St. Bartholomew's Church in Camden, the only African-American Catholic church in the Diocese of Camden, has been slated to merge with another parish and lose its historic and culturally unique character. Church members have been united in opposition to the plan for quite a while now. We in the COP have been utterly amazed and confused by the senselessness of this plan. Clearly an irreplaceable and one-of-a-kind asset to the Diocese, St. Batholomew's was set up for Black Catholics who experienced outright rejection in other parishes. The parish draws Black Catholics from far and wide. Says Rachel Loveland Fisher, 70, of Cherry Hill:

Before the church was built...[she] recalls standing at the back of churches in Camden as a young child because black parishioners were not allowed to sit in the pews.

"They refused my granddad, who used to be a slave," Fisher said. "I remember they wouldn't let him sit down, and if it was really crowded, they would make us go outside. They put us out on the steps."

This statement reminded me of the stories of my own family, who is Italian. Apparently they were not permitted to sit in the same church as the Irish-Americans and, like those at St. Bart's, my own relatives were forced to worship elsewhere. Finally they came to Vineland where they farmed and set up their own church, which is now the Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish (originally called Sacred Heart), which is scheduled for closure. After outgrowing this church, they later built the (current), cathedral-like, beautiful Sacred Heart, whose status will now be "secondary worship site." Yikes, my grandparents and great-grandparents must be rolling in their graves. But I digress.

Under [Bishop Galante's] plan, St. Bartholomew would merge with St. Joan; St. Joan would become the worship site. The new parish would then cluster or share a priest with Sacred Heart Church in Camden.

Further, in a June 23rd response to St. Bart's parishioners:

"As you write, St. Bartholomew's was established and has maintained its mission to serve the black Catholic community within a specific portion of the Diocese of Camden," Galante wrote. "I assure you that the proposed merger intends to not only acknowledge, embrace and endorse this mission, but also to strengthen this mission into the future."

Walton said it was the bishop's intention from the beginning that St. Bartholomew would remain open "because of its historical value as an African-American church."

Clearly this intention is far from clear to members of St. Bart's, who want to maintain their church as it is and without diocesan interference. No wonder there's confusion. In April they're set to be squashed as a historically Black parish to merge and worship elsewhere, and then a few months later Mr. Walton transforms into the picture of cultural sensitivity, saying St. Bart's will stay open "because of its historical value as an African-American church." Gee, why all the confusion? Could it be a pattern of inconsistency and misleading rhetoric on the part of the diocese? Could it be that Galante, McGrath, Vollmer, and Walton had assumed that lumping non-white minorities together into one parish wouldn't make any difference until they experienced such tremendous resistance that they became concerned with the appearance of cultural insensitivity, at best?

Isn't it ironic that, historically, no matter what happens with the African-American Catholics in our diocese, they are consistently being forced to worship or not to worship somewhere against their will? First they are rejected at what would have been their normal parishes, then a mission church is set up where they are to attend, and now they're being forced to worship in yet another church.

We in the COP see absolutely no reason why St. Bart's should be anything other than what it has been--a "stand-alone" church. At savestmarys, we feel it is nothing short of shameful that Bishop Galante would want to merge and consequently dilute the character of a congregation with as rich a history as St. Bartholomew's.