Catholic churches sold to heretics

[QuisUtDeus]

:(

 

 

From Worcester Telegram & Gazette

 

Other denominations find new life in old Catholic churches


By JAY LINDSAY
Associated Press Writer

WALTHAM, Mass.— His church started in his living room, growing steadily as it moved wherever it found space, from public parks, to a YMCA to a former woodworking shop.

But by 2002, the New Covenant Christian Church of Cambridge was straining the old shop's walls, and the Rev. Thomas St. Louis knew more room was badly needed. Then, the financial stress on the Boston Archdiocese provided an opportunity for St. Louis' Haitian-American congregation.

St. Louis' church now meets at the former St. Joseph church in Waltham, which was among 44 church buildings shut down as 62 parishes were dissolved in a broad, belt-tightening consolidation in the Boston Archdiocese that began in 2004.

Most of the 26 church buildings that have been sold are being used for new housing, but eight were purchased by other churches, including New Covenant, a 400-member evangelical Protestant church.

Now, when St. Louis delivers his sermons in Creole, he's preaching to empty pews that his church has a chance to fill.

"Honestly from my heart, I wish the Catholic church in Boston and Greater Boston never had any problems to force the cardinal to sell those churches, because I know what those churches meant to the parish," St. Louis said.

But one positive result, he said, is "the church could be used again as a church."

Other churches with strong ethnic identities like New Covenant's have found homes in former Catholic properties, including another Haitian congregation that bought St. Peter in Malden. A Serbian Orthodox church bought Immaculate Conception in Cambridge and a Greek Orthodox Church bought St. James in Arlington.

Jubilee Christian Church in Boston, one of New England's largest churches, purchased Our Lady of the Rosary in Stoughton as a satellite church for about 2,000 members who live in that area. Another Protestant congregation, Greater Faith Pentecostal Worship Center, bought St. Joseph in Boston's Hyde Park.

The little-known Swedenborgian church purchased Our Lady Help of Christians in Concord. And a Nazarene congregation bought St. Alphonsus in Danvers.

"Obviously we would have preferred to continue to operate these as Catholic churches," said Terry Donilon, a spokesman for the archdiocese.

But he added, "In many cases, we have helped other congregations carry on many good works in communities, where they work to benefit people in need."

When the archdiocese put its properties on the market, top price was a priority, but it wasn't the only factor, with community impact and planned use of the property also considered. For example, a proposal for a health care center at St. Boniface in Quincy was nixed because it could have involved counseling for abortion, which the church opposes. The property is now being used by a YMCA afterschool program.

Fourteen of the 26 church buildings sold were slated for housing - ranging from subsidized units to luxury housing. Two other buildings were sold separately to Tufts University and Northeastern University for their own use. The former Immaculate Conception in Winchester is a day care and Asuncion in Lawrence was sold to be used for commercial space.

In one of the most controversial sales to date, Saint Mary Star of the Sea in East Boston was sold by the archdiocese for $850,000 to become a photography studio, then was quickly resold for a $1.8 million profit to the Universal Church. The deal raised questions about why the archdiocese had apparently so seriously undervalued the property.

Donilon said the archdiocese rejected initial offers because they were too low for the property - which had an extra parcel at that time - and the original buyer submitted the only offer in the following year.

The archdiocese has completed $62 million in sales of properties put on the market by reconfiguration, and seven church buildings remain on the market.

Another 14 are tied up in canonical or legal appeals by parishioners trying to reverse the archdiocese's decision to close the churches, including five that are still occupied by parishioners angry and hurt over what they say are unjustified closings.

The Rev. Nicholas Kastanas knew there was a lot of pain when parishioners from St. James in Arlington joined members of his Greek Orthodox church on a ceremonial mile-long march from his old building, after his church purchased St. James in late 2005.

But Kastanas believes his congregation at St. Athanasius the Great will continue to be a blessing to the area.

Since 2001, his church had been standing-room only at services, with 500 or more people squeezing into a space that comfortably held about 330. A tiny parking lot held 30 cars, and crossing a busy road was too harrowing for many would-be worshippers.

Efforts to purchase an adjacent property were continually stymied, but then the St. James property went on the market.

The $6 million purchase bought the church room for 700 to 900 regular worshippers, as well as its expanding programs for seniors, youth and social outreach. It also has 200 parking spaces and a school building the church plans to use to start its own school.

Kastanas said he still feels the joy he felt when he first stood before his congregation in their new building.

"I'm constantly and prayerfully exhilarated by it," he said. "I can see the communicants from generation to generation. I hear babies crying ... That's a blessing for me. It means we're growing."

