From the Buffalo News: Church sales by diocese spur debate

For the most part, the buildings are old, difficult to maintain and situated in less-than-ideal neighborhoods.

But that hasn’t stopped buyers from snapping up former Catholic churches that many observers expected would be nearly impossible to sell.

Consider the city of Buffalo, where two years ago the Catholic Diocese moved to shut down 16 churches. Today, just one of those churches, Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Herkimer Street, is still actively being marketed.

In all, the diocese has dealt away 33 empty churches in eight counties since 2006, selling to Muslims, Buddhists and a variety of Protestant denominations, as well as museum operators, developers and nonprofit groups.

It just closed its most recent deal Friday, selling the former Our Lady of Grace Church on Route 5 in Woodlawn for $170,000 to Holy Trinity Polish National Catholic Church.

Hurray and congrats to Fr. Spencer and his congregation at Holy Trinity. More from the Buffalo News here.

“It was difficult to project what kind of success we’d have selling these properties,” said diocesan spokesman Kevin A. Keenan, noting that the economic downturn and tighter lending practices threw an unexpected variable into the equation. “We have probably defied a lot of predictions that we wouldn’t sell these properties.”

However, the diocese’s adeptness at selling churches has hardly quieted critics of the church closings. Some preservationists and city officials remain skeptical about the future of those properties. They say the diocese is more intent on getting rid of buildings than on ensuring their longtime survival for future generations.

“I don’t think they care who they sell to,” said Common Council President David A. Franczyk, who has sparred with Bishop Edward U. Kmiec over church closings. “The city is a write-off zone for them.”

As I’ve said many times. The inner city is a charity zone — it might as well be Zimbabwe or Vietnam or North Korea (excepting that people come to the Catholic Churches in droves in those places in spite of persecution). The se dioceses see rich suburban parishes as the financial ministries to help the downtrodden. What the downtrodden really need is Jesus Christ and the hope He offers, not just a hand-out.

It’s too early to call the brisk sales of the churches a win for the community, added Timothy Tielman, executive director of the Campaign for Greater Buffalo History, Architecture & Culture.

Tielman and others questioned whether some of the buyers have the capacity to maintain the properties.

“They’re selling churches to people who they know can’t afford it,” said Albert Huntz, president of traditionalist Catholic group Una Voce Buffalo. “In a year or two, these buildings are going to look like Transfiguration. They’ve been down this road before.”

Transfiguration Church on Sycamore Street was one of a handful of glorious Catholic churches that fell into disrepair after being sold to organizations that couldn’t afford the upkeep.

One of my original blog articles on Transfiguration. My father was baptized there. See here and here as well.

Huntz has a more personal stake in the sales. Una Voce, which advocates for the traditional Latin Mass, is an eager church buyer that the diocese has repeatedly turned away. The group has been trying for years to save a city church for Latin liturgies. It has looked on as nearly all of the available Buffalo churches were sold to other religious organizations.

“It doesn’t make us too happy, as to the way some of them were sold and to whom they were sold,” Huntz said.

In an interview, Keenan reiterated the bishop’s stance on Una Voce’s request, saying the group already is well served at two other Western New York parishes that provide the Latin Mass —” St. Anthony of Padua in Buffalo and Our Lady Help of Christians in Cheektowaga.

“At this time, Bishop Kmiec is not about to start adding parishes. We’re still in a reconfiguration process,” Keenan said.

Check that… I think he means: …not about to start adding traditionalist parishes.

The resistance to the reform-of-the-reform in the Roman Church is huge. These folks should be able to walk into any parish in the entire Buffalo Diocese, including those massive suburban hootenanny parishes — Jesus in the round — and respectfully request Holy Mass in the Extraordinary Rite. They should be able to but can’t because Father Happy-Clappy would throw them out, with the Bishop’s blessing. Rather, these folks get two parishes, one in downtown Buffalo, hidden behind City Hall, with nearly no residential neighborhood nearby and the other in Buffalo’s first ring suburb.

Remember that this is for a diocese that covers Erie, Niagara, Genesee, Orleans, Chautauqua, Wyoming, Cattaraugus, and Allegany counties or roughly 6,455 square miles and has a Catholic population of 702,884Wikipedia contributors, “Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo,” Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Roman_Catholic_Diocese_of_Buffalo&oldid=306583981 (accessed October 28, 2009)..

