St. Mary's current pastor has decided to axe our annual Christmas midnight mass for no apparent reason. The only thing we can come up with is that he wants us to get used to not getting what we want. Apparently, we're like spoiled children, wanting mass all the time. The nerve of us!

To us, using mass as a cudgel is never a good idea. As is the case in so many other churches, this is one of our most highly attended masses of the entire year, and one of our prime opportunities for evangelism.

So why would a pastor choose to end a many decades long tradition of midnight mass?  Fr. Namiotka says it's because no priests are available - he has reserved himself for midnight mass at the parish he repeatedly refers to as "my" parish, Queen of the Angels in Landisville/Minotola.  (By contrast, he only refers to us as "St. Mary's in Malaga"...as if we don't know what town we're in.) 

In fact, when asked about the lack of midnight mass, Namiotka specifically responded that "no priests are available." However, we inquired with one particular priest who regularly assists with masses and Namiotka had never even asked him if he wanted to say midnight mass.  And another priest, who has said many masses at St. Mary's in the past, actually requested to say midnight mass and was told "NO" by Namiotka. 

To add insult to injury, a longtime, elderly parishioner of St. Mary's was told by Namiotka that, "The pope is saying midnight mass. You can watch it on tv."* There's a shepherd of souls for us! Ya want mass? Go watch it on tv.

*Extended footnote/follow-up below:

Supposedly, according to Fr. Namiotka in a letter received February 4th, over a month and a half after the incident, he "actually said, 'Not even the Pope is having Midnight Mass this year (in Rome). The Mass is at 10 PM. You can watch the TV to see that this is true.'" He follows up by saying "I did, in fact, celebrate Midnight Mass as I annually do--just not at St. Mary's Malaga." This is precisely our point, and he made it for us. It's a shame that we don't a priest who truly wants to be at St. Mary's.

Further, the EWTN Christmas Mass to which he refers was, in fact, repeatedly billed by EWTN as "Midnight Mass." CLICK HERE here for just one example of this "to see that this is true" and the Vatican's rationale for "moving up" the time. Besides, it was a rude comment to make to an elderly, long-time parishioner.

In our view, either version of what was said is pretty terrible and demonstrates how little he cares for us since allowing another priest to say mass at St. Mary's would have required no effort on his part and would not have cost us anything. If anything, it would have brought the church money and perhaps a few souls would have returned to the Church for Christmas.