‘SAD BUT INEVITABLE’ St. Charles Borromeo Church parishioners react to possible closure as attendance declines
SWOONSOCKET t. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church parishioner Sheila Bogan, 64, went to a meeting with church leaders from the Diocese of Providence Wednesday night with a hope that the historic city parish may yet be saved, even though she knows that is unlikely to happen. And after a nearly two-hour closed door discussion with the Diocese representatives, Bogan, her daughter, Kelly, and sister Molly Champagne-Burke, learned that a tentative date for the church’s closing has been set for Jan. 5, and the process for dissolving the parish is moving forward.
A member of St. Charles since she was 10 years old, Shelia Bogan is at the church every week and serves as one of its Eucharistic ministers for the elderly and shut-ins. She found St. Charles to be a great parish for her family and noted how welcoming its member were to Kelly, who has cerebral palsy.
But she also sees the problems St. Charles faces in today’s faith environment.
“I think it is going to close because there is not enough people in the parish,” Bogan said.
Her sister, Champagne-Burke, agreed.
“We just don’t have the parishioners. So you are supposed to be a church and community, and when you are not a community, the church is just a building,” she said. “If you don’t have parishioners, you don’t have a community,” she added.
The parish meeting with the diocesan leaders — including Rev. Timothy Reilly, diocese chancellor, and Monsignor Raymond Bastia, vicar for finance and planning — was closed to members of the media. About 45 cars were left parked in the St. Charles parking lot across Daniels Street from the church after parishioners entered the meeting.
Some of those willing speak after it ended provided details of the concerns raised by parish members during the talk and also related the plans for St. Charles presented by the diocese leaders.
One longtime parish member, who did not want to be identified, said he went to learn more about the canon law process being used by the diocese to “suppress” the parish, or in effect, dissolve it.
Noting the outcome of that process would be “sad but inevitable,” the parishioner also offered that “there is nothing that we can do about it.”
The historic, hand-cut granite church was opened in 1870 to replace the original building from the parish’s founding in 1846 after that structure was destroyed in an 1862 fire. The new building with its high-ceilinged and spacious interior was designed by Patrick Keely, the architect responsible for the diocese’s Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul in Providence and many other churches.
Charles’ parishioners objecting to the diocese’s plans to close their church argue that a historic church building like theirs could be saved by combining it with parishes using less desirable or significant buildings as their home.
Richard Monterio, a St. Charles member that lives just up the street from the church, said the meeting was held by the diocese committee that is overseeing the process of shutting down the church under canon law.
Wednesday’s meeting was the last formal session between the parish and the committee and the next step will be the submission of a closing plan to Bishop Thomas J. Tobin, bishop of the Diocese of Providence, for his action.
“They announced that the recommendation to the bishop is going to be the shuttering of the church for financial reasons because we don’t have the head count,” Monterio said. Monterio also pointed to the date of Jan. 5 being given to the parish as the date of St. Charles’ last Mass as a parish.
In addition to the problem of low church attendance, Monterio said the diocese officials cited the church’s need for $1 million in capital building improvements as a factor in its financial woes.
The parishioners were also told the future of the church building itself could hold a possible sale for another use, or even demolition, he said.
“Obviously it is devastating news because if we had more time and a pastor to shepherd us, we would be able to resurrect this parish,” he said.
Monterio said he plans to continue pursuing the effort to save St. Charles with his parish members and brought a petition to the session calling for a change in the diocese’s plans for the church that he wants to forward to Providence.
“We collectively believe that had the Diocese of Providence maintained a full-time resident pastor, the viability of our parish would have flourished,” the petition states.
The request for consideration also states “Notwithstanding, our parish CAN be revived and sustained – and grown in church membership, with the support of the Diocese and with a full-time, interested and dedicated pastor.”
The petition also voices a belief that with support and growth of the parish, St. Charles could maintain its physical property “and most importantly, we can sustain the house of God and the sacred trust to foster Catholicism in our community.”
Currently St. Charles is being staffed part-time by Rev. John Upton, the pastor at All Saints Parish, and the meeting also included discussion of the heavy burden the diocese’s priests are carrying while handling all of the Masses currently offered across the diocese with fewer numbers of clergy than in the past.
The session was reported to have drawn some vocal criticism of the move to close St. Charles from the participating parish members with one longtime member of the parish arguing strongly that Bishop Tobin himself was required to attend such a meeting under canon law.
As he left the meeting, Robert Eagan, 91, a parish member who married his wife Catherine in the church and participated in actively in its community for 63 years, said he wasn’t ready to give up a fight for St. Charles even with what he had heard.
“I’m going to fight it, I just don’t know for how long,” Eagan said.
As he left the meeting, Rev. Timothy Reilly described the talk with the parishioners as “a good discussion and consultation about the proposal that may be going forward, a proposal about the future of the parish and the future of the church,” he said.
That view did not quite sit well with Eleanor Keegan Pierannunzi, a past member of the parish, who went to hear about St. Charles’ fate, with members of the church community she has known for many years.
Her father Arthur Keegan, now in a nursing home, and late mother, Mary, were lifelong and active members of St. Charles, and she described the diocese’s plan for St. Charles as disrespectful of all the hard work that had gone into the building the parish and its beautiful church.
“This is a requirement under canonical law that they meet with the parishioners of the parish that they are suppressing,” she said. “When we are suppressed, we will no longer exist as a parish and St. Charles will no longer exist,” she said.
That also means that the diocese will be able to use St. Charles’ longstanding $1.4 million endowment for other purposes than that for which it had been given to the church, she said.
St. Charles is currently allowed to use the annual interest from the endowment, about $70,000, for maintenance of the building, she explained. The parish needs about $200,000 annually for maintenance but Pierannunzi said the endowment interest does lessen that burden overall.
With the church’s closing, Pierannunzi said the diocese would be free to use the interest for other purposes, although the parishioners were told during the session that some funding would be set aside to provide security for the closed building.
“I think this building is a landmark in Northern Rhode Island and should be maintained and other parishes brought under this roof,” she said.
“It’s just so disrespectful of the history of the building and the sacrifices made by working class people to build such a beautiful church,” Pierannunzi said of the diocese’s plans to close St. Charles.
Pierannunzi said she sees it as sad that her parents were married in St. Charles and her mother’s funeral was held there and now her father may see the church closed.
“He’s distraught over this,” she said.