Livin' on a Prayer: Parishioners Beg Bishop to Save Church

[struggle4progress]

Elisa AmigoFox 8 Reporter
11:59 PM EDT, July 23, 2010

... On June 30th, the Hungarian parish on West 22nd Street in Cleveland was forced to close its doors.

"We are a vibrant parish. We have healthy financial conditions and we did have a priest until he was dismissed," said John Juhasz.

Friday's meeting came in response to a recent protest. One day after the church closed, parishioners staged a peaceful sit-in. After barricading themselves inside the church for nearly a day, the Bishop promised to meet with parishioners.

Friday afternoon, John Juhasz and his wife spent one hour talking with Bishop Richard Lennon at the Cleveland Diocese. They asked for three requests. In addition to re-opening their church, parishioners asked for their Priest to be reinstated and they asked the Bishop to host a "mass of reconciliation"...

http://www.fox8.com/news/wjw-st-emeric-parish-meet-bishop-txt,0,5078865.story

[ironbark]

1. I can understand the role of a priest in a pre literate community

he’s the one with sufficient education to read and transmit the scripture.

That previously specialist task is now defunct as most community members could perform it. Most priests I know spend much of their time administering, administrating and counselling…all roles that could be fulfilled by lay members of the community.
It’s my understanding that even the Sacraments, under certain circumstances, can be administered by community members…including the Eucharist which can be given (but not blessed?).
Which leads me to the delicate part…and I have no desire to give offence…
Doesn’t it mean that the priest can be replaced by community members in almost every role and regard except those that (outsiders such as myself) might consider ‘magical’?

Does a church community still need a priest or could they “get along without one now”.?

[rrneck]

2. When does the shared experience

of faith become more about maintaining the bureaucracy of religion than the shared experience itself?

"St. Emeric was the last church the Diocese planned to close as part of its downsizing effort. Church members say the parish is financially healthy. They can't understand the need to close."

They need the church more than it needs them. Or perhaps more to the point, they need what the practice of religion gives them long after the church has become unwilling or unable to provide it.

It's almost like people can't really know when they're in a recession until after it's over.

[jeepnstein]

3. Welcome to my Church...

There is nothing magical about a Christian church these days. There are no miracles, prophecies, or tongues spoken. All of that is in the past. We're just on hold, waiting on the Second Coming now.

Name one activity in a Christian church that cannot be performed by a regular member. Sure there are certain job descriptions that still exist such as teachers, evangelists, elders, and deacons, and their qualifications are clearly spelled out. Those jobs are filled by folks from within the congregation and impart no special spiritual power. Nowhere in the New Testament does it say who can or cannot baptize. As far as the other activities most people associate with a church such as weddings or funerals even less is said in the New Testament. Hmm... Could it be that we are allowing our perception of what a church should be influence us more than what the Bible actually says?

No, a church doesn't need a "priest". It hasn't for a couple thousand years now.

[ironbark]

4. Enjoyed the tour…thanks.

Not sure at all the church hasn’t needed priests for “a couple thousand years now”…like I said in #1, someone had to be able to read the scripture….then again….maybe that role could have fallen to a Scribe….or a Pharisee…..;-)

Which brings us to- “We're just on hold, waiting on the Second Coming now”.

The Scribes, the Pharisees, the whole of occupied Israel awaited the First Coming with desperate and intense attentive expectation, with study and debate and searching for the signs…….

And they missed it.

What makes anyone (Christian or non) think that we are so clever that it couldn’t have happened again?

;-)

[jeepnstein]

6. They didn't "miss it"...

It was more a case of being so stuck on the business of being religious that they didn't see what God really had in mind for them. Jesus was bad news for anyone who was invested heavily in the religious establishment of Israel. They chose to worship their religion more than their God. Funny how some folks still get hung up on that, huh?

Having a priestly class in Christianity just goes against what the New Testament describes. Each church should be able to scrape up enough willing hands to do the business of the Church. Sure, supporting evangelists and missionaries is an important part of what a church does but they're not "priests" like what we saw in the Old Testament.

As far as clever goes, well, I'm not saying I am. If one is to believe the New Testament then it's pretty obvious that the end of this age will be a pretty dramatic thing and not easily ignored. I don't bother looking for signs and interpreting scripture to fit current events. Those TV preachers who go around shilling their latest book about how the end is near drive me nuts. I just go forward with the assumption that every day might be my last and one day I'll be right.

[ironbark]

7. The expectation of “dramatic events”.

“If one is to believe the New Testament then it's pretty obvious that the end of this age will be a pretty dramatic thing and not easily ignored.”

The problem is that this was >exactly< the attitude at the time of Jesus in relation to the Old Testament…it was “pretty obvious” that a warrior king was expected to liberate them from the Romans- “a pretty dramatic thing and not easily ignored.”

They didn’t get a warrior on a white horse wielding a sword of fire….they got a carpenter on a donkey talking about paying due to Rome and loving your enemy.

The “end of this age”?....the end of the world?
If you took someone from first century Judea and dropped them in any subsequent century (up to the 1800’s) they would get surprises but they would still recognise their world- agricultural, horses, donkeys, carts, buildings of stone and wood, pottery.

Look around your environment right now…..can you find >anything< that someone from first century Judea would immediately recognise?
I can’t.
My world would send them screaming from the unfamiliarity.
That "age" is over and that world has ended….dramatically but not cataclysmically.

;-)

[jeepnstein]

8. Lots of people got the message.

Christianity eventually found one of it's centers in Rome. It could be argued that one of the things that made Christianity spread as rapidly as it did was the Roman Empire's system of roads and commerce.

Technology has changed greatly over the last several thousand years, even the last hundred years. People are still pretty much the same.

[dmallind]

5. An interesting question - but not to Catholics

The priest, of course, is necessary for Catholic services, because the sacraments taht are the biggies are supposedly only possible through the intercession of an ordained priest. I can't change bread into teh body of Christ, and neither can even the most pious and devoted lay member of that church. We cannot grant/pass on (technically a priest only administers absolution because he has the power to transmit forgiveness from God) absolution of sins either.

Protestant denominations, or the vast majority of them, can get along just fine without ordained folks, which is a bit ironic because it's a crapload easier to be ordained in most Protestant denominations. Partly by their hidebound nature as regards rules, and partly by bad publicity for obvious reasons, the RC church has left themselves with a shortage of priests, which is the one commodity without which Catholicism is impossible. Why they chose to close this parish church when there are plenty of ones that lack/share priests and DO have financial problems i have no idea and about as much curiosity, but it is impossible for the church to continue as a Catholic one if the diocese refuses to supply them with a priest's services. They can't even hire one independently of the hierarchy.