'Pray for Our Church:' 400-500 People Rally outside Sebewaing Catholic Church As Saginaw Bishop Worships inside
By Jessica Fleischman
SEBEWAING, MI — Blue skies and sunshine welcomed 400 to 500 Catholics who rallied in rural Huron County to resist church reorganization.
Hundreds of lawn chairs lined the grass Thursday, Aug. 8, outside Sebewaing's Holy Family Catholic Church, slated to move to "additional use" next year as part of Catholic Diocese of Saginaw restructuring.
The "Save Our Rural Catholic Churches" rally was organized by parishioners who oppose the ongoing restructuring plan by the diocese.
"It is counterproductive to have churches merge and close," said Mike Eisengruber, the first speaker of the night, who also acted as the emcee is one of six members of an advisory board for Save Our Rural Catholic Churches.
As people rallied outside Holy Family, Bishop Joseph R. Cistone of the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw worshiped inside with 20 to 30 parishioners during a holy hour.
During Eisengruber's speech, the crowd helped him establish a list of areas represented at the rally. According to Eisengruber and the crowd, rally attendees traveled from Saginaw, Bay City, Pinconning, Munger, Carrollton Township, Lansing, St. Clair Shores and other communities in and outside of the 11-county Saginaw diocese.
Women running a registration table at the event reported 33 parishes were represented.
Some of the rally-goers held signs bearing the names of their parishes, while many others held signs with messages ranging from "What would Jesus do?" to "Where is our Shepherd?" "Pray for our church" was another popular slogan on the cardboard signs distributed to attendees from a trailer near a registration table.
Geri Dickinson was sitting with a group holding a sign representing their former parish, St. Edward in Kinde.
"We're just here to support all the parishes that have closed," Dickinson said.
Though none of the parishes in the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw have closed, many parishioners referred to the switch by some to "occasional use" as a closure. "My heart goes out to them. I don't want to see them experiencing this pain." - Bishop Joseph Cistone
Occasional use buildings will no longer celebrate Mass on a regular schedule, though they still could be used for funerals and weddings of former members, according to the diocese. Additional use buildings will continue to celebrate mass on weekends in most cases.
With the restructuring occurring over a three-year period, some parishes have switched to occasional use, while more will make the move in July of 2014 and 2015.
St. Edward was part of the first round of restructuring. Dickinson and another former member of the parish, Renee Diroff, said they could not bring themselves to attend the final weekend of regular Mass at the parish.
"I couldn't do it," Diroff said. "It was too difficult."
Diroff would make a two-and-a-half hour drive from Brighton to attend Mass at St. Edward, she said.
"It was the church I was baptized at," Diroff explained.
Dickinson and Diroff have made the switch to worshiping at St. Mary of Czestochowa in Kinde.
Other displaced parishioners have not yet found a new parish to call home.
"It's been five weeks, and I've been to five different churches," said Cynthia Tait, a former member of St. Felix of Valois in Pinnebog.
Though Cistone did not address the rally, many of the night's speakers directed statements at him.
Senior Priest Joseph A. Schabel said the members of the Catholic Church need to respect Cistone, even if they disagree with him.
"I think he is wrong for a number of reasons," he said to the crowd.
Schabel expressed his thoughts directly to Cistone in a letter dated May 11. He brought copies of the letter to the rally.
"I have not seen any expression of sympathy for the people of any of the parishes that are to be closed," the letter reads.
The senior priest, who now lives at and assists with the Mexican American Council on South Washington across from Hoyt Park in Saginaw, also addressed social issues in the letter. He said allowing Catholic priests to marry is an issue "all of us should face up to and not commit the sin of silence."
"No one can ever tell me that being married gets in the way of being a good priest," said Arnie Messing, while speaking during the event. An uproar of cheers and applause came after the statement from the former priest who left the priesthood to marry.
Messing served at a number of parishes within the Diocese of Gaylord and the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw before leaving to receive his master's degree and work in the mental health field.
"I got married in 1979 to a very beautiful, wonderful woman," Messing said.
After the rally, Cistone spoke with members of the media, though he said he initially hadn't planned to give a statement.
"I found out about the rally through the media," Cistone said. "I wasn't invited to it."
Cistone had a message for those upset about their churches switching to occasional use.
"My heart goes out to them," he said. "I don't want to see them experiencing this pain."
Cistone pointed to a shortage of priests as a large contributing factor in the reorganization effort.
"The previous two weeks, I had to help out at (Cathedral of Mary of the Assumption in Saginaw) because there were no priests there," he said.
That answer isn't much consolation to Geri Dickinson, who said retired priests, also known as senior priests, volunteered to celebrate Mass at her former parish.
"We're just not giving up yet," Dickinson said with a smile.
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