Emailed to us today:
Your response was excellent as always. Here is my reply to it:Dear Andrew:
if the Bishop wants to show that he truly cares about us, then please ask him to do the following:
1) Leave St. Vincent Pallotti Church as a stand alone church because it is a thriving, growing church. Parishoners spent thousands and thousand of dollars to make the complex completely handicapped accessible.
2) Leave St. Jude's Church in Blackwood alone. Blackwood has a large Catholic population and they need two churches. St. Jude's was a strong financially sufficient church before it was slated for closure.
3)Leave St. Mary's Church in Malaga alone. The church is beautiful and it is filled with devout members. It was designated as a shrine by the previous bishop.
4) Do not merge the churches in Barrington, Bellmawr, and Magnolia. It did not work with the school (Our Lady of the Sacred Heart) and it won't work for the churches. The writer from Magnolia was absolutely correct in dreading it and watching her church close.
From our end of things, it's not looking like this program's very popular, nor is it as populist as Mr. Walton would like us to believe. To date, aside from one diocesan lackey, we have not heard one single positive statement about the monstrous closure program from the people in the pews.