Dear Archbishop
O’Malley,
I am very saddened by the decision to close Sacred Heart. It is a parish that is unique in its growing, welcoming community. My family moved from another parish to Sacred Heart a few years ago and we were immediately impressed with its warmth and spirituality. I have a teenager daughter and in our former parish she was completely disinterested and did not want to get involved. Sacred Heart’s Youth Mass, workshop style CCD sessions with the entire 15-year-old group, and shared dinners helped her to connect to the Catholic religion in a way that appealed to her as a teen-ager. Now she has an developing Catholic identity and many Catholic friends.
My daughter and I both have been providing service at Rosie’s Homeless Shelter. My daughter has cooked and both of us have served food once every 2 months. In addition we were looking forward to getting involved in Habitat for Humanity, which is not allowed until the teenage is 16 (my daughter turns 16 next month). We will miss Rosie’s and Habitat greatly and Habitat will miss out on our positive energy when Sacred Heart closes.
Her intention was to be confirmed in the Catholic Church but I don’t know what will happen to that commitment with the closing of Sacred Heart. Neither she nor I felt that the other parish was good for our spiritual life. It was a dying parish composed mostly of older people. The pastor could not relate to teenagers or even middle-aged adults such as myself. His approach to the abuse scandal in the Catholic Church was to speak out against the people who were abused in his homily, if he spoke at all on the subject. He was not able to lead the parish on the complexities of Catholic life today.
When I left the other parish I was ready to leave Catholicism. I decided I would discuss my concerns with Father Colletti before leaving the Church. He was open and transparent in his ideas about the abuse scandal as well as other issues in any contemporary Catholic’s life. He made it possible for me to stay a Catholic in these hard times.
Having recently left Saint Brigid’s parish, I suspect the pastor there will not be able to lead a newly formed merged parish well due to his very serious illness.