Friday, April 13, 2018

A parable

In a small town, there sat two churches.

The older church had been there a hundred years. The parishioners were a mix of immigrants - Poles, Germans, some Italians, Hungarians and the like. The church was small, but humble. Its priest, while a bit absent-minded, was a likable fellow who played the saxophone at church picnics.

The newer church was about half as old. It had been formed by a group of Italians from the town, and served that ethnic community. The building was newer, the air conditioning worked, and it had a school attached to it.

One year, the bishop of the diocese announced that several parishes would have to be closed - and that the older church was on the list.

The parishioners wanted to keep their distinct identity, and were not pleased with the decision. They appealed to the bishop and told him about their church's history and the makeup of their congregation.

The bishop reluctantly said he would wait a year to finalize the decision. Until that time, he said, the priests from both parishes would be reassigned.

The Italian parish was sent a gregarious priest, an outgoing man with a personality many likened to Friar Tuck from the Kevin Costner Robin Hood movie. He was well-liked, and his sermons were lively.

The older parish was sent a good and devout priest, but one wholly unlike their prior one. He had gone through several strokes, and they had left him with trouble speaking and being understood. This caused him to be reserved and withdrawn, his understandable and justifiable frustration sometimes bordering on rude and irritable, when dealing with parishioners - several of whom started attending mass at the newer parish with its friendlier pastor.

At the end of a year, the bishop made his decision. There was no appeal to be made any longer.

With the added drop in attendance and revenue, the older parish would merge with the newer parish.

The frail, devout priest was asked to retire and would not be transferred to the new parish, whose main building would be used as the old church's doors were closed for good. Attempts were made to turn it into a restaurant, but it never worked. It was torn down and turned into a chain pharmacy.

The question of the parable: Who was served, and how?

The older church was mine growing up.

The gregarious priest was later accused of financial improprieties, and died shortly before charges were anticipated to be announced. Update: He was named in August in a grand jury report on child sex abuse in the Catholic Church in Pennsylvania. According to the report, he "was alleged to have inappropriately touched three young boys during the times that he respectively served as pastor ... Additionally, [he] is alleged to have used church donations and other funds to further some of his relationships with young boys as well as to purchase homosexual pornography on church computers."

None of this was the fault of the earnest but physically challenged priest. But it has always seemed like the diocese used this man, a priest, as a tool for a rather reprehensible end - defeating the desire of this one church to keep existing.

The Roman Catholic Church will not marry my parents - even as a renewal of vows - due to them marrying when my mother was two months pregnant. Forty-two years later, they're two of the finest examples of Catholics in the universe. But ... that one thing ...