Billboard Poses a Big Question
By Jay Tokasz
Buffalo News
June 25, 2008
http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/377803.html
A few blocks from the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo chancery offices on Main Street, a large billboard reads: "Why Should St. Marys, Lockport CLOSE? Over 1,000 Families Want To Know."
Members of the Lockport parish have been fighting the decision to close the Saxton Street church since Bishop Edward U. Kmiec made the announcement last October.
They filed a formal appeal with the Vatican using a canon lawyer. They've written hundreds of letters to the bishop.
Now, the billboard at Elmwood Avenue and Trinity Place takes their protest to a much more public level, as hundreds of passers-by each day will get a glimpse.
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| A billboard asks what many members of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Lockport want to know following the announcement of its closure Photo by John Hickey |
Kmiec in May completed his announcements of church closings and parish mergers, but some Catholic parishioners are refusing to give into the decisions without a prominent display of their dissatisfaction.
Members of Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church on Buffalo's West Side are planning to picket with signs this afternoon in front of Kmiec's residence on Oakland Place.
Kmiec announced in December that Nativity's church buildings would close in a parish merger with Annunciation and Our Lady of Loretto.
"I don't know how much good it's going to do, but everybody feels horrible," said Julia Stamey, who is organizing the protest. "We don't feel [the merger] was religiously done or spiritually done. It was more like a hostile takeover."
Stamey said at least 20 people have committed to participate in the protest.
The diocese's restructuring effort, known as "Journey in Faith and Grace," has resulted in the closure or planned closure of 77 worship sites. By the time the closings are complete, the diocese will have 198 active church sites — down from 275 before the restructuring began in 2005.
The closings stirred some negative reaction in newspaper stories, critical letters to the editor and small-scale protests in Dunkirk and at St. Joseph Cathedral prior to a Mass celebrating the bishop's 25th anniversary as a prelate.
But so far, the diocese hasn't encountered the kind of resistance experienced in other places.
In the Diocese of Syracuse, for example, parishioners of St. Mary Church in Jamesville, Onondaga County, held an around-the-clock vigil for seven months after Bishop James Moynihan officially closed the church.
Sheriff's deputies were brought in January to remove any remaining protesters.
Several church closings in the Archdiocese of Boston were contested by Catholics who kept prayer vigils going — in some cases for years — so the doors could not be locked.
At St. Mary's in Lockport, parishioners are praying that Kmiec will see the sign, which features a photograph of the church's impressive steeple along the banks of the Erie Canal, and have a change of heart.
"We are not a church that is failing financially, nor in registered families. We are quite strong," said Marcia Seibel, a parish trustee. "We're going to do everything we possibly can within canon law to pursue this."
Seibel and others said the parish has a growing membership of more than 1,000 families and draws a packed house to its late-morning Mass on Sunday.
The members filed an appeal that is being considered by the Vatican.
"It's a long shot; we know that," said Michael Ulrich, also a trustee. "But we felt so strongly that we are unjustly being closed."
The billboard, which cost about $1,400 for six weeks and was paid for by private gifts, was part of a public relations blitz to "make people aware of what's going on," said Ulrich. "Perhaps somewhere down the line, somebody or a group of people can convince the bishop to change his mind."
A diocesan spokesman said the bishop on Tuesday afternoon had not yet seen the billboard, which went up on Friday.
But Kmiec did not object to the various forms of protest , said Kevin A. Keenan.
"It's the prerogative of people to protest. If that's something they want to do, he understands that," Keenan said.
Most area Catholics seem to understand the need for drastic changes in parish alignments, given the Buffalo-Niagara region's economic climate and population losses, Keenan said.
"It's happening in 80 percent of the dioceses across the country," he said.
Contact: jtokasz@buffnews.com
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