Here is a view of the standing room overcrowding at yesterday’s Easter Mass at St. Margaret Mary church in Irondequoit:
The image is further proof of why St. Thomas the Apostle must remain open and be utilized by the Irondequout parish. Blessed Kateri is going to lose all three of its parochial vicars come June (they will drop from four active priests down to one if no replacements are assigned). Fewer priests plus fewer Masses equals greater overcrowding. That is unless Fr. Tanck finally realizes that it is necessary to make use of the largest church building in Irondequoit; the 1,000 seat St. Thomas the Apostle church. As of today the smaller St. Margaret Mary, Christ the King, and (much smaller) St. Cecilia churches are being used by Blessed Kateri. This configuration will not work going into the future.
Must families be forced to stand throughout the Mass because of this priest’s stubbornness?
Tags: Church Closings, Fr. Tanck, IPPG
|
Nice hat in church. Stylish…
When you cut the number of masses to 7 (10 on a normal Saturday/Sunday) for the second busiest mass day of the year, this was expected.
To use STA is to admit your wrong. Not gonna happen.
Thursday night, after Mass at St. Stanislaus (which ran from 7pm-8pm), we stopped by Saint Margaret Mary. The Mass at SMM (which also started at 7pm) didn’t end until after 9pm, and was standing room only.
The sacrament was placed in the BACK of the sanctuary, in an area where the confessionals used to be. (Confessionals are now on the side of the sanctuary.)
After the two-hour standing-Mass, about 90% of the attendees flooded out, hurrying past the sacrament without even a sideways glance.
Anon 2:27
If SMM was standing room only as an individual parish then those Easter services should have seen people out in the street now that 5 parishes had to fit into the one church. If what you are saying is true, then a lot of people went elsewhere or stayed home!
Holy Cross had two Easter Masses at 10:00 am (one in the gym!) to handle the overflow crowd. This is award winning pastoral planning when you have a closed 1000 seat church that is less than 5 minutes away? STA parishioners petitioned Fr. Tanck to have a Mass at STA on Easter Sunday and he turned them down.
Why on earth is there a man wearing a baseball cap at Mass? The DoR is worse than I originally thought. We have much work to do in this wretched civilization of ours…even simple and basic manners are lost, let alone the much more dire abuses of liturgy. I guess when homosexuality and abortion are looked at without much concern by our shepherds, basic manners and civility are lost without much thought.
There once was a Bishop named Clark
Who wanted to leave his mark;
So he used Fr. Tanck
Whose planning just stank
And left many souls in the dark.
It’s called reverence.
Militia, very funny!
My experience is that leadership really doesn’t care if churches break the fire code on holidays. They are NOT going to add an extra mass or use a larger church (or one with better parking).
T-shirts, untucked wrinkled shirts, baseball caps…I’m sure some guys were wearing shorts. So much for your Easter Sunday best!
Standing room only could turn people away. There are many people elderly,disabled,and parents holding and caring for young people that would leave and that equals sin. I sure don’t want distractions during this holy time but this presents itself not to just a few people.
There’s not a law against wearing men not wearing hats in church; it’s a custom. It is actually inherently linked to why women should cover their heads in the presence of the Sacrament. It pertains to the transcendental natures of the man and the woman and their respective roles as individual representatives of Christ and His Church. Because the man is representative of Christ, he bares his head before his Master; similarly, because the woman is representative of Christ’s Bride, the Church, she veils her head as a sign of modesty and an outward indication of the intrinsic mystery of women.
Dear Ink,
Thank you for explaining the chapel veil.
not necessarily disagreeing w/ you, Ink, but I thought this was interesting:
http://wdtprs.com/blog/2011/04/card-burke-on-women-covering-their-heads-in-church/
From what I saw Holy Cross has good attendance Holy Thursday, Good Friday and for the Easter Vigil Mass. (I wasn’t there on Easter Sunday and wasn’t taking pictures Good Friday.)
Annon.9:07 Take a pill.
anon, 8:30 AM – chill out! So you disagree with Ink. Can’t we civilly disagree like gentleman and ladies? I’m afraid we all need a refresher in combox warfare and the dangers that entail from it.
If anonymous 8:30am is offended by what is actually Church teaching, he is a moron. That you would be offended because of the truth makes you look so silly, it is difficult to type this with a straight face. Go ahead and join a protestant sect who denigrates the Mother of God and is far more sexist in the way that they make men and women to be no different. Guess what? THAT is insulting to any woman…to suggest that she is no different than a man. Ever had an anatomy/physiology course? Ever met a woman? They are not the same. We are equal in dignity but we are not the same. That is reality. You must not be in touch with it.
Anon 9:27 – I don’t take issue with the sacrament being placed in the area where the confessionals used to be. I was just providing context for anyone who knows that spot.
I was there for Thursday mass. I’ve never seen the sacrament placed in the back of a church before. Maybe this is the norm at SMM? Maybe this is even the norm elsewhere? As I’ve said before, I’m a relatively new Catholic so I don’t have a huge history to relate to. I’ve only ever attended Holy Thursday mass at St. Cecilia and St. Stanislaus prior to this.
From what I could gather, nobody in the front of the packed church could see the sacrament for the final 20 minutes of the mass, as it was about 3 feet above ground level in the back. It just struck me as odd. I had just been to St. Stanislaus, where the sacrament was placed prominently in front of a side altar.
I’m genuinely curious if this is the norm at SMM or elsewhere.
