This op-ed piece from the Buffalo News is music to my ears.

By the way, Ms. Goldman mentions Transfiguration Church throughout. I’ve posted on this issue in one of my earliest blog entries: Who stole the kiszka?

Let the church take charge of neighborhoods
By Mary Kunz Goldman

No one said it was going to be easy. No one said it was going to be cheap.

That’s why the “Journey of Faith and Grace,” as the Diocese of Buffalo dubs its current downsizing, is such a shame.

Remember the last wave of church closings, in 1993? Want to see the destruction? Visit Transfiguration Church. Drive out Sycamore Street from downtown, past Fillmore Avenue, and it’s on your right.

Walk around. Take a good look.

Graffiti covers the side of the huge, shuttered church, just as it covers the boarded-up houses nearby. You can see through the steeple. When the light hits right, you’ll catch the glimmer of shattered stained glass. So much for the Polish immigrants who paid money they couldn’t afford to create this once-magnificent place. This is how we honor them.

When did the church become all about the bottom line?

Mother Teresa didn’t downsize. Money wasn’t an object to Father Baker. Centuries ago, the Jesuit missionary Father Marquette would have found it cheaper to stay in France. But he came to America.

The city churches the diocese is looking to close are our chance to be Mother Teresa. A beautiful, active church radiates hope and stability. Closed and crumbling, it spreads defeat.

“I don’t want to hear that “the church is people, not buildings,’ line ever again,” says Buffalo Common Council President David Franczyk. “I will never accept that lazy phrase.”

Franczyk, who attends Corpus Christi, by the Broadway Market, resents the 1993 closings.

“I’ve been to Rome,” he says. “They have churches from 400 A.D. And we can’t keep up a church that’s as old as an old person? These churches should be our legacy for the next thousand years.

“I know they have fewer priests, fewer parishioners, but there has to be a better way to deal with these problems.”

There is a way. And guess what? It’s not to declare defeat.

The church is supposed to fill the emptiest vacuum of the human spirit, to cast its light through darkness. Is there a better place to do this than in desperate neighborhoods? Can the church argue that God’s work there is done and it’s time to focus more on the suburbs?

Before there were governments to ensure society’s needs, there was religion. When government stumbles, religion should step in. Our city will eventually fix our schools, but, meanwhile, we can’t afford to lose another child to illiteracy. We can’t lose more kids to gangs.

How’s this for a battle plan:

Each church should get out a map and claim a territory of blocks around it. The church will declare that neighborhood no longer “open.” It is now under the influence of the church.

Every house should be “encouraged” by the church to look maintained. Gardens should be grown. Garbage on the ground should not be tolerated. Classes could focus on reading and other life skills.

I’d help. A lot of people would, if only church leaders would start behaving like leaders, energizing us instead of preaching doom and destruction.

Block by block, the church should influence every home. This strategy works. John Gotti’s neighborhood loved him because he promoted a sense of order.

If a villain like Gotti could inspire appreciation from a neighborhood, surely a church can. Neighbors should come to see the church not just as a friend, but as a force they will not be permitted to ignore.

Buffalo should show other dioceses how it’s done. The world’s eyes would be on us. Then we could celebrate our successful transfiguration of the city by reclaiming Transfiguration Church. Say we’re sorry. Fix it up and open it again.

Will it be cheap? No. Easy? No.

But remember, no one ever said it would be.