As you can expect, not everyone is a big fan of the parish closings and mergers announced last Sunday by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
I met three of them last night.
Longtime Upper Chichester pol Joe DiMarco, his wife, Donna DiMarco, and Kathy Curley were my guests for our 'Live From the Newsroom' live-stream show. All our longtime members of Holy Saviour Parish in Lower Chichester. And all three made pretty clear their displeasure with the way the archdiocese made their decision, which was to close Holy Saviour, as well as Immaculate Conception in Marcus Hook, and merge them with St. John Fisher in Upper Chichester.
If you missed the show, you can catch the replay here.
At first I thought bitter was a pretty strong word. Not after talking to them.
The folks at Immaculate Conception are not especially thrilled with this arrangement either. They held a meeting last night to plan their strategy.
On Sunday night, Holy Saviour parishioners will do the same at a meeting in the auditorium at 7 p.m.
It appears certain that both parishes plan to appeal the ruling to shut them down and merge with St. John Fisher.
But I was surprised at how deep the hurt - and the bitter feelings - goes. This stems all the way back to when the region that is now St. John Fisher was cut out of what was then a booming Holy Saviour parish. It was made only worse when their school was closed last year.
This might be the final straw.
One thing all three made clear. They have no intention of becoming parishioners at St. John Fisher.
I don't see what kind of choice the archdiocese has in terms of trying to lessen their costs amid all these parishes, which make for too many buildings, and too many bills, along with not nearly enough clergy to go around.
I asked a spokesman for the archdiocese if he wanted to come on the show last night. He could not make it, and indicated that when he did he would rather come on alone, not with parishioners. After meeting the passionate trio from Holy Saviour last night, I think I can understand why.
That is not going to make them go away.
If the archdiocese thinks this is over, I think they have another thing coming.
Actually, three of them.
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