Thank you to everyone who braved the first day of Spring to attend a rally to urge Archbishop Chaput to redo the Parish Area Pastoral Planning Initiaitve. We scheduled this rally for now because in several days, Archbishop Chaput, Mayor Nutter and Governor Corbett are traveling to Rome to ask the Pope to attend the World Meeting of Families help in Philadelphia in September, 2015. We wanted Archbishop Chaput to know that there are Philadelphia families who want to meet with him regarding the way this planning process was implemented.
Churches closed or merged based on this process. We maintain it is a severely and systemically flawed process that needs to be redone. You can read more about the reasons why here.
Our rally drew members of St. Joachim, La Milagrosa and St. Leo parishes.
Channel 6 news came but footage of our event did not make it onto TV as it was a very busy news day.
On Tuesday, March 19, we were featured in the Northeast Times. Tom Waring, editor, wrote “Parishioners of Closed Frankford Church Plan Rally”.
I think it’s interesting to see how reporter’s stories can be changed for one reason or another. Sam Waterhouse, reporter for The Metro, wrote a story, initially, “Catholics from Closed Churches Seek Audience with Archbishop Ahead of World Congress of Families”. When the story appeared on Page 2 of today’s Metro (Friday, March 21), it was titled “Catholics Rally To Give Church a Second Chance”. Either way, I am happy that Sam was there and showed an interest in our situation.
2 replies on “Missed Our Rally…Highlights Here!”
Both Saint Joachim and Mater Dolorosa were fiscally solvent parishes. It makes no sense why it was decided to close and merge both and not to keep at least keep one of the Frankford churches open. This PPA initiative would be better suited to have these discussions with the entire parish communities involved with the Archbishop or representatives from the diocese visiting the churches instead of just the pastors, 3 or 4 parish representatives with a planning committee. Eliminate the strategic planning teams and let the fate of a parish rest with the parishoners.
Ed, great comment. Your last sentence says it all!!!! I love it – “Eliminate the strategic planning teams and let the fate of a parish rest with the parishioners”. Now, there’s a novel idea! Thanks for posting!