I was in Euchristic Adoration yesterday and toward the end of my hour the woman mentioned in the story, Christina Thomasello, approached me inquiring about our church. We'd never met before. Ms. Thomasello just happened to be driving down Route 40 and noticed St. Mary's, and did a U-turn. She was nothing less than amazed. She told me, "This is the most beautiful church I've ever seen!" All I could say was, "I know!"
As it turns out, she and a group of people unhappily find themselves at the center of a controversy. You see, a diverse bunch of people from the Atlantic City area, including people without a thing in the world to call their own or problems none of us wish to face, have been unwittingly transformed by God. Somehow, God drew this unlikely group of people together in their common effort to restore a lovely shrine to Our Lady of Lourdes at Our Lady Star of the Sea.
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Ms. Thomasello showed me a copy of the newspaper article and relayed to me the group's interest not in changing anything at the church or shrine, but in finding out what it once looked like and helping to fix it up. Many in this group have contributed plants, stonework, and a heck of a lot of labor. All this they gave from their own time and effort without any expectation of repayment, just because they wanted to. Strangely, they have encountered much resistence to their efforts from the pastor, Rev. Pham. In their attempts to win his heart, they purchased from their own pockets a lovely statue of St. Bernadette, now the center of this seemingly ridiculous controversy, and had it sent to the rectory as a gift. Of course this strikes us as really odd since people donate things to St. Mary's all the time, eveything from stained glass windows to handywork to statues in the rosary garden to plants to small statues placed around the church. Our shrine room is bursting at the seems with beautiful statues, pictures, and relics of the saints.
Of course, Andy Walton has to chime in with a typically bizarre comment or two. "There's no history of that," (meaning no history of the shrine being dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes) as if he would have any familiarity with the histor of this parish anyway. (The man lives in Pennsylvania.) But isn't this beside the point? Whatever happened to courtesy? Why alienate the Catholic faithful by rejecting the gift of their time, talents, and gifts?
One has to wonder if the group of people involved were wealthy and influential, the Diocese would look quite differently upon them. With all this talk about wanting to transform the Diocese of Camden's churches into places that throb with "social justice ministries," it seems particularly ironic that they would allow a group of disaffected people to be treated so rudely. And all this talk about trying to win back lapsed Catholics, you would think a thing like this would warm the hearts of the Galante administration. Huh. Guess not.
Mr. Walton concludes with, "It's not her shrine." That's interesting. In my conversation with Thomasello she was mystified by the implication that she believed the shrine belonged to her. However it struck us that if in this "process" of "transforming" the Diocese was to be influenced by the "voice of the people," (which nobody I know truly believes,) then whose churches are they? Whose shrines are they? In the end, they ought to belong to the people who care for them, pray at them, and love them.
But of course, all this talk has nothing to do with politics or property value...
Article below:
Church officials say there is no evidence the shrine at Our Lady Star of the Sea in Atlantic City is dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes. But Christina Thomasello is looking for photos to prove otherwise. There's an unwelcome guest at a local church rectory: St. Bernadette. Standing 2 feet tall, a stone statue of the saint sits behind locked doors in the rectory offices. And because of a spat about a nearby shrine, she has become an unlikely hostage. When a parishioner at Our Lady Star of the Sea in Atlantic City paid for the statue to be delivered to the parish office earlier this spring, she says, she had hoped to see the figure placed at an outdoor shrine on the church's grounds. But instead, Christina Thomasello says her prayer for a completed shrine to Our Lady of Lourdes has been derailed. The pastor there, the Rev. Joseph Pham, disagrees with her plan to build a shrine in a way he says detracts from the church's identity. And so, when St. Bernadette arrived by priority mail in March, Pham did not put her at the shrine. He held on to her. "This is a situation where a priest has to balance the need to maintain the integrity of the shrine with the desires of some of the parishioners," said Andy Walton, spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Camden, who expressed support for Pham's actions. At the heart of the dispute -- and what keeps Bernadette in a holding pattern -- is a split between local Catholics, who see two interpretations of what the shrine represents. Stop by the site, at the corner of Atlantic and California avenues, and you will see a tall, pale statue of the Virgin Mary standing in a stone alcove. A nearby sign says the stone basin by the guardrail contains water from Lourdes, France -- where a peasant girl, Bernadette Soubirous, claimed to see a repeated vision of the Virgin Mary in 1858. Faithful pilgrims now flock to that original site, often in hopes of healing. But alongside that basin at the Atlantic City site sit decorative anemone and conch shells, clues that the shrine, like the parish, may be dedicated to Our Lady Star of the Sea. The name refers to the Virgin Mary and remains popular in areas with sea-faring heritage. Thomasello, who refers to the shrine as Our Lady of Lourdes, insisted recently that her motives were to bring the shrine back to its former glory. "I wanted to restore it," she said on a recent afternoon, as she and fellow parishioners Horace Robinson and Robert Carpo Jr. met at the shrine, which she noted dates back to the 1930s. But other parishioners were not so sure. Mary McConnell, who stopped by the shrine just before noon Sunday, said the Lourdes tributes -- which also include prayer cards and articles about purported miracles performed in France -- were recent additions. "I think they started showing up in December," McConnell said. Walton said there is no evidence the site is dedicated to the apparitions at Lourdes. "There's no history of that," he said Saturday. As for allowing Thomasello or others to place a statue there, he said that would open the door to any parishioner customizing a public shrine at their own expense. "It's not her shrine," Walton said. As far as Thomasello's hopes to reclaim the statue, Raymond Daiutolo Sr., southern New Jersey representative for the U. S. Postal Service, said laws on mail do not help her case. Whether or not the package had been addressed to her by name, Daiutolo said, the fact that it was sent to a church -- which qualifies as a business -- meant it could legally be held by staff at the rectory office. "If someone has mail sent to a business address, those mail items technically belong to the business," he said. Statues of St. Bernadette are big sellers for catalogs that cater to the religious community: Stone or ceramic versions of the saint, traditionally depicted kneeling in prayer, can go for as much as $100. Walton said Saturday that Pham now wants Thomasello to come and pick up her Bernadette. Thomasello was not available to respond to that invitation Sunday. But she previously said she had been searching for photos, which may solve the mystery of the shrine's identity. "I've heard that there used to be metal letters over the top of the shrine," she said. "We want to know what they said." If local historians have photos that show a historic Lourdes link, that might allow the homeless St. Bernadette statue to settle there. But until then, Walton said, the statue was unwanted. "Right now, to have two identities here -- that's just confusing." E-mail Juliet Fletcher:
Photo by: Danny Drake