By Thomas Barlas
Press of Atlantic City
November 2, 2010
http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/news/breaking/article_bdcecbbe-e612-11df-8e8b-001cc4c03286.html
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| St. John Bosco and St. Mary Magdalen, above, will become The Parish of All Saints on Dec. 1, the diocese said. St. Mary Magdalen, located on Dock Street, will become the new parish seat. |
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| St. John Bosco Church, on Route 49 and Hillcrest Avenue, above, will merge with St. Mary Magdalen. The Parish of All Saints will serve about 1,350 families. |
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| St. John Bosco and St. Mary Magdalen, above, will become The Parish of All Saints on Dec. 1, the diocese said. St. Mary Magdalen, located on Dock Street, will become the new parish seat. |
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| St. John Bosco Church, on Route 49 and Hillcrest Avenue in Millville, above, will merge with St. Mary Magdalen to become The Parish of All Saints. |
MILLVILLE — The Diocese of Camden is merging two parishes, the second time in recent months that Cumberland County's Roman Catholics have undergone a parish consolidation.
St. John Bosco and St. Mary Magdalen will become The Parish of All Saints on Dec. 1, the diocese said. St. Mary Magdalen, located on Dock Street, will become the new parish seat, and Father Paul Olszewski will serve a six-year term as pastor. The parish will serve about 1,350 families.
Officials with the diocese, St. Mary Magdalen and St. John Bosco didn't return requests for comment.
The Diocese of Camden covers Atlantic, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester and Salem counties. Bishop Joseph Galante has issued more than 25 consolidations orders for parishes in the diocese since June 2009.
As Catholic churches struggle, other churches in southern New Jersey are flourishing.
One recent order involving Cumberland County merged St. Mary's in Deerfield Township, St. Michael's in Lawrence Township, and Immaculate Conception and St. Theresa of Avila in Bridgeton to form the Parish of the Holy Cross. The new parish, run out St. Theresa of Avila, opened last month.
Diocese officials said that merger would better serve the 2,600 families in the new parish. They also said that, as with other consolidations, the merger was caused by a decline in the number of diocesan priests available for ministry, along with demographic and population changes.
Some of the mergers have gone smoothly. In the case of the Parish of the Holy Cross, the consolidation was more palatable because the diocese is keeping St. Mary, St. Michael and Immaculate Conception open as worship sites "on some basis."
Other mergers, however, have left bad feelings behind.
Wildwood Crest resident Nick Nastasi's Church of the Assumption merged with St. Ann's in Wildwood to become Notre Dame de la Mer Parish. Nastasi said Monday that while parishioners were told the mergers were because of a shortage of priests, the new parish has one more priest than when the two churches were separate.
"The people go along with it," Nastasi said. "Do they like it? No, but they go along with it."
A group of about 30 people in Ventnor fight to keep Holy Family School open.
Nastasi, a longtime critic of Galante, alleges the consolidations are all about money and the need for it to settle the expenses of the sexual harassment or abuse claims made against the diocese.
"It's the same motivation he had all along," Nastasi said of the recent round of mergers in the diocese. "It's a money issue."
Some parishioners who attend St. John Bosco on Hillcrest Drive said St. John Bosco will remain open for 4:30 p.m. Saturday Masses. The last regular Sunday masses at St. John Bosco were held this past weekend, they said.
"It was somber, it was quiet," Adrienne Hanlon, an Earle Avenue resident who has attended Mass at St. John Bosco for 35 years, said of this past's Sunday's services.
Hanlon said the change will be "difficult."
"I have mixed feelings," she said. "I have a lot of memories attached to the parish, and they're hard to break away from.
"But it's a necessary thing. I'm just trying to wrap my mind around that aspect of it and put aside my own personal feelings. There's a lot hope and expectation for a new and bigger parish."
Pleasant Drive resident Anne Sooy joined St. John Bosco parish in the late 1960s after attending Masses at St. Mary Magdalen.
"When we started out at St. Mary's and moved to St. John Bosco, we felt very much at home," she said. "It was a little sad to see that it's not going to stay open the way it usually is."
Sooy said attending Masses at St. Mary Magdalen again will at least mean that "we'll be with the same people, more or less."
The change won't inconvenience all St. John Bosco parishioners. Millville Avenue resident Kathy Murowany said her family already attends the 4:30 p.m. Saturday Mass.
Still, she said the decision to merge the parish isn't pleasing everyone.
"We don't really have a choice," Murowany said. "It's happening."
Staff writer Trudi Gilfillian contributed to this report.
Contact Thomas Barlas:
609-226-9197
TBarlas@pressofac.com
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