This announcement just popped up on the Holy Cross web site …
As far as I know, this is the first time the bishop will be visiting one of the 13 parishes whose school he closed in 2008.
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| Defending Truth and Tradition in the Roman Catholic Church |
| Defending Truth and Tradition in the Roman Catholic Church |
This announcement just popped up on the Holy Cross web site …
As far as I know, this is the first time the bishop will be visiting one of the 13 parishes whose school he closed in 2008.
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The bishop did come to Holy Trinity to celebrate the funeral mass for Deacon Leo Kester. Deacon Kester did request it before he died and hoped the bishop coming would help spawn the healing process over the school situation.
Anon. 5:38,
I obviously was not aware of that. Do you think his presence at the Deacon’s funeral had any positive effect on the parish?
Mike,
That is a tough question. I don’t think it really had a positive effect. I’d like to think that other parishioners are like me in that their feelings are based on the issues and not personal feelings toward the bishop. I guess you could say it was positive in the sense that it probably would have fostered negative feelings had the bishop declined the invitation.
Bishop Clark has been to Good Shepherd at least 2 times since closing the school. Once for the “installation Mass” for Nancy DeRycke, and once for the 100 year anniversary. I think there may have been one more time (something to do with RCIA), but I can’t quite remember.
EandKmom,
I guess my memory is starting to fail me: I even did a blog post in March of last year about Nancy’s “installation.”
Mea culpa.
I worry about what upcoming announcements regarding Holy Cross are in store. I’ve noticed he visits parishes in the months before some clustering or school closing announcement occurs. I was visiting a local parish two years ago when the pastor told some parishioners that the Bishop was going to be coming. All of them reacted basically the same way: “Oh _ _ _ _, what announcement is coming up?”
It turns out they were correct. Their school was closed and their parish is well on it’s way to being closed.
Anon. 12:17,
Well, the bishop can’t close our K-8 school: He’s already done that. We do have a pre-K program, but that’s a parish ministry with no direct connection to the Buffalo Rd. bureaucracy.
Of course, there’s always the parish itself. Many of us thought that Mass attendance would fall off significantly with the closure of the school, but it’s down by only 19 people in the last two years (we’ve had 10 times as many funerals in the same time). Overall, Mass attendance at HC is down some 13.6% since 1998, less than half as much as the diocese as a whole.
Our parish finances are sound and the new Eastern Greece/Charlotte Pastoral Plan, supposedly good through 2014, says nothing about clustering.
Still, with Bishop Clark you never really know. It will be interesting to hear what he has to say.