Diocese responds to critical post

I rescue this comment from my post the other day which was bemoaning the continued closure of churches by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany. Ken Goldfarb, chief spokesman for the diocese, responds:

 

"With all due respect, if one reads the New York Times, the Boston Globe, as well as the Troy Record and the Times Union one would know that churches have been closing in urban areas throughout the northeast. As national and local news organizations have reported, this has been due primarily to a decline in the number of parishioners. They, and overall urban populations, have left the cities and gone south, west and to the suburbs. In addition there has been a national decline in the number of men entering the priesthood. The experience of the Albany Diocese is certainly not unique. The number of church closings in recent years here is at or below the average closed parishes among all dioceses that serve urban populations in the northeast including, Boston, Springfield, New York, Rochester, Newark, Camden, etc. The alleged 'incoherent plan of continued desecration' flies in the face of the more than 2.5 year Called to Be Church pastoral planning process that allowed for grass roots input in the process so that this restructuring could be done in an orderly and coordinated way with parishioners playing a major and unprecedented role in the future of the Catholic Church of this diocese. Of course any time a church closes it is a difficult and painful decision. But, in order for the Church to remain viable and to continue to fulfill its mission it must have the appropriate resources. It would not be wise to use limited resources to maintain churches that now serve a small fraction of what they were built for a century ago, or even served 50-60 years ago."

 

Goldfarb has a point, and as reported in this week's issue of The Evangelist, the diocesan newspaper, they are trying to drum up new parishioners. But even if Bishop Howard Hubbard's diocese is doing no worse than many others -- and even if his handling of the sexual abuse scandal was no worse than many other bishops' -- that's not much of a defense. Bishops by and large have not been held accountable by popes or anyone else on earth, and have been exceedingly reluctant to accept responsibility for the decline of the church on their watch. Back when the last round of church closings was announced in January 2009, I posted criticisms of specific decisions from Amsterdam to Mechanicville, and the current closing process in Watervliet and Green Island does not inspire any more confidence. When one approaches Albany on I-787 and sees the prominent spire of the empty St. Joseph's Church between downtown and Arbor Hill, it is a symbol of aspiration, decline and abandonment. Hubbard has served the diocese for a long time, and has done plenty of good things. Nevertheless, the continuing closure of churches and schools -- and secularization of hospitals such as St. Clare's in Schenectady -- is best described not as some reasonable response to changing demographics, but as a disastrous collapse.

Comments

[Brian]

Many would counter that the Church's problems are more fundamental. That they are less about how bishops and pastors administer dioceses and parishes and more about the Church hierarchy's refusal to drag their theological interpretations into the 21st century. Many are leaving the Church simply because they feel it no longer makes any attempt to be relevant in their lives.

[Bob Conner]

I don't think people would respect the church more if it abandoned core principles, notably its insistence on the value of all human life from the moment of conception, in an effort to become more relevant to the 21st century. And I think the church's continued commitment to scientific and moral truth on that issue is particularly relevant to this modern era.

[Brian]

The truth of the matter is that the Catholic Church and Christianity in general have done better in countries where, to be blunt, there is religious competition. In places where the Catholic Church was once a de facto monopoly, it inevitably developed a mutually corrupting relationship with the state that seriously eroded its authority and provoked a strong backlash. France, Quebec, Italy and Chile come to mind immediately. (And it remains strong in places where it wisely avoided this mutually corrupting relationship with the state, such as Poland). This is a huge reason why the Catholic Church and Christianity in general are stagnating and secularism thriving in western Europe, much to the chagrin of the Pope.

This is not unique to Christianity. Islam is much less moderate and more corrupted in the Middle East than in sub-Saharan Africa (which has a much higher degree of religious freedom and diversity).

By contract, places where there was a much greater variety of religious choices has seen all religion thrive. The US is a clear example of this. No one single religion or denomination has ever dominated so it keeps churches on their toes. And those that don't react or are more interested in COYA practices, like the Catholic Church, lose members because there are other viable choices. Sub-Saharan Africa is another region where religious sentiment remains strong because of a diversity of choices.

As to the issue at hand, the bishop's spokesman is right. There are fewer practicing Catholics so there need to be fewer church buildings. You rightly praise the governor for trying to scale back spending and providing of services in the face of diminishing resources. This is really no different.

[Brian]

I don't see how Church practices such as opposition to married and female priests, vehement opposition to acknowledging committed, consensual adult gay relationships and protection of priests who rape children have anything to do with protecting "all human life from the moment of conception." And if those things really are part of its core principles, maybe it doesn't deserve people's respect. And apparently I'm not the only one since, as the bishop's spokesman pointed out, people are voting with their feet.

The Church cathecism micromanages people to the extent that it, for example, proscribes people from pleasuring themselves. It also proscribes, not discourages but bans, people from working on Sundays. Are things like this really so important that they can't be changed? People acted like it was the end of the Church when they allowed mass to (gasp) be said in the vernacular. Tradition does not automatically equate to morality.

Does allowing the above really compromise "scientific and moral truth" or "all human life from the moment of conception"? Do these things really need to be micromanaged to preserve the integrity of the Church? If it's that important, it will continue to hemorrhage members. You don't want to change too much too quickly so as to lose credibility, but the Church is showing that being too inflexible can be just as harmful to moral authority.

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Well said, Brian.

