"Positive developments" in Diocese of Syracuse

Today's New York Times has an article (click on this post's title) about the Diocese of Syracuse using armed deputy sheriffs to haul out the last of 100 parishioners who for 217 days had been sitting in 'round the clock inside their closed 108-year-old St. Mary's Church (pictured above) in Jamesville.

The parishioners have an appeal under consideration in Rome, but the Diocese wanted to shut down the church anyway. A diocesan spokeswoman says they acted, according to the article, after "officials heard that a nonpriest had taken [C]ommunion wafers to the church." (Hope no one really did that.)

But listen to this quote from the news story:

"For many of St. Mary’s parishioners here in Jamesville, the closing has been confounding. The church — built by Irish immigrants in 1899 and enlarged 32 years later to make room for the Poles, Italians and Ukrainians who came to work at a local quarry — had a solid congregation and a healthy endowment that financed a food pantry for 1,200 people and a popular religious education program, said Ciarrai Eaton, president of the parish council."

Take a good look at that bright yellow "sheriff's line do not cross" tape around St. Mary's. This is what too many U.S. Catholic bishops today call "being pastoral" toward faithful Catholics.

And meanwhile, just remember the liberal mantra that "God accepts us just as we are" -- and realize that it applies to everyone except faithful Catholics whose parish church is beautiful, older, traditional and recognizably Catholic and therefore must be shut down.

Cardinal Mahony called his closing of St. John's Seminary College "a positive development," so we can only conclude that other bishops consider all their church closings "positive developments," too.

Dear Lord, please deliver us from such "positive developments."