Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Has Immaculate Heart of Mary sold?

In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations. -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

When you sell the House of God for filthy lucre, you rip the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.

 Do not forget St. Patrick's, the proceeds of which are being drained from parish coffers as we speak, to the tune of about $100,000. (It is nearly the end of 2012 and no financials for 2011 yet so it could be much more than that.) The sacrifice of IHM is rumored to pay for the take down of the Brennan Center--making room for a parking lot--and a new boiler for St. Mary's.

If you look at the listing it claims IHM is vacant (click on the picture and it will enlarge). Really? I guess two priests don't live there, and I guess the youth group doesn't have a Mass there regularly. And I suppose that the family who contributed thousands of dollars to fix up Rogers Hall for the youth group doesn't mind that it is being sold, either.

 All Saints...all one. That is the meme.
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5 comments:

  1. AnonymousSeptember 27, 2012 at 11:37 AM

    Maybe all is not lost- I am pretty sure that the person who made an offer on the property was planning to keep the church as a church. So, maybe the plan is for the parish to lease the church. Let's hope this is true. I am very sad and disturbed that the property is even on the market. It's ridiculous. We should be working to fill the pews not to sell them.

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  2. AnonymousSeptember 27, 2012 at 1:24 PM

    11:37 Why would the parish want to lease a property that THEY WANT TO SELL? They are downsizing because churches used to be full and now they are not. And please don't say that there is a faith crisis in the parish. There are plenty of faithful, Corning Catholics attending mass elsewhere. It's a pity that we lost them but they are part of the reason we are selling church buildings.

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  3. SusanSeptember 27, 2012 at 1:45 PM

    Selling IHM has been part of the parish plan since the late 1990s-early 2000s. This was when the parish had 3100 registered households (we have about half that number today).

    And unfortunately, re: the person who made an offer and would have kept the church - his offer was not accepted.

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  4. AnonymousSeptember 27, 2012 at 2:11 PM

    Ah yes, the "Sell-the-Church-in-Order-to-Lease-it-Back" plan.

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  5. GretchenSeptember 27, 2012 at 2:20 PM

    Susan, do you mean to say that there was another reason for selling IHM back then (besides the reasoning that there would be less priests in the future)?

    And I wonder how much the sale/destruction of St. Patrick's contributed to the loss of Catholics in our parish, not to mention other recent issues.

    One can see how numbering the people can be a problem. I think it was Blessed Mother Teresa who said, "We are not called to be successful. We are called to be faithful."

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