Keenan also defended the sales, saying the diocese takes a close look at any prospective buyer’s financial information before agreeing on a deal.

Still, he acknowledged, “You can do all the vetting you want, and sometimes things don’t go well for an organization.”

Easy out.

Preservationists also worry that architectural details will be stripped from churches by new owners eager to cash in on the items, dramatically decreasing the value of the properties.

“Talk about temptation,” said Tielman, noting that architectural salvage dealers often are willing to offer top dollar for quality features.

It’s happened before with Catholic churches, most notably St. Matthew on East Ferry Street, which originally was bought by a church organization after it was closed by the diocese in 1993.

After being mined bare over the years, the church ended up being sold at a 2006 city foreclosure auction for $3,500.

Already, the former Queen of Peace Church on Genesee Street has been stripped of its original beauty —” although not necessarily for profit. The church was purchased by a Muslim group, and the Christian images in the stained-glass windows and interior wall murals by acclaimed painter Josef Mazur were no longer appropriate for a mosque and community center.

Darul Hikmah, which paid $300,000 for the property, removed the items. The windows were saved and preserved at the Buffalo Religious Arts Centers. Sacred objects also were reused by other Catholic churches, including St. Josaphat in Cheektowaga, which received an altar.

…

Nonetheless, the Mazur murals are gone, and the church’s huge Kilgen pipe organ, which was fully operational, was thrown in the garbage when the Muslim group couldn’t find anyone to take it.

Józef Mazur (1897-1970) was born in Poland and emigrated to Buffalo, studying at the Albright Art School in Buffalo and at the New York Art Institute. Mazur worked in a variety of media. His stained glass works can be found in churches in Philadelphia, New York City and Buffalo. Before turning thirty Mazur distinguished himself as an ecclesiastical painter in the Buffalo area. His first commission was the complete decoration of St. Stanislaus Church in Buffalo. His works can also be found in St. Adalbert’s, Blessed Trinity, the Polish National Cathedral, St. John Gualbert’s, and Villa Maria Academy, Holy Trinity in Niagara Falls, and St. Aloysius in Springville. Mazur also painted churches in Rochester, NY, Chicago, IL, Detroit, MI, Adams, MA, New Haven, CT, and Trenton and Perth Amboy in New Jersey. Mazur’s secular works include the sculpted bust of Frederick Chopin, a life-size portrait of Kazimierz Pulaski in Olean, and interior decoration at the UB Main Street Campus.

Other famous Polish-American artists are sculptor Louis Długosz of Lackawanna, Joseph Bakos, a painter of western landscapes, Józef Sławinski, scrafitto artist and sculptor, Marion M. Rzeznik, an ecclesiastical painter of numerous WNY churches, and architect Joseph E. Fronczak.

It should be noted that with a little work Mazur’s murals could have been easily saved. They are painted on canvas and attached to the ceilings and walls of the churches. They can be carefully removed and preserved.

The sale infuriated some Catholics who viewed it as a sign that the diocese had given up on trying to spread the faith.

Seems that way – I lived there most of my life and never saw any effort at active evangelization at the parish or diocesan level. While Roman Catholic plus other Catholic Churches represent a huge majority in Western New York the number of unchurched is growing.

And it was another disappointment for Una Voce, which had expressed strong interest in taking over the church.

Huntz said his group would be able to maintain a property. It has at least 200 families —” more people than in most of the small Protestant congregations that purchased former Catholic facilities.

A few years ago, Una Voce made inquiries about St. John the Baptist Church on Hertel Avenue, but the diocese sold it instead to a developer, the Plaza Group, which has put the buildings back on the market.

More important than obtaining a building, the group needs the bishop’s approval for a priest to come from outside of the diocese and serve the Latin Mass community. “For us, finding a priest is no problem, it’s just getting the bishop to say OK, fine,” Huntz said. “I don’t know what it would take to change his mind.”

Huntz and others had hoped that a 2007 decree from Pope Benedict XVI allowing for greater use of the ancient liturgy would open the door in the Buffalo diocese for a Latin Mass apostolate. The diocese “can’t say there’s a problem with the Vatican, and there are dioceses all over North America that have the same situation,” Huntz said…

Mr. Huntz sees a problem and I do as well, and it isn’t in Rome.