I asked that question at a council meeting, it goes back on the tax rolls.

just curious - when a church or parochial school ceases to have a religious function does it go back onto the tax rolls or does that only happen when the religious institution is no longer the property owner?

Quote:

It was announced at mass this past Sunday and there was a letter about it in the bulletin.

Well on a brighter note, my friends who moved to North Carolina said the Catholic Church is growing so fast, there is hardly room in the church for Mass and there is a lottery for entering the Catholic schools. It is too bad we cannot ship some schools and churches there.

Yvonne, it is true that Charters were the death knell to parochial schools which had already suffered from the decline in the religious orders and the catholic community. However, it seemed to me (and others) that the mega parish model was just a prelude to church closings. Treat the parishioners like kulaks and make them go here and there and destroy their loyalty to their parish. Then when a church closes, the outcry is hardly heard. I looked at Holy Rosary the year before it closed for my oldest son and it was a thriving school- St. Peters and Resurrection and St. Mary's never impressed me. I think Holy Rosary could have survived with creativity and commitment.

Landshark- who told you about St. Brigit's? Is that official? Is it public knowledge?

What a crying shame if its true. So there it is: the population of downtown triples over the last twenty years but Catholic churches go from ten churches to five. New Energies! Springtime of Vatican II!



Church Going, by Philip Larkin

Once I am sure there's nothing going on
I step inside, letting the door thud shut.
Another church: matting, seats, and stone,
And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut
For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff
Up at the holy end; the small neat organ;
And a tense, musty, unignorable silence,
Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off
My cycle-clips in awkward reverence.

Move forward, run my hand around the font.
From where I stand, the roof looks almost new -
Cleaned, or restored? Someone would know: I don't.
Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few
Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce
'Here endeth' much more loudly than I'd meant.
The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door
I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence,
Reflect the place was not worth stopping for.

Yet stop I did: in fact I often do,
And always end much at a loss like this,
Wondering what to look for; wondering, too,
When churches will fall completely out of use
What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep
A few cathedrals chronically on show,
Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases,
And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep.
Shall we avoid them as unlucky places?

Or, after dark, will dubious women come
To make their children touch a particular stone;
Pick simples for a cancer; or on some
Advised night see walking a dead one?
Power of some sort will go on
In games, in riddles, seemingly at random;
But superstition, like belief, must die,
And what remains when disbelief has gone?
Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky,

A shape less recognisable each week,
A purpose more obscure. I wonder who
Will be the last, the very last, to seek
This place for what it was; one of the crew
That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were?
Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique,
Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff
Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh?
Or will he be my representative,

Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt
Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground
Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt
So long and equably what since is found
Only in separation - marriage, and birth,
And death, and thoughts of these - for which was built
This special shell? For, though I've no idea
What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth,
It pleases me to stand in silence here;

A serious house on serious earth it is,
In whose blent air all our compulsions meet,
Are recognized, and robed as destinies.
And that much never can be obsolete,
Since someone will forever be surprising
A hunger in himself to be more serious,
And gravitating with it to this ground,
Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in,
If only that so many dead lie round.

As a side note, St. Bridget church on Montgomery which is currently part of the St. Mary's parish is closing soon as well.

Actually, five churches then merged under the banner of Resurrection. Holy Rosary grammar school had low numbers but St. Peter's Grammar School was doing well. St. Peter's was closed because the Prep wanted the property and the students was supposed to go to Holy Rosary, instead many went to OLC grammar school. Without the merger, Holy Rosary would have close a long time ago. Parents who want private schools are choosing charter schools which is the reason Catholic schools are closing.

From what I heard, Silverman has the lease for that property and is acting manager. They are renting part of the school to a new private early childhood center called The Brunswick School. (http://www.thebrunswickschool.com/)

I guess you don't really have any opinion on this, huh?

Good question! The Archdiocese sort of strong armed the school out of the hands of Holy Rosary and into the control of Fr. Studerus then pastor of the now suppressed mega parish of the Resurrection and it became part of that parish school. Now that Resurrection Parish is no more, and the survivors are reconstituting themselves as the parish of St. Michael and the parish of St. Mary, I wonder what happened to the school. I assume like most other Catholic schools it is defunct. Perhaps Holy Rosary school reverted to Holy Rosary and it is being made condos to finance the spending spree that the parish has engaged in.

Apparently, this is not a school anymore.
Looks like it's being gutted. Does anyone know
what it going to be? It's the school on the
corner of 7/Brunswick.