It was less than a year ago that we had a young, vibrant priest who was not only significantly increasing church attendance and sharing his exuberance for Christ, but increasing enrollment in our Catholic School. We had 175 registered students (preK-8). We had new parents touring the school and many committing to enrolling their child(ren) in our school. There was potential of almost 200 students. There was enthusiasm within our parish, school and the Morningside neighborhood and our future appeared dazzlingly bright. No one was expecting what happened next.

As you may be familiar, “The Church Alive” is the catch-phrase of Bishop Zubik’s recent initiative. With it came many reassignments of priests. Many, but not all priests were reassigned. It was our hope that our pastor of only three years would be allowed to stay considering all he was doing to increase church attendance and school enrollment. Fr. Donley had done more for our parish than any of our priests in many years. We were a growing parish. One of the few in the Diocese. Fr. Donley was bringing young people back to church and bringing new families to our church and school. We saw more baptisms and greetings of new parishioners in our bulletin than funeral announcements. We hadn’t seen that in many, many years. Saint Raphael’s was truly on the rise. Why would anyone want to stop that momentum?  Our pastor even told some of us that he asked the Bishop to not reassign him. He asked the bishop that if there were plans to close the school, to allow him to stay and guide us through that. He was told there were no definite plans to close the school. So without regard to what the priest and parishioners requested, our young, vibrant and enthusiastic pastor was reassigned.

St. Raphael needs Fr. Donley.