Since Most Holy Redeemer Catholic Church stopped holding weekly Mass over a year ago, devoted parishioners have continued to pray in front of its locked gates nearly every Sunday morning and Friday evening. Between Hail Marys, the half a dozen faithful ask God to save both their souls and the 175-year-old church that many of them have belonged to for years and, in some cases, generations. Irene Sysak, who has attended services at the church for more than two decades and whose teenage nephew received his first communion there, called it “a second home.” “Or really, the first home — our spiritual home,” she said.
But parishioners fear that home’s future could be dictated by economic forces reshaping neighborhoods around the city like the Lower East Side — forces that they fear could affect even institutions as enduring as the Roman Catholic church. Most Holy Redeemer was closed last August, with little explanation from the Archdiocese of New York outside of a priest shortage and slight structural damage to its ceiling, parishioners and church leaders said. Its weekly Mass was cut to just two services each year to observe its feast day and consecration anniversary.
But in the past year, its members say the church has not opened for either of those two services, and its ceiling has not yet been fixed. Special programs like the church’s Spanish-language Mass and soup kitchen have ceased. And its doors — once open all day, every day to members and passers-by wishing to meditate and pray — have been largely closed.
In fact, while the church tower’s bell still chimes every hour, the last time the church’s doors opened to the public was in January, for the funeral of a longtime member, according to several parishioners who attended the service. Catholic churches, once a mainstay of neighborhoods like the Lower East Side, have become endangered: Many have closed to merge with other churches as part of a reorganization plan that the Archdiocese of New York put forth in 2014 to conserve resources. Others have been torn down and rebuilt as parking lots, college dormitories or, in one case, luxury condos attached to a Barnes & Noble.
This is why members and allies of Most Holy Redeemer have so feverishly fought its closure, fearful that their church home will soon become something else entirely. At the heart of their fight lie questions of identity in a changing New York neighborhood. “If we just keep putting up all these luxury buildings, what do we have?” said Amy Sacks, who lives across the street from Most Holy Redeemer and has resided and worked in the Lower East Side for more than 20 years. “We have no integrity.” Parishioners say they have repeatedly asked the archdiocese and parish leadership when repairs would be made so that services could restart but haven’t received satisfying answers. They have held protests, pursued local and national landmarks status and appealed to politicians.
And one lawyer has filed a challenge with the Catholic church against the Archdiocese of New York, arguing the cessation of Mass violates canon law because the archdiocese has not issued a formal decree declaring the church or its parish closed. Against the backdrop of a potential $800 million settlement between the Archdiocese of New York and victims of sexual abuse from its clergy and lay leaders, Most Holy Redeemer’s sudden closure and what parishioners view as the church leadership’s limited response stands to further damage an already strained relationship between the nation’s foremost Catholic archdiocese and its members. “I think that the lack of an open line of communication is probably the most disturbing thing to the parishioners,” said Laura Sewell, the executive director of the East Village Community Coalition, which is helping lead the fight to reopen Most Holy Redeemer. Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said the church’s closure was unrelated to the archdiocese’s pending settlement.
Source: New York Times Top Stories · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing