By Christopher Tidmore
Bayou Buzz
January 9, 2009
http://www.bayoubuzz.com/News/NewOrleans/Archbishop_Locks_Uptown_Catholic_Churches_Out_of_Pride___8178.asp
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| Christopher Tidmore |
It is never a good idea to dumbfound an Archbishop.
Journalists who trip up Roman Catholic prelates sometimes cause the police to be called.And, people at vigil prayer in the disputed suppressed parishes pay the price.
Increasingly, it appears that the public timing of the police raids and arrests of two prominent New Orleanians on Tuesday engaging in a prayer vigil at two Uptown Catholic Churches, Our Lady of Good Counsel and St. Henry’s, came in part as a result of the public embarrassment of announcing the end of a vigil protest that had not yet ended.
The very news that caused Archbishop Alfred Hughes to stand dumbfounded before rolling television cameras on Saturday morning, January 3, 2009..
At nine-thirty that morning, a press release from the Archdiocese announcing the conclusion of the nearly four month vigil at Our Lady of Good Counsel appeared in the author’s email box.Ultimately, that press release would set in motion a change reaction of events that resulted in the arrests of two prominent New Orleanians, the forcible closure of two historic churches, a series of angry recriminations against the Archdiocese of New Orleans, and what promises to be an ugly court fight.
The Email that Saturday morning was quite startling--and seemingly unlikely--given the resolution that the congregants of both parishes had displayed in saving their parishes over the previous months.
For 24 hours a day since October, parishioners had occupied both Uptown churches.Their demands to end the vigils seemed reasonable—the right to hold marriages and funerals, a yearly reunion mass, and an occasional special event.
Otherwise, the vast majority of the parishioners were willing to merge their parishes with the nearly Good Shepherd Parish —as the Archdiocese desired.
(In fact, after Tuesday’s arrests, the press learned that the Congregants were near a deal with Father Christopher Nulty, pastor of Good Shepherd, that would have ended the vigil protests and merged the churches.Nulty reportedly had said he was willing to conduct masses at both churches once per month in exchange for a peaceful resolution, but the deal was not acceptable to the Archbishop, explained Good Counsel vigilist Barbara Fortier.)
While under Catholic Cannon law, the Archbishop has total authority in his diocese, it is less clear whether the archdiocese of New Orleans had the legal right to have the vigilists arrested for trespassing under secular, Louisiana law.
According to the Orleans Parish Assessors' website (www.opboa.org) the physical properties are owned by corporate bodies of the “CONGREGATION OF ST HENRY ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH” and the “CONGREGATION OF OUR LADY OF GOOD COUNSEL ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH”.
Fortier explained to Bayoubuzz.com that under the original articles of incorporation filed when the churches were established in the 19th Century, there is supposed to a five person board that runs each organization. While the Archbishop and his auxiliary Bishop (in this case, Morin,) are listed as members of the board, so the documents also say are the Churches’ pastors and two lay people from each congregation.
As Barbara Fortier outlined, “After the original two gentlemen who sat on the board past away, the Archdiocese never nominated any replacements,” as they were legally required to do. This “Church Board”, consequently, never met to dissolve the Parishes, a requirement of the original incorporation documents.
Moreover, Fortier and her fellow parishioners discovered, "In the articles of incorporation filed with the Secretary of State’s office, it says, “this church will continue to exist for 500 years.’”She wondered how the Archdiocese could change that without a vote.
This may be doubly true since the departing pastor of Our Lady of Good Counsel, Father Patrick Collum, signed an affidavit “saying the closure was wrong” and the Archdiocese was acting outside of its authority.Hence, the Archdiocese may never have had a majority of the parish board, and therefore the secular legal foundation to either close the parishes or order the arrests for trespassing of local novelist Poppy Z. Brite or businessman Hunter Harris, Sr.--not to mention the forcible removal of renowned photographer Howard Baquet.[Ultimately, the City Attorney refused to press charges against any of the parishioners.]
Nevertheless, those arrests had yet to occur on the morning of Saturday, January 3, 2009.Though as Cheron Brylski, a congregant of Our Lady of Good Counsel would explain to this reporter, threats of arrests had occurred at two AM that morning—an eerie foreshadowing of what was yet to come.
Upon receiving the Saturday press release by email, The Louisiana Weekly placed a call to Brylski on her cell phone.She was at Good Counsel, and explained that the Archbishop “doesn’t know that we are here.”
She went on to describe the events of early hours of that Saturday morning to this newspaper. The Archdiocese’s facilities director Andre Villere’ led a team of three into Our Lady of Good Counsel around 2 AM.
One of the three was wearing an “OPP” cap, implying he was a member of the Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff’s Department.They saw a single parishioner in the Church maintaining the overnight vigil.Villere’, walked up to the man, and reportedly said that if the parishioner did not leave, he would be arrested.
The vigilist in question, who works a state employee, feared that an arrest would endanger his job, so he complied and immediately went over to St. Henry’s.
At the other Uptown Church according to St. Henry’s Alden Hagardorn, a second team from the Archdiocese led by Father Michael Jacques had threatened the vigilists at St. Henry’s with arrest if they did not leave.
The St. Henry’s parishioners opted to stay, and Jacques subsequently left with his people.The Good Counsel vigilist (who has asked to remain nameless) reported to his compatriots that a similar visit had just occurred at Our Lady of Good Counsel with threats of arrest.
Meanwhile, at Good Counsel, Villere’s team had begun to change the locks on the door and “put six screws in each door and window”.
The team, joined by Michael Jacques, started to search the building “including the steeple” as the priest would later explain, to make sure there was no one remaining in the property. But, they missed someone--though the Archdiocesan representatives would subsequently claim the opposite.
Brylski’s husband Howard Baquet later recounted that he hid in the church and let his wife and other church leaders in after Villere’ had departed.
In other words, parishioners regained entry to Our Lady of Good Counsel legally. Moreover, at the time of the author’s telephone call with Cheron Brylski learning of these early morning events, she added one important fact, “The Archbishop has no idea that we’re here.” The Archdiocesan leadership had called a press conference to announce the conclusion of a vigil protest that had not yet ended.
At 11:15 Saturday morning, Archbishop Alfred Hughes convened his press conference at the Chancellery office at 7887 Walmsley, New Orleans.His first words were “the vigil at Our Lady of Good Counsel had ended”.
His Eminence went on to hope “everyone could move on prayerfully” and with “a spirit of reconciliation”.
Father Michael Jacques then spoke and claimed that the request to leave were peaceful in nature.He specifically denied that there were any threats of arrest. Instead, he claimed that the man at Good Counsel was elderly “with a heart condition…and we startled him”. Fr. Jacques continued to say that the man left and then returned “looking for his rosary.”
“We attempted to help him find it, and we couldn’t,” Jacques continued, “then he left peacefully”.(The Priest’s description of the events was directly contrary to the gentleman in question later rendered.)
The Archbishop said that his personnel were motivated to close the Churches based on reports that exercise classes were being conducted in the Sanctuary and electrical cooking appliances were being used “overloading the electrical system…beyond what it was designed for”.
(Alden Hagardorn of St. Henry’s later replied to this comment, “Did he think our coffee maker was going to blow the electrical system?”That and a small portable refrigerator containing water were the only appliances, Hagardorn said, were in the church.And, the parishioner added, the only exercise going was people stretching their legs after sitting in vigil for hours on end.)
The author then asked Alfred Hughes, “Archbishop, how would you react if I told you there were people in Good Counsel right now?”
His Eminence stood at the podium silently.
“How would you also react if I told you the vigil continues?That they have no intention of ending it?And, that they claim that a person stayed behind and let the other parishioners in, so there was no breaking an entering?”
As the television camera rolled, for almost a minute, Alfred Hughes stood silently absorbing what I had said.He then said simply, “This is new information.”
“What do you plan on doing?”
“As I said this is new information,” Hughes added haltingly, “We will have to discuss it.”
“Do you plan to involve the police?” a reporter for ABC26 asked.
“As I said it was new information.We cannot speculate on that at this time.”
The press conference continued in the same vein for another ten minutes.
The Archdiocese gave no further responses until the following Tuesday morning at 10:30 AM when all pretense of a peaceful ending of the vigil was shattered.
Peter Borre’, one of the leaders of the Boston vigils that have continued in six Massachusetts Catholic Churches for 51 months protesting their closure, has often visited the two New Orleans’ Churches and has served as a close advisor to the parishioners of St. Henry’s and Good Counsel.
In an interview on the author’s radio program (on 1190 AM from 3-6 PM weekdays), Borre’ explained, “There are three remaining absolute dictators in the modern world: a Captain of a ship at sea, little Kim in North Korea, and a Bishop in his diocese.”
“The Authority of an Archbishop cannot be challenged,” he continued, “at least not in the view of the Church, and there is a tradition of not leaving a mess behind when you leave office.”
The Vatican recently announced that the appointment of Alfred Hughes’ successor to Archbishopric was imminent.The Archbishop has passed the mandatory retirement age of 75, and has spoken of his plans to retire formally in the coming months.
Given that fact, “It’s very likely, Chris,” Borre’ admitted, “that your comment did help cause this chain of events to occur.”
Archbishops do not like to be embarrassed before Rome and the World, and certainly not before the television cameras.“Make no mistake.Rome is fully aware of what is occurring at Good Counsel and St.. Henry’s,” said Borre’ and former resident of the Eternal City for eight years and an acknowledged Vatican-expert.
Hughes’ former boss, the past Archbishop of Boston Cardinal Law, Borre’ described, is in a state of shunned retirement in Rome after the sex abuse scandals.Hughes, who already carries a taint from that scandal, perhaps feared that his reputation in the Roman Curia and Synod of Bishops would be ruined if he did not act soon.
“I don’t wish to get into the mind of Alfred Hughes,” Borre’ told the Weekly, “But it is likely.”
The leaders of both congregations have vowed that the fight over their parishes’ survival has not ended. They remind the public that both of the churches are financially viable, and that canonical appeals continue before the Holy See. They cite the example of St. Augustine Church in the New Orleans’ Faubourg Treme’ that was also slated to be closed, yet outrage at shuttering the nation’s first Black Catholic church ended the danger.Public opinion could have the same impact for Good Counsel and St. Henry’s.
At prayer services at both parishes the last Sunday before their closure, each had at least 150 congregants appear to say the rosary, as they have since Archbishop Hughes announced the suppression of the parishes in October.Yet even now that the Church doors are bolted closed, that weekly tradition shall go on.
In a press release Thursday, parish leaders announced that the rosaries will continue on the Sabbath on the steps of the shuttered churches. St. Henry’s Catholic Church at 812 General Pershing St.. will hold its at 10:30 AM every Sunday, and Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic Church at 1235 Louisiana Ave. will follow at 11 AM.
The public is welcome, and said Barbara Fortier, “The rosaries will continue until the Archbishop has a change of heart and re-opens both churches.”
She hopes that with a ruling from Rome, a new Archbishop, or a decision in the Civil Courts, that will come soon.
Christopher Tidmore hosts Gulf Coast Today on WBSL 1190 AM from 3-6 PM Monday-Friday.
Contact: ctidmore@louisianaweekly.com
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