In a recent post, Cleansing Fire took a look at the five Northeast Rochester churches in an attempt to rate them from most desirable (to be retained) down to least desirable. The two I ended up rating as the best candidates were Corpus Christi and St. Michael.
A reader has sent us an e-mail making a couple of corrections to two pieces of information in the post. After making the corrections, the ratings were largely unchanged. Corpus Christi and St. Michael still appear to be the best two candidates to remain open. However, it appears I may have underrated St. Michael a bit. Thus, with the updated attendance information, I would have to rate St. Michael as the most desirable, followed closely by Corpus Christi. The attendance listed in the previous post for St. Michael was “300s”, and that was just an eyeball guesstimate. A reader has sent along a copy of the latest bulletin which shows that St. Michael drew 411 people this past weekend. That’s pretty good for a city parish at the end of June. Based on attendance information I have for Corpus, it’s also higher than what they draw. This would mean that St. Michael has the largest capacity church of the five, as well as the most people.
Additionally, an error was made in the map. I accidentally misplaced St. Michael and OLPH with regard to their north/south position. This has been corrected in the map below. OLPH should be closer to Norton, while St. Michael is on the corner of Clifford and Clinton. This correct placement gives St. Michael a more “central” location, and increases its desirability over OLPH (which is very close to St. Stanislaus).
Thus, the churches should be ranked, from best candidate to remain open to worst:
1. St. Michael
2. Corpus Christi
3. Our Lady of Perpetual Help
4. St. Andrew
5. Church of the Annunciation
In the scenario that St. Michael and Corpus Christi are selected, OLPH’s parishioners would probably worship at both St. Stanislaus and St. Michael (the Spanish Mass moving to St. Michael), St. Andrew’s parishioners would probably go to St. Stanislaus, and Annunciation would likely be split among St. Stanislaus, St. Ambrose, and possibly St. Cecilia in Irondequoit.
I apologize for the errors.
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I’m happy St. Michael has increased their attendance. I wonder if the 4:00 p.m. English Mass is part of the increase?
Our Lady of Perpetual Help never publishes their attendance figures. One of the few in the new cluster that doesn’t.
One question.
I just re-read the letter from the new co-administrators. Fr. Vinny Panepinto and Deacon Dan Hurley are no longer in charge of their churches? Do they have to answer to Deb and Fr. Paul? That’s the way I’m reading the letter.
Ms. Housel and Fr. Gitau are in charge. I don’t know what you would call the leaders of the individual parishes.
This whole thing seems to be in violation of Canon Law. Specifically, Canons 522 (parish priest to enjoy stability) and 517 (a priest is to direct the pastoral care of a parish).