[HailGilbert]

Note that the Archdiocese will not sell ANY of their property to the SSPX or anyone who thinks like them.

Typical. I HATE Vatican Two!

[Papal_Follower]

It is a real shame about the desecration.

[SalveMater]

When I lived up in Boston, Mass. I used to go to a beautiful old church called St. Aidan's (Where JFK was baptized), but they sold it to some rich jew who has turned it into condos. It makes me sick every time we go up there to visit and I pass by my beautiful old church where I recieved my First Holy Communion, and see it being destroyed by those selfish, greedy, heretics!

[Robb]

This is a real disgrace.  I have even heard that they sold a Church in West Mass to Moslims.

[HMiS]

In Germany the SSPX tried to purchase a monastery of the Redemptorists, including a large library, but Cardinal Meisner himself blocked (vetoed) this purchase, as he did not "feel well" if "that building" was sold to an SSPX-affiliated organization.

 

The same with other churches, e.g. a parish church in Aachen (Germany) was not available for sale by the SSPX. The Diocese blocked that, as well as the SSPX engaging in buying a very ancient baroque chapel in the university campus of Aachen.

 

Now, the SSPX purchased for the Benedictines of Bellaigue a very nice 17th century small monastery building (which was sacked and secularized in 1802 under Napoleon) from a layman who agreed to sell his life's work (restoration of the building) to "true monks". The Diocese of Aachen, especially Bishop Mussinghoff, made a huge fuzz out of it, pressured - by means of its leftist priests and their contacts - the SPD (Social Democrats, Socialists) and the Grünen (Greens) to block this in the community council. But the Christian Democrats, whose president said that unlike other of his political party's members he did not support the SSPX, agreed and made SSPX-OSB settlement possible. It is in a beautiful forested area near a small village and a famous touristic town (Monschau), close to the Belgian-German border and a national park.

 

Check it out here:

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=nl&q=Kloster+Reichenstein,+Germany&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=48.421237,81.738281&layer=&ie=UTF8&z=16&ll=50.539358,6.198628&spn=0.00956,0.026994&t=h&om=1&iwloc=addr

[Robb]

Good for the SSPX!  Imagine the Catholic Church siding with social democrats and greens in order to block an already unused monastery from becoming active again. 

 

Given this (and Cardinal Lehmanns recent remarks) Its clear the Church in Germany is a bastion of liberalism.

[Robb]

Are Christian democrats supportive of the SSPX?  What exactly are they and what is their platform?

 

Bob

[StevusMagnus]

Not angry enough? Here's more!

http://www.remnantnewspaper.com/Archives/archive-2007-0131-church_sale.htm

[HMiS]

Yes, the local Christian Democrats (some of them at least) supported the newcomers, the Benedictines, especially after talking to Fr. Schmidberger and the former owner of the former and future monastery buildings.

 

As to the Redemptorist monastery: It has become a buddhist meditation and wellness center with saunas (in Germany these are all naked, very immoral) and swimming pools by now. It is to be opened June, 2007.

 

As to the 1958 built parish church in a suburb of Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), this was sold by the diocese of Aachen to a so-called "Free Church", an Evangelical Protestant Charismatic and independent community which has decatholicized the interior of course. Bp. Mussinghoff, who in 2004 staged a huge syncretist event in Aachen's large Charlemagne chapel from ca. 810 AD, opposed the SSPX and affiliates' purchase by all means, including taking a low buyers' price than the real worth of the estate. As long as the SSPX does not get it.

 

The hatred of these so-called tolerant "bishops" is immense. Religious liberty at once is suspended if the SSPX or other traditionalist Roman Catholic organizations are involved. For the same reason the FSSP is blocked from purchasing or building chapels - apart from the diocesan permission.

 

In Belgium the Franciscan Order in Louvain (Leuven) sold a beautiful monastery and church to a nearby school (formerly Catholic, still called Sancta Maria college) to use it as a gymnastics and theater room rather than sell it to the Society of St. Pius X which offered more money. When the priests showed up during negotiations in their cassocks, the modernist Franciscan superior stopped it all. (Even though some of his confreres there were themselves quite traditionalist-minded, even though confined by the modernist superiors.) Cardinal Danneels was furious when the SSPX bought St. Joseph's church, the former Belgian National Patron monument and pilgrimage church, in Brussels. He had rather sold it to Syrian monophysite schismatics than let the SSPX and some elderly traditional Catholic priests use it! But iN Brussels the SSPX succeeded with the help of.....a Syrian monophysite businessman!