Under New Management

From Oakland to Wayne to Macomb County there's mounting new management in churches everywhere, it seems.

At a meeting Saturday of ecumenical leaders at Leland Baptist Church, next door to the former St. Christine Church on Fenkell, east of Telegraph, where I was a pastor over thirty years ago in the Brightmoor community, during breaks, I decided to greet people who were open for business at their resale shop in the former edifice where Mass was celebrated since 1954 with Father Ben Postula. A huge hug by the smiling face who welcomed me assured me that hospitality in Brightmoor had not changed there since 1981 when our soup kitchen and food pantry was full steam ahead. And, by the way, they are the lone two buildings across the street still in sole ownsership by the Archbishop of Detroit, MI., now under the canonical head of Christ the King Church at least a mile away, the Father Clem Kern building we named and purchased that served as a gym for the now closed and empty St. Christine School under new management next door, happy, yet sad to admit.

Pastor Cecil Poe, who was an assistant when Sister Maria Kurrie, SSJ, TOSF, Sister Agnestine Rosinski, CSSF, Deacon Ray Kunik and I led the very faithful and fledgling St. Christine's said he was waiting for the one-floor, K-8 school building to fall to replace it with
senior housing.

The edifice would become a gym under new management. Sister Thomasine, another Felician sister was at the helm of our vibrant school decades ago. Former Madonna University president, the late Sister Francilene VanDevyver, doubled her duties and played the organ for Mass on Sundays when St. Christine's lively worship was the highlight of the week, amid all the social services, and daily Mass and Scripture study we stressed.

Under new management, I thought, as my heart sank when I surveyed rack after rack of clothes on the crucifix and altarless, pewless, and carpetless, dark floor in my visit home to St. Christine Church building. As if in denial, I quickly walked back outside of the side door onto the parking lot where a bar-b-que steered my nose with flavorful ribs and chicken. Hmmm good! A deep breathe recovered my heartbreak. Such aches get easier when one witnesses it again and again. And a visit to mainstay Scotty's Fish and Chips on Dolphin moments later with Archbishop George Stallings, Jr., of Washington, D.C., among others, would satisfy my hunger, for sure, as Harry and his staff at Scotty's fed me many times while I would walk the streets of Brightmoor's businesses in the 80s, organize community, complete my doctoral thesis at St. Mary's Seminary and University in Baltimore, MD., and, head the ecumenical Michigan Coaliton for Human Rights with Bishop H. Colemena McGehee, Jr. among others. Multi-tasks for one human being trying to make a difference in what a priest friend of mine, said "was always a hellhole," when I returned his call Saturday from St. Christine's.

Under new management is as common as blowing one's nose these days, it seems.

On the east side, in Macomb County, a four-car-garage rectory has been empty for months as area residents care for the grounds, plant colorful flowers, and manage sufficient security to keep vandals away. Squatters who rented another church-owned building left it filthy and in need of repairs for parishioners to fix. Do landlords know, care? Are they over their heads in property now with less urgency for personnel and imagination to lead faithful longing for God, effective preaching and community again? With a 34 million dollar loss on a museum built in Washington, D.C, reported this week in the National Catholic Reporter, and, on the backs of the Archdiocese of Detroit and a lien on it from a loan from an Irish bank, how will we ever re-focus to our original mission of bringing Jesus the Christ to a waiting Michigan? How? With a miracle and minds who are welcome to imagine morphing and change for the better.

Another pretty, pastoral place no longer has a resident pastor either. Not enough Catholic clergy, leaders say is the blame for minimal Masses now and less pastoral care. Imagine that while you imagine more and step up to the plate to speak up and lead! To speak truth to power in love, of course.

Imploding. That's how one area resident, walking his dog, felt when we greeted each other along
Fourteen Mile Road. "It's all imploding," he shouted with a sense of sadness in his loud and troubled voice.

Will the whole enterprise implode some day? Will leadership step forth to imagine ways to turn around this crumbling situation? Or, will shrinking numbers of clergy continue to be listed as the reason for the implosion?

Who will step up to go against the tide as parishioners rose up in the 70s when my home parish of St. Thomas the Apostle Church on Detroit's east side was slated for bulldozing after an inner-city church could not get a bank loan to purchase the towering Romanesque edifice build in 1927?
Just last week at another ecumenical meeting in Oakland County, I discovered countless empty buildings that were once thriving Catholic communities. My heart sank then, also, when I heard of such closures, and, under new managament, stories from clergy and other faithful. It is depressing.

Who will imagine other solutions to go against the accepted "learned helplessness" that seems to be the thinking these days as national clerical CEOs uneventfully and quietly seem to cluster, close or merge because there aren't enough priests like me to go around?

Who will promote the original mission of Jesus, our founder, to reach out, baptize and teach and sanctify? We all can do something, and the buck does stop with you and me, after all. And, collaboration is a sound teaching of Vatican II.

Who will put the institution back on the track far from the sole business model we were never meant to have as its priority?

Who?