plan to reduce the number of current parishes from 124 to 68, with 107 Church/Worship sites.

A major issue of Jubilee Year 2000 with Pope John Paul II was parish planning for dioceses around the world, he said.

“We put into place pastoral plans to assess the vigor of parish life, and find ways to invigorate parish life,” Walton said.

The Bishop visited all 124 parishes over a period of 18 months in 2004 and 2005 for listening sessions, or “Speak Ups,” Walton said. He was determined to listen to “the people’s con-cerns and hopes.”

More than 8,000 people came out, and there were recurring themes.

The six main priorities, he said, were:

The need to minister to youth and young adults.

Lifelong faith formation, meaning to minister to a Catholic’s needs through-out his or her entire life, and not just after a child is confirmed.

A good Liturgy, including music and a homily that is uplifting and engaging.

The need to increase vocations to the priesthood.

The need to encourage Lay Ministry, and recog-nize the gifts they have to offer to the church.

Compassionate outreach, including bereavement, care for the poor, social justice, and outreach to disaffected Catholics.

Walton also said that in 2005 it was determined that, “Many parishes lacked the (financial) resources to advance those six pastoral priorities.

From this data, and after further planning, the Dio-cese announced its plan in April 2008.

REACTION

Like SSMM and COPSJ, FOSVP organized itself quickly after the Bishop's announcement.

Members elected officials, incorporated, and filed tax certification as a nonprofit.

All of FOSVP's protest events, Pierzynski said, have been planned through that corporation.

Parishioner support has been enthusiastic and “pretty unanimous across the parish,” he said.

Several hundred people have attended FOSVP meetings, and a campaign to plant crosses on the church lawn drew approx-imately 500 people bearing about 1,000 crosses.

Pierzynski praised SSMM for pioneering protest ef-forts.

“They've done an excellent job at presenting the information,” he says, “especially some of the actions [by the diocese] that pose questions in the minds of parishioners,” he said.

Pierzynski added that the ability to communicate with lightning-speed across the Internet has made a lot of the work easier.

“It is part of the reason people are really starting to see what others are doing and are quickly moving. That's why our case with the Vatican is critical.

“If they do decide to let us remain a parish, it opens the door for other par-ishes,” he said. “But we're also afraid, if they don't let us [stay open], that this will close the door for other parishes.”

RESPONSE

The Diocese of Camden has met its parishioners' increasingly vocal and public protests with equally emphatic publicity of its own. According to a January 9 brief on its web site, the first session for priest conveners and their core teams would take place shortly.

On January 9 the diocese reported further that “the priest conveners with their core teams also will... review various finance and accounting issues, nomi-nate lay trustees, select a new finance council, and prepare to establish new registers, accounts and record books for the new parishes. They also will attend to the range of canonical and civil considerations involved in bringing parishes together.”

In addition, the diocese said, the core teams “will determine the pace, time line and the number of meetings... necessary based on the needs of their parishes.”

Not all responding vocals have been in anger.

According to “Merged parishes unite in song,” published in the Febuary 27 CSH, members of a group of merging parishes trying to move peacefully into the new system—St. Teresa de Avila and Immaculate Conception, Bridgeton; St. Michael, Cedarville; and St. Mary, Rosenhayn gathered for a Unity Hymn Sing on February 20.

St. Teresa's involvement in this event is notable because it is one of the parishes preparing to file an appeal to the Vatican.

Walton said that reasons for merging or closing parishes also include a decline of diocesan priests available for ministry, shifts in population from many of the older Camden County towns to other areas of South Jersey, changing demographics, a decline in religious practice (Catholics going to weekly Mass), and the need for parishes to carry out the pastoral priorities, and have the monies to do so.

A report on the Diocesan web page dated March 23, 2009, stated:

“In the last fiscal year, 31 of the 124 parishes in the diocese were unable to meet basic, annual oper-ating expenses. Another 10 parishes either had sig-nificant debt that they were unable to repay, had dif-ficulty meeting their oper-ating expenses, or both.

“And that was before the economic downturn that began last fall.”

SPEAKING OUT

Although few priests have spoken out against the diocese, former SMM pas-tor Father Jerome Roman-owski has been an enthuse-iastic and unwavering voice in the protest.

In his January 26 SSMM blog, he praised the atten-tion SSM had received.

“We get so many vis-itors,” he wrote, “people who wanted to pray in the church, although they're not from our parish.”

Since retired, in January he wrote, “One of the things we're waiting for is my status, because I'm completing 12 years here.

“I asked the present bishop to... reassign me for another six years as he has done for Father Wagenhoffer at St. Joseph's in Sommers Point. Normally, you're reassigned elsewhere, but I thought it would be good for the parish if I were to remain here,” he wrote.

On February 15, Rev. Romanowski posted “A House Built on Sand” on SSMM's web site. It later appeared as a link from ClearysNoteBook.com, Gloucester City resident Bill Cleary's online news forum. Cleary is Publisher Emeritus of the Gloucester City News.

The priest wrote, “Bishop Galante has ordered me to report to St. Nicholas of Tolentine in Atlantic City. No one will be surprised to discover that God does not want me to go there. My vocation is in the Diocese of Camden. When a priest is called to a life of prayer there is no turning back.”

The diocese appointed Fr. Edward Namiotka to suc-ceed him as Priest Convener. Rather than leave the parish entirely, Romanowski accepted retirement and remains at SSM to assist Fr. Namiotka as “spiritual director and pastor emeritus.”

Fr. Namiotka is also pastor at Our Lady of the Angels Parish, which includes St. Michaels in Minotola and Our Lady of Victories in Landisville; and president of Sacred Heart High School in Vineland.

(Editor’s note: This is part one of a series concerning the merging and closing of parishes in the Camden Diocese.)

ARTICLE ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN THE GLOUCESTER CITY NEWS