By Lavinia DeCastro
Courier-Post
May 11, 2008
http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080511/NEWS01/805110373/1006
HADDON TWP. — Outraged by the planned closing of their church, St. Vincent Pallotti parishioners wrote hundreds of letters and took part in a protest.
Their efforts got Bishop Joseph Galante's attention, but did not cause him to reverse his decision.
In a recent letter to parishioners, Galante defended his decision to merge the Haddon Township parish with St. Aloysius in Oaklyn, with the Oaklyn parish as a primary worship site.
 |
| Msgr. Louis Marucci, St. Vincent Pallotti's pastor, speaks to the parishioners about the closing of the church last week. Photo by Scott Anderson |
"As I said when I announced parish configurations last month, my motivation is simple: to deal with the realities confronting our church now and in the future and to create the conditions that will strengthen and revitalize parish life in every part of the diocese," Galante said in his letter.
In his letter, distributed to parishioners during Mass Saturday and today, Galante said St. Aloysius is large enough to accommodate both parishes.
The combined weekly attendance for both churches is 1,340 people, Galante said in his letter. Both celebrate a Saturday evening and three Sunday Masses, with an average attendance of 334 per Mass, the letter said. With 400 to 425 seats, St. Aloysius is large enough to accommodate worshippers, while St. Vincent would be "substantially under-utilized," operating at 42 percent of capacity, Galante said.
The former St. Aloysius School, with 11 classrooms and additional gathering space, is also well-suited for religious education, Galante added.
The St. Vincent-St. Aloysius merger is part of a parish reconfiguration that would trim the number of parishes in the Camden Diocese from 124 to 66.
The restructured diocese will have 38 merged parishes, three "clusters" involving six parishes and 22 stand-alone parishes.
In a cluster, one pastor will oversee multiple parishes.
"We're at least glad to get the bishop to reply," said Ed Pierzynski, a member of Friends of St. Vincent Pallotti Inc., a group parishioners created to challenge the decision.
"We're going to give him the benefit of the doubt."
But that doesn't mean parishioners agree.
The group plans to gather input from parishioners and draft a response to Galante's letter.
"I don't think the bishop has all the facts," Pierzynski said.
Just six months ago, St. Vincent spent $1 million to build a 7,000-square-foot rectory and a nearly 8,000-square-foot memorial hall to replace the toxic-mold-ridden old rectory.
Because the church shares its parking lot with Paul VI High School, parishioners have 400 off-street parking spaces available to them, compared to less than 50 at St. Aloysius, and the church seats roughly 800 people, about twice the size of the Oaklyn church.
"Everybody that we talked to said this defies logic," Pierzynski said.
Then there is the issue of handicap accessibility.
In his letter, Galante said St. Aloysius is handicap accessible, but promised to appoint a committee to review the facility to make sure the needs of all disabled parishioners are met.
"I applaud the bishop in his decision to look at the accessibility issue," said Msgr. Louis Marucci, St. Vincent's pastor.
Marucci, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and is wheelchair bound, knows first hand the difficulties disabled parishioners face.
"Unless you are disabled yourself, you don't understand," Marucci said.
"The outside world simply doesn't get it."
"A lot of people think accessibility is putting a ramp at the entrance and it's not," Pierzynski added.
"We have a ramp, we have elevators, we have full access to the altar. At St. Aloysius, if you put a wheelchair in the aisles, nobody can get around."
Before a fully-accessible rectory was built, two inches of snow was enough to keep Marucci from reaching the church.
"I would follow the tow truck across the parking lot, then the driver would step out and shovel a path for me, so I could get to the church to say Mass," Marucci said.
Marucci will be allowed to remain at the rectory, but he's worried about other disabled parishioners and the elderly.
"Just because a person has a disability, doesn't mean they should be kept from fully participating," Marucci said.
Reach Lavinia DeCastro at (856) 486-2652 or ldecastro@courierpostonline.com
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.