Anon 10:36,
I won’t comment on Ink’s tone, but you are arguing from a false dichotomy.
Simply put, man is equal to woman =!= man is synonymous with woman.
So you can be right that your wife is your equal, but he is right that you and she are different.
This false dichotomy is also present in anon 8:30. A woman would not be privileged in having a penis because it would violate her nature as a woman. Indeed rather she is privileged in having a uterus et al. because that is what it means to be a woman.
I already warned you about these inflammatory posts. However, since I am in a generous mood today, I will give you one more chance.
OK, sorry to imply otherwise. But…..
In general my point still stands, and I reiterate it as it is clear some still don’t get it. Or perhaps don’t wish to.
To Anon 11:57 –
“No one said that women and men aren’t “different”, but for Ink to imply that males are more “representative” of Christ because of a shared gender is just plain bad theology and “Ink” needs to be called on it.”
He must have peddled bad theology, but about-to-be-Blessed John Paul II didn’t just imply the same thing, he said it out loud. It’s also one of the principal arguments for our priesthood being restricted to males. Disagree if you wish, but consider for a moment who’s more qualified in matters theological – you or John Paul II.
Some more “bad theology” for you, Anon 11:57 –
http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=7866&CFID=78869801&CFTOKEN=70249110
I was listening to WHIC last night, with Pia DeSolleni (doubtless spelled wrong) and Patrick Coffin, and there were three points which I hadn’t heard said quite that way before:
1. Those who attempt to say that Christ couldn’t ordain women because it went beyond the cultural bounds seem to totally ignore the many times when Jesus leapt over cultural bounds…turning over the tables, calling the Pariah-sees “whitened sepulchres,” refering to Himself in Messianic terms, touch lepers….do I have to go on? Jesus was certainly no wimp; He was going to be killed any way so why wouldn’t He have instituted the priesthood JUST the way he wanted to?
2. We know that there was a band of women, including the Blessed Virgin, who were following Jesus, and of course in that culture it was women who drew water and did the cooking. Yet Jesus had His Apostles follow a MAN with a water jar, and had them, men, go to prepare the Passover. It seems that He had at the Last Supper just whom He wanted to be there, and even leaves us these words to prevent confusion.
3. Why does gender seem to be the ONLY exception “culturally” to what Christ did? For example, no one (well, maybe in Rochester I should say “very few”) says “bread and wine was a cultural thing at that time” but today we should use bottled water and granola?
I just thought these three points in particular were interesting and I wanted to share them with you in this discussion.
Agree, and you missed the best example yet (IMO), the Samaritan woman at the well. Compare how He spoke with her with how the Apostles did after they came back from town. They didn’t…they practically scorned her altogether. Even she was astonished that He spoke with her as an equal. Clearly He could see past any male/female cultural barriers.
Let’s remember that inviting tax collecters and prostitutes is the equivalent today of terrorists and serial child murderers. No I don’t think cultural norms impeded Him…
What, we’re commenting on my tone now, and calling me out for assuming I style myself a commenter? Honestly, the reason I haven’t posted much is because I have a very busy life: I’m a full-time student with a lot of homework. AP exams are coming up next week. So I really don’t have the time to defend myself constantly. Thank you to everyone who backed me up with JP2.
Angry Anon (I’m just going to call you that because I’m pretty sure you’re the same person all the time, and you seem like a very angry person. I love these new Unique IDs.), you really might want to look up your Theology of the Body. Actually, I’m going to be writing an essay on it for a scholarship some time soon, would you like me to send it to you? ^_^ It IS traditional Catholic catechesis–I’ve done my research. I’m planning on getting married, believe it or not (oh my goodness, who would marry some crazy old-beyond-her-years teenager?! /sarcasm) and I can tell you that my husband will recognize me as the Bride of Christ just as much as I am his bride. And we are equal partners–but not the same person.
Jim M. here: It was sad for many of us who belong to St. Thomas, to see the overcrowded conditions at St. Margaret Mary’s, Holy Cross, and other churches in the area, while the beautiful, large St. Thomas Church building remained empty throughout the three days of the Easter Triduum. You could probably fit all of the congregations from either Holy Cross, or St. Margaret Mary’s into St. Thomas, utilizing only two or three Masses…and people wouldn’t be packed in like sardines! But as someone already stated…that would make far too much sense!! Monk had it right when he said that St. Thomas and Holy Cross are only about five minutes apart. Pastoral planning with common sense would have advised the Holy Cross people to drive over to St. Thomas, and fill it up! But Fr. Tanck would have only blown a fuse!
It baffles me as to why STA was not used. I hate to say this about a priest, but this Fr. Tanck sounds like a moron. Any idiot knows to use the largest space available when you have overcrowding problems and if you don’t, everyone is uncomfortable.
Tank probably wants to empty the churches except for a handful of butchy babes from the 1960s who long to wear vestments and pee standing up. [Tone it down a bit]
Ha! Stay classy, Bruce.
Not only is STA larger, but the back row is considerably closer to the altar at STA than at St Margaret Mary. If the goal is full and active liturgical participation (I believe the Vatican II fathers said something about that) then how could STA be closed and SMM remain open?
I am not one who is prone to be attached to a building – it really should be about the community, the comm-UNITY. But just on the merits of the buildings, STA should not have been closed. It makes no sense. The IPPG decision really should be re-considered.
There is not a Roman Catholic Mass held anywhere on Easter, and Christmas, that is not overcrowded with “holiday/not holyday) Catholics!!!