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	Parishioners Make Appeal By Jennifer Huberdeau North Adams Transcript September 19, 2008 http://www.thetranscript.com/ci_10508211 Friday, September 19 ADAMS -- Despite the lack of a written decree formally announcing the closing of St. Stanislaus Kostka Church, a group of parishioners is appealing to church officials in Rome to reverse what they call an "arbitrary and capricious" decision. The parishioners submitted a formal appeal to the Most Rev. Timothy McDonnell, bishop of the Diocese of Springfield, on Aug. 14 -- just days after the planned closings of St. Stan's and St. Thomas Aquinas were announced. The second appeal, to the Congregation for the Clergy in Rome, was mailed last week. "The bishop had 30 days to respond and change his mind," said Laurie Haas, a parishioner of St. Stan's, who authored both appeals on behalf of the group. "He did not respond and change his mind. Our church is slated to close in 15 weeks -- to prevent this I had no alternative but to appeal to Rome. I informed them in our cover letter, I would forward the written decree when it became available to me." The appeal charges that the pastoral planning process did not afford the church and its parishioners ample time to address "whatever concerns" leading to the bishop's decision to close the church, along with challenging any reason the bishop could have for closing the church -- finances, a lack of available priests, or waning attendance figures. McDonnell has not ignored the outcry in Adams -- he traveled to the town for a meeting with the appellate group on Monday with Monsignor John J. Bonzagni, head of the diocesan pastoral planning committee. "We had a three-and-a-half hour meeting on Monday," Bonzagni said Thursday. "I can say it was a very respectful meeting during which they presented a lot of data they had prepared for us. I know the bishop has taken the presentation under advisement and sent the information off to the pastoral planning committee as well." Haas said the group was optimistic about the meeting, at which they presented at least eight arguments in favor of keeping St. Stan's open instead of Notre Dame. "The parishioners of St. Stanislaus Kostka are cautiously optimistic and hopeful that in light of all this new information, now made available to the Diocese, the Bishop will reconsider and reverse his decision to close St. Stanislaus Church," Haas said in an email. "We expressed to the Bishop that it is our heartfelt desire to achieve a resolution which will be in the long-term best interest of the entire Catholic Community of the town of Adams." The arguments ranged from assertions that attendance, baptismal and funeral records have been skewed in favor of Notre Dame; that St. Stan's is architecturally superior, that the two churches are comparable in size and that St. Stan's larger coiffeurs and smaller campus would be better suited to maintain financial stability in the coming years. "The headcount numbers as presented in the 2006 Mullin Report do not accurately differentiate parishioners according to their home parishioners," one discussion point reads in a copy of the presentation, which was supplied by Haas. "These numbers do not take into consideration that the Catholic Community of Adams has been a 'yoked' community since 2003. People from the unified Catholic Community flow freely among the three church buildings, depending on their preferred Mass schedule, and parishioners were never instructed to attend their home parishes for this count." The presentation went as far as factoring out catechism classes that attend Mass at Notre Dame and splitting the Notre Dame figures between both it and St. Thomas, which form a single parish. The group ascertained from their calculations there is a difference of 39 people attending weekend Mass at each church. The presentation also alleges that the baptismal numbers are skewed in favor of Notre Dame because Father Daniel Boyle tends to hold the monthly ceremony there instead of at the individual home churches. Diocesan spokesman, Mark Dupont, said Thursday that all details from attendance to the number of births and funerals at the parishes were supplied by the individual parishes. "To our knowledge, the baptismal records are all correct," he said. "The baptisms are recorded under the name of the parish to which the parents belong because it would cause confusion later on. I do not believe there has been a shifting of numbers in favor of one church or another." Bonzagni said while there were many factors contributing to the decision to recommend the closing, the most obvious reason for choosing to keep Notre Dame open is its size and the flexibility of the land it is on. "There's a greater flexibility with the campus," he said. "It's not landlocked like St. Stan's. People keep saying that we're doing this because of finances. But we're not in it for the money, otherwise we'd be selling the Notre Dame/St. Thomas complex. "The thing that confuses me is there is all this talk about one parish being more financially solvent than the others. When the new parish is created, all of the finances would be combined and the all of the buildings will be the assets of the new parish. Any sale of parish buildings would directly benefit them." He said that St. Thomas would most likely be sold in the future. "In a better economic environment, I could see it being turned into a museum or a performing arts center," Bonzagni said. "We are not closed to any ideas." The group also hired their own certified public accountant to determine which scenario would be more financially favorable for the Catholic Community. The report, which compares the merging of the parishes into Notre Dame and St. Stan's, says that a merger into St. Stan's would be more viable. "Their numbers just don't jive," Bonzagni said. "They dispute our numbers and I'm disputing some of their numbers. I believe their financial report makes assumptions that might not be true. Those figures have been turned over to our finance office for consideration." Haas said the group recently sent information concerning the number of parking places at each church to the bishop. "Another subject that was discussed at the meeting, but we didn't have any figures for at the time of the meeting, was the number of on-site marked parking spaces, comparing the two sites," she said. "We have since researched this and discovered that Notre Dame/St. Thomas has 34 marked parking spaces and St. Stanislaus Kostka has 53 marked parking spaces. I have mailed this information to the Bishop, and I included two identical scale, aerial photos of each site, which clearly indicate St. Stan's offers more on-site parking area." Bonzagni commended the group's devotion to the Polish church and its traditions, but questioned if the energy was being put into the right mission. "On one hand, its great to see that these people love their church so much that they are willing to fight for it," he said. "But on the other hand, the bishop has pointed out that we have spent far too long putting money into the church buildings. It is time we put money into the people - taking care of the poor and the sick. We're at a time when 40 percent of our parishes are operating in the red and we haven't even hit the oil burning season yet. Decisions have to be made."
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