Frank Cardell

Save OLMC Church Montclair 48 Spring Lake Blvd Waretown, New Jersey 08758 973 981-8831 973 741-2488 (Fax) Press Release July 10, 2016 We are protesting today because the Archdiocese of Newark is trying to merge two Montclair New Jersey churches, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel and Immaculate Conception. Once merged, a new parish will be formed, Saint Theresa of Calcutta. Mr. Goodness, the spokesman for the Archdiocese of Newark, says there is a “lack of faith life” at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Church. He is basing this statement on a decline in the number of families registered in the parish. The numbers have declined from 765 in 1995 to 393 (51.3%) in 2015. According to Monsignor Harms of the Archdiocese, Immaculate Conception’s parish families declined from 2200 to 760 (34.5%) in the same period. Let’s examine the reasons for the decline. Parishioners have moved or are planning to move. Some have left the church due to the recent pedophile scandals, and some are losing their faith due to the extravagant spending of church officials. Also many millennial are just not attending mass. Now let’s look at reasons for keeping Our Lady of Mount Carmel open. Pine Street, where the church is located, is experiencing a renaissance. New apartments and condominiums are being constructed on the street and in the surrounding area. The older buildings are being updated, and a new train station has opened. Area residents are able to access New York City quickly. This current growth has the potential to increase the number of parishioners. Since the announcement to close Our Lady of Mount Carmel was made, we’ve added about fifty new parishioners. Even though this is a small parish, all of Our Lady of Mount Carmel’s debts are paid and we have a reserve of about $80,000. We sponsor a number of annual events that help keep the church solvent. Weekly bingo is profitable and well attended. Even though the church is concerned with fiscal matters, they are also concerned with community matters and put much of their energy to helping their neighbors. The church sponsors a Lenten and Thanksgiving food drive. They also have an annual coat drive. At Christmas there is a giving tree and the gifts go to St. Michael’s Church where they are distributed to needy children. Gifts are also provided to the Battered Women’s Shelter, Saint Catherine’s Convent, and the Monsignor Kelley Residence for retired priests. In addition to regular religious services, the church has an educational Seder Supper, a 24 hour 2 Hearts Service, and a three day triduum for Saint Anthony of Padua. There is a monthly community breakfast for our parishioners. We also have a Spanish prayer group every Wednesday evening. We attempted to add a Spanish mass to our list of services, but our previous pastor turned down that request. There are also three active societies; Saint Sebastian, Saint Vito, and Saint Donato. All of these activities have been done with a priest who spent twelve years in the parish. He had suffered a heart attack and had to curtail his activities. He had requested early retirement, but the request was denied. The subsequent priest came from a parish that was linked with another church and he also spent twelve years at Our Lady of Mount Carmel. He too was preparing for retirement and thought little of evangelization. It is a fact that the little parishes do not get the most dynamic priests. According to Mr. Goodness, there is a “lack of faith life in the parish”. The faith, passion, and zeal of these parishioners prove otherwise. They do a pretty good job in keeping the Church active and alive and in reaching out to those in need in the community. Perhaps if we had a priest who was willing and able to work with the parishioners to help the parish grow, attendance might not have declined so much. On the other hand, Immaculate Conception Church owes the Archdiocese hundreds of thousands of dollars. They have three priests and the pastor is politically connected to the Archdiocese. Let’s take a closer look at the local problem. It has been stated that they are closing Our Lady of Mount Carmel to strengthen Immaculate Conception in the future. They should not be looking to close one church to save another; they should be looking to strengthen the one with the problem. If the present management can’t do it, get someone, either clerical or lay, to get it done. Why should Our Lady of Mount Carmel suffer because of problems someplace else? This church is a historical landmark and the property is very valuable and is said to be worth between $4 and $8 million. Is it necessary to break up this community church over money? The Archdiocese under the New Energies Program and with the demographic studies they have done have closed 19 churches to date and plan on closing many more to keep up with the changing times. It appears they are closing more national churches (many are Italian) to support territorial churches. These plans were sprung on the people of Mt. Carmel at the eleventh hour. Will they do that with other parishes also? We have delivered a petition to Pope Francis with over 3,000 signatures, letters, and news articles about this issue. We will continue our fight in the name of our forefathers who built Our Lady of Mount Carmel to keep our church open. Frank Cardell Save OLMC Church Montclair Committee