Somehow I’m not surprised by this news. Instead of choosing Holy Family as the church to keep open in the City Southwest, the brain trust at Buffalo Road and those who were in charge of the parish at the time decided it was best to go with the costly Holy Apostles church.
This is not the first mind-numbing move made by the diocese.
Think St. Thomas the Apostle. A church that is ready to go, is in good financial shape, and can easily accommodate 1,000 Catholics has been “closed” by the diocese. Meanwhile, St. Cecilia is going to require costly expansion, and St. Margaret Mary is not in great financial shape.
Think St. Andrew. A church that can accommodate over 500 people, is handicap accessible, and has the benefit of rental income will soon be “closed” by the diocese. The new St. Frances Xavier parish is currently spending money to improve the facilities at Annunciation in order to make it handicap accessible. Annunciation is one of the smaller churches in the diocese, meaning it will have a difficult time accommodating all the Catholics from St. Andrew and Annunciation in one building. Additionally, they do not enjoy the luxury of rental income like St. Andrew.
Think Our Lady of Mt. Carmel. This church was rejected over Corpus Christi largely because of a parking lot, which is more than ample by the way. OLMC had a lower heating cost during the winter months, which could have helped the tough financial situation in the Blessed Trinity cluster. Instead they choose to keep open Corpus Christi, whose continued massive debt forced further consolidation with five other Northeast Rochester parishes.
The above are just a few examples of the bad decisions made by the diocese with regard to church consolidations. When are the folks at Buffalo Road going to admit that they have no idea what they are doing?
Tags: Bishop Clark, Church Closings
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Although this outcome of financial ruin could be seen by (some) mere creatures not claiming the gift of prophecy, God will always state His opinion, and often the gift of humility is attached as an offer. It is hard not to want to biblically shout from the rooftops: “Told ya so!!!!”. But pride is a serious nut to crack and only Our Lord has a sledge hammer large enough to do the job on the “nuts” falling from the tree on Buffalo Rd. Remember to pray for the shepherdless sheep burdened with the financial hardship caused by these mindless dictators.
The parish is now called “St. Francis Xavier Cabrini”. The parish of St. Francis Xavier is the one on Bay Street that is now a mosque.
I thought this was an apt and timely post, but accuracy is vital.
It is humiliating to err in a correction, but the parish is actually “St. Frances Xavier Cabrini.” Sorry.
One can only wonder at how some decisions are made – and not just in Rochacha. Some years ago, in a large northeast Archdiocese a small church without handicap accessibility in a very expensive part of a mostly very exclusive suburb was to be kept open while a neighboring much larger, handicap accessible church in a working class section of the same town was to close. A few things came to light: 1. The chancellor lived in the small church parish (No doubt shocked! shocked!! to find that the smaller less useful church was to be kept open!); 2. The large church also owned a cemetery and had just a few years before sold off extra land and had a bank account in excess of $7 million – yes a parish with 7 million smackaroos in the bank.
When word got around about the strange choice, even the Archbishop had to back off and close the small church and keep the large one.
Moral: keep an eye on the politics, the cash and whose ox is getting gored.
Bona – It was not an error as you claim. I intended to use a shortened form of the name, such as times when I may say Blessed Kateri instead of typing out Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha.
Same thing going on in Corning. They are selling to Providence Housing the church that is in good shape, was built for future expansion and so on, and keeping the older, in serious disrepair church on the ‘right’ side of town. Guess who lives in the rectory? Yup. The pastoral administrator.