Saturday, January 31, 2009

FYI and more cluster updates

The Times Leader has a link to the text of the cd being played at churches all across our Diocese.

This one appears to be from Cluster 4 Wilkes Barre. Just an FYI.

Also, more closings...

South Cluster 1:
St. Francis Cabrini, Carverton will close
St. Therese, Dallas stays open.
Gate of heaven will link with Our Lady of Victory at Harvey’s Lake, sharing one pastor.
Blessed Sacrament in Center Moreland will close
Our Lady of Mount Carmel at Lake Silkworth will partner with Gate of Heaven

South Cluster 2:
St. Mary Annunciation, Kingston, will close
St. Ignatius, Kingston will remain.
St. Ann’s Chapel in Kingston will remain open for services as needed and special occasions, but that status will be reviewed after two years.
Holy Name/St. Mary and Holy Trinity in Swoyersville will link and then consolidate at Holy Trinity, with St. Mary closing by 2012

South Cluster 7:
Our Lady Help Christians, Dorrance, St. Jude, Mountaintop, and St. Patrick, White Haven will all remain open but will link, sharing one pastor and priest staff. Odd because St. Jude is probably the fastest growing parish in the Diocese. They have two Masses on Saturday I believe and 3 on Sunday. I'd hate to be that priest.

South Cluster 9:
Several churches will consolidate but remain available for services as needed.
Holy Redeemer in Harding will consolidate with Immaculate Conception but remain available.
St. Cecelia in Exeter witll consolidate at St. Anthony Padua but remain available.
St. John the Baptist in Exeter will close and consolidate at St. Anthony.
Our Lady of Sorrows in West Wyoming will consolidate at St. Joseph, Wyoming, but remain available for services.

South Cluster 10:
St. Rocco, Pittston, will close
Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Pittston stays open
Blessed Sacrament, Hughestown, and St. Mary Assumption, Pittston, will close
St. Mary Help of Christians, Pittston. Will stay open. These on top of last years church closings in Pittston.

East Cluster 1:
St. Nazarius in Pardeesville will close
St. Mary in Lattimer and Sacred Heart in Harliegh will close
Our Lady of Grace in Hazleton stays open.
Our Lady of Immaculate Conception, Freeland, will remain open.

East Cluster 2:
Holy Trinity (Slovak) and St. Stanislaus in Hazleton will close
St. Joseph's gets a reprieve, though St. Stanislaus will initially link with St. Joseph for up to two years.
St. Joseph will partner with Most Precious Blood, which will remain open.
Our Lady of Mt. Carmel will close.
Holy Rosary and St. Gabriel will partner. No suprise here

East Cluster 4:
St. John Bosco in Conyngham, good Shepherd in the Drums section of Butler Township, and Sacred Heart in Weston will partner but remain open. The three may link by 1012, sharing a pastor and priest staff.

North Cluster 5:
Holy Family Scranton will close by July 2010
St. Peter's Cathedral in Scranton will remain open

North Cluster 7:
St. Mary of Mt. Carmel, St. Casimir and All Saints in Dunmore will close by July 2009. St Casmir and All Saints will close by July 2011.

St. Anthony of Padua and St. Rocco in Dunmore will consolidate by July 2009. St. Rocco will close by July 2011.

That's it for now. Complete list should be out tomorrow. Pray for our Diocese, it needs it badly.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm sitting here on Sunday morning and your site is the only one that has the Church closings posted. I thank you for that, Rockin Traddy!

I sat in Mass last night at St. Mary's Our Lady Help of Christians Church in Dorrance and listened to the audio CD of the bishop's announcement and even though we will be linked with St. Jude's in Mountain Top, I found the lack of even a "talking head" presence very disturbing. An audio CD!!! These decisions affect generations of people in this area and the bishop didn't have the courage or common decency to even send the auxialiary bishops and the episcopal vicars to the various clusters and make the announcements in person. He said this was the best way. I disagree. The bishop, the two auxiliary bishops and the four episcopal vicars could have divided up the 50 clusters among themselves for a total of 7 each and had three general meeting on Saturday and three on Sunday and had a real presence there for the parishioners. People could have attended or not as they saw fit. I just think that his method showed NO respect for the people of the Diocese of Scranton. That's how much he cares about his flock!!! I was appalled and saddened. He spoke of 'entities' in his speech. Again, I was saddened to hear this language.

I for one, have questions about how our Church linked with St. Jude's will continue and there was no one to give us answers. We were left in the dark, I'm afraid.

St. Mary's of Dorrance Parishioner

Anonymous said...

Both our diocese and our bishop need prayer badly. The bishop has had to make extremely difficult decisions knowing full well many would make him out to be the bad guy. I admire his stregnth and courage. How many people could dare make the difficult decisions our bishop has had to make knowing full well the fall out?

People must remember through their grief there is a larger purpose for this, and ultimately we worship God the Father through the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit. We do not worship churches, we do not worship schools. Buildings while important come and go. God is eternal, the Faith is everlasting. Buildings aid the mission of the Church, but they are not it's mission. Unfortunatley in these past years it seems as though the mission of the Church has gone from evangelization to building preservation. This is not to deny our heritage, nor the heritage of the churches, nor their importance, nor the need to maintain them, it is to remind everyone of the overall purpose of the churches, and to situate them within the scope of the Church's mission. This whole process has been long overdue and that is well known.

Life is not Fair, but God is in heaven. Keep the Faith, all will be well.

Rockin Traddy- I like your style! I am not a traditionalist, but I like your website.

The Rockin' Traddy said...

Anonymous #1:

My guess is that based on the last time they closed anything - the schools - they had a live press conference, and it did't go well. Immediately the media showed teenage girls bursting into tears, throwing themselves on the floor screaming about THEIR schools. Basically ridiculous pandemonium. And a PR nightmare.

I'm sure they didn't want that. And I'm sure the Aux's and Vicars had no desire to be on the firing line with this one either. And I can't blame them.

It didn't really bother me how they did it, but I can see your point.

And you're welcome for the posts. They aren't complete, unfortunately I don't have a direct line into every parish. Keep coming back and tell your friends about the blog.

Anonymous #2:

I agree wholeheartedly. This is bigger than any building. The faith will continue, it is eternal. It will be here long after we are all gone. How silly of us to think that WHERE we worship is more important than HOW we worship.

Thanks for stopping by, and like I said above, tell your friends!

Oh. And come back again too!

Anonymous said...

tell me what is the fate of St Michael's in Scranton? Is the FSSP going to continue to run the parish or will that be lost?

The Rockin' Traddy said...

Actually, I spoke to Father Pendergraft the pastor at Saint Michael's this morning and we didn't even bring it up.

We did talk about the fate of the Usus Antiquior that is currently celebrated at Holy Rosary Sunday mornings at 8am. Father thought that they would have to sit down with the Bishop to determine where the Mass would be held once Holy Rosary closes.

Since the Bishop understands the mission of the FSSP in the Diocese, look for him not to follow the recommendations of the planning commission and consolidate St. Michael's and St Patrick's.

Instead, look to see St. Michael's continue as a personal parish tending to the needs of traditional Catholics in the Diocese of Scranton and beyond.

In any case we will know for sure at 7:00 when the full list is posted at the Diocesan website.

Thanks for stopping by. Come back soon.