Yesterday morning at 8:15 am Bishop Galante was on Newsmakers with Pat Ciarrocchi on CBS 3. Here are some of Bishop Galante's assertions, with comments and clarifications from savestmarys.net as well as some summaries of sentiments expressed by Leah Vassallo and Bob Walsh (COP) yesterday.

1. The bishop says that families, young families, are moving off barrier islands and therefore there isn't the need for parishes and schools that there once was.

• Where does he get this information from? If families are moving off the islands, then why are so many schools growing and building?
  

2. He said twice that he's responded to letters written to him.

• No he hasn't. He certainly hasn't responded to mine. I know people who have written him countless times and have to date received no response, not even a form letter. For those lucky enough to get a letter, it is only a form letter and usually does not address their concerns.

3. He said that people are moving from "urban centers" in South Jersey.

• What "urban centers"? Camden and Atlantic City? South Jersey doesn't really have "urban centers" in the way other areas do. The truth is that Galante wants to close churches throughout the diocese in places that are urban, suburban, and rural. Closures ("mergers") are widespread across the diocese, despite the environment. The bishop is using national trends to justify actions that are local, even if the general national trends do not apply to our particular region. In fact, Bishop Galante wishes to close churches in areas whose populations are growing. This is opportunism, pure and simple, and the diocese uses whatever rationale seems expedient at the time.
  

4. He said "the Eucharist is the center of our faith and without priests we cannot have the Eucharist."

• This is an interesting statement considering that Bishop Galante (1) discourages priestly vocations (see below) and (2) holds up as models for future Catholic churches in South Jersey a protestant church (Gloucester County Community Church) and a radically liberal Catholic megachurch in Naples, FL that has publicly espoused heretical views about the Eucharist and other matters of faith. LINK
  

5. The bishop said we need a "new springtime" in the Church of South Jersey (as he calls it), "a renewal of our faith and our practice." We need outreach, love, and service of God and neighbor. Bishop Galante says that as a shepherd he is to animate, call, and lead people to that understanding of faith. He is to help people to know Jesus more intimately and love Jesus more ardently.

• I have only two things to say about this: (1) We do not intend to have this be a "silent spring." We do not trust in the type of "renewal" Galante wishes to impose. We will fight the destruction of our Church, our churches, and our Faith and will not do so quietly. (2) As our "shepherd," I would truly like to know how the bishop is leading us toward a love and knowledge of Jesus. I certainly don't see it. By closing our beloved houses of God, how is this helping us?

6. Bishop Galante said that young people hunger for deeper meaning in their lives.

• Of course this is true! But then why would he want to close houses of God that young people are attached to and that in many cases their ancestors built? In a society that increasingly destroys places of significance in favor of generic strip malls, developments, and chain stores, why would a bishop want to impose more of the same? South Jersey has been colonized by forces that seek to destroy its character for long enough. Why would young people or any people support the destruction of the place where they have come to know and love Our Lord? Why should he want to destroy churches that radiate traditional Catholic culture and values and erect nondescript McChurches like we see elsewhere in the country (and sadly, even within our own diocese)? Does Bishop Galante have any idea how devastating something like that can be to any person? Some are so disgusted by what's going on they are considering leaving the church altogether. I know young adults who have left the church and what Bishop Galante is doing in closing churches just seals the deal, so to speak. Places are important, the places we worship in are important, and they are not so easily replaced.
  
• If Bishop Galante will look to numbers with complete objectivity, he will clearly see that diocese, orders, and fraternities that are attracting young adults are disproportionately ones that are traditional, which is the very thing Galante wishes to undercut. Here are several links to just a handful of such groups. There are certainly lots of others:
  
• Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter stats page (Their regular page)--They send priests throughout the country when the bishop allows them in. This is what they were set up to do. The FSSP priests are not just in one particular place.
  
• Nashville Dominicans
• Dominican Sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharist

7. Bishop Galante always likes to say that he spent so much time "listening to the people" during the "speak out sessions" and deanery meetings, claiming the process (as well as the closures he thinks were a natural emination of that process) has lay support.

• No one I know is in support of the mergers and closures. Not a single person. People think that the loss of their houses of God is inevitable and that there is nothing they can do about it. This assumption of inevitability must NOT be construed as support!
• We all know that we must be careful when evaluating "studies" done by organizations that have an agenda. The diocese is no exception. As Leah and Bob pointed out in the video response, this is a fake "process" and the studies and polls that are cited are almost always fake as well. We can make numbers say whatever we want and make studies prove whatever we want by structuring them in certain ways. No diocesan study ought to be trusted. Interestingly, as Leah Vassallo pointed out, there has been no poll on parish mergers because no one supports them.
• Bishop Galante is taking advantage of the Catholic faithful's trust of their bishop--trust that he cares for them, listens to them,and is leading them along the right and godly path. Instead, he is abusing their trust by taking away from them something that is most precious because he has an particular agenda. This is an abuse of his power. The closing of half the churches in our diocese is absolutely wrong and must be resisted.
  

8. Bishop Galante claims that he supports and desires priestly vocations.

• In reality, the bishop is actively discouraging priestly vocations. He has (1) lowered the mandatory retirement age, (2) refused priests from outside the diocese (Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, Indian Carmelites, African priests, and others, only to import one of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales in order to bolster his own liberal agenda), (3) spread seminarians among three seminaries, and (4) reassigned, forced out, or forced into retirement more than a dozen priests to date.
• Why is he discouraging vocations to the priesthood? Two interconnected reasons. While it is bizarre to think any "shepherd" would do this, it is simply fact that with the diminishing availability of priests comes the scarcity of the sacraments. Without the sacraments to strengthen us in the spiritual life, we are in trouble! Instead of encouraging and inviting priests who make available the sacraments, Galante has a lay-led initiative ready to implement, which will begin with lay staff at each parish. The hiring of all the lay staff will likely cost each parish, according to the diocese' own salary scale, somewhere in the vicinity of $200,000 each year in addition to their normal operating costs. The bottom line is that Galante wishes to change the character of the Church altogether.

9. Bishop Galante has repeatedly stressed the importance of offering social services to people in the hopes that they'll come to church. (The "build it and they will come" mentality.) Services like day care for seniors and children, to start with.

• Church isn't about convenience, it's about fatih. While services are nice, do we really want to encourage a view of the Church in which people assume a relationship of convenience and comfort? The bishop is coming about this whole thing backwards. We need to build up the spirituality of the churches first and foremost, and if services are needed or wanted, they must be connected to that spirituality. Without Christ at our center, all services, as good as they may be, will be superficial and will not draw people to Him.
  

On the Newsmakers coverage:
In my opinion, CBS 3 has certainly given the movement excellent coverage in the past and I know they will in the future. The most recent news piece was extremely good. However I must admit I personaly did not think Pat Ciarrocchi challenged the bishop, nor would I consider the bishop's stint on Newsmakers an example of balanced journalism. It was obviously pretty one-sided. In fact, I was disappointed to see she even fed Bishop Galante answers at various points. It was really great, though, when she pointed out the "tremendous resistence" to his plan, and the bishop took issue with the word "tremendous." In any case, I know that CBS normally has wonderfully balanced coverage of this issue and I certainly anticipate more critical analysis of the diocesan crisis going into the future.