Bob, I think people *might* respect the Church more if it gave up another of its core principles, to wit, its misogyny. I believe this misogyny which pervades the entire Hebreo-Christian-Islamic tradition is at the root of its hateful, rejecting, punishing attitude toward all aspects of sexuality and its especially vicious treatment of women and homosexuals. Further, I see misogyny as being at the root of the pedophile priest phenomenon *and* the hierarchy's malfeasance in that regard.

I will not undertake to dispute you, Bob, on abortion per se, but the Church has been as intractable on the question of contraception, while at the same time showing no meaningful regard for the "value" of life after birth. Economic injustice, modern warmaking and capital punishment are all pretty much okay with the Church.

The prevailing (albeit arguably unthinking) motivation for the first wave of departures from the Church in our time was that the Church would not get out from under our beds. The Church as it is constituted, staffed and administered today may be incompetent to renew itself. If it would just get over its fear of Big Mama and the ancient Goddesses, and get off the subject of sex as in focus on skin and orifices and offer something more nourishing to the spirit and supportive of ethical human relations, it might stand a chance. Though not with this pope. Don't get me started on Ratzinger.

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Meanwhile, as Brian also mentioned, the churches and parochial schools have been closing for lack of parishioners/students and for lack of vocations (clergy and teaching nuns). Without maintenance the empty buildings decay and threaten collapse which may result in injury which in turn will bring on a raft of lawsuits. What they've done with some of the physical plants is more offensive than demolition. The Church could avoid some of these perversities by being more selective of buyers. Case in point, some large important RC church in London was sold and transformed into a "McDonald's Emporium." Another one, St. Anne's Armenian Catholic Cathedral a/k/a Shrine of St. Anne of illustrious history in New York City (also once Peter Maurin's parish church, also the church where my mother's Memorial Mass was sung, if you recall) was deconsecrated (due to shrinking attendance and budgetary crisis) and sold for conversion into condominium apartments. The Gothic Revival facade was preserved for its cachet.

This process has been going on for three or more decades, earlier and faster in Western Europe than in the USA.

I remember chatting to my mother, fifteen years ago, about how the churches, seminaries and convents were closing at an astonishing rate, citing my sources, etc.. To her it was news, bad news, unsettling news, and therefore it must be untrue and I must be a lunatic to say otherwise. She put on the stony face and spat out, "So YOU say."

We've all been asleep at the wheel for so many years, willfully blinding ourselves to dismaying developments, and now the cover-ups are too thin to be of any more use.

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This is Johannah. The last two comments are mine. I signed in with my Google account. I didn't know that it would identify/sign me only by a meaningless string of characters. TypePad wouldn't let me comment the other way, though I entered my name and email address. It just refused to accept the text without giving any reason. I didn't use any bad words, did I? I've run up against this in Facebook. You can't use the word "penis" in any context whatsoever, even medical. Not on the Wall, not in the Notes, nowhere. So you can't have a conversational exchange without using, sometimes even having to invent, a euphemism, which is repugnant to me. The blogosphere is getting more talibanic by the second.

[Bob Conner]

Oy. Hello Brian and Johannah. I don't disagree with all of your comments, and won't enter into tedious debate about all the areas where I do differ, but will confine myself to a couple of points. Brian, I mentioned the sexual abuse scandal in this post, and despite your implication did not state or imply that it and other things you mention have anything to do with protecting human life from conception. Johannah, I dispute your assertion that "Economic injustice, modern warmaking and capital punishment are all pretty much okay with the Church." The Vatican is explicity against all three, including the prior pope's pleading with the former president not to invade Iraq, when that invasion was supported by most leaders of the two major parties in both the United States and Britain.

[Brian]

"Economic injustice, modern warmaking and capital punishment are all pretty much okay with the Church."

I have issues with the Church including some that Johannah mentioned but in fairness, I think it's on the right side of all three of these issues. It's one of the few people/institutions that's actually consistently pro-life across the board. It's been active in opposing wars of aggression and state murder. I don't think economic injustice is as much of a priority of the modern Church as it should be. I think the Church is more focused on band aid remedies of economic injustice (necessary and admirable but not sufficient) and doesn't do enough to push society to address the broader structural issues therein. But I don't think the Church could be fairly described as favoring economic injustice.

[Bob Conner]

I was certainly abashed when pope was proved right and I was wrong about Iraq invasion. While I generally support church positions on economic issues, my caveat is that sometimes they support policies, such as particular types of welfare and public housing, that opponents argued (sometimes plausibly, in my opinion) have hurt rather than helped poor. And sometimes there is legitimate disagreement, e.g. between me and Matt Funiciello over whether more corporate investment would make Haiti better (me) or worse (him) off. And while opposing the death penalty, I am not like you prepared to call it "state murder."

[Brian]

The legal definition of first degree murder in pretty much all states is to kill someone willfully, deliberately and in a pre-meditated fashion. The fact that execution results from years of an adversarial judicial process means that it is clearly willful and pre-meditated. Capital punishment is by definition deliberate. You can use euphemisms if you wish. I choose to call it what it is.

[Brian]

I didnt' mean for the above comment to come across as hostile. I was just explaining my very conscious phrasing.

[Bob Conner]

Brian, by the same logic those who oppose war and abortion could call soldiers and abortionists murderers. I think it is a mistake to use such terms in what amount to political discussions. This isn't just a matter of politeness. As you know, I think abortions and embryonic stem cell research kill human beings, but I am aware that the people engaged in these activities disagree with me, and that the law protects their actions, so I do not think they can be accurately described as murderers. Nor do I think soldiers can be so described in normal circumstances, even when they are fighting wars I may disagree with, and the same applies to executioners.