VIGIL REFUSES TO LET JAMESVILLE CHURCH DIE
Post-Standard, The (Syracuse, NY) - November 18, 2007
Author: DICK CASE POST-STANDARD COLUMNIST

Carol Busch let her Catholic faith lapse after her father, Bob Busch, died in 1996. Bob, a retired city cop turned deacon of his church and alcohol councilor, was an old friend.

"One Sunday recently, I decided to go to Mass at St. Mary's Church in Jamesville ," she explained the other day. "Everything went along fine except that I noticed there was no priest on the altar. When I asked after the service, a man told me they don't have a priest. That the church was closed by the diocese."

St. Mary is the closed church that's still open with no priest. The last official service in the little church on Seneca Turnpike was June 30. Since then, St. Mary has been running on faith.

The faith involved is of about 100 congregants, who believe they can force the Vatican to reverse the decision of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse shutting down St. Mary on July 1. This was part of a series of closings and mergers, announced by the diocese last April.

St. Mary members were asked to attend Holy Cross Church, a few miles away in DeWitt. Jamesville had been a Holy Cross mission church since October 2006. More than 150 out of 350 attending St. Mary did that, according to Monsignor Robert Yeazel, pastor of Holy Cross.

The pastor told me last week that his parish counts 1,900 members, including a surge of 250 new families since July 1. He thinks some of those are former St. Mary members. Holy Cross dedicated an $8 million church expansion last year.

Those new Holy Cross members do not include Bob Hopkins, who is a lifetime member at St. Mary, from his baptism in the 1930s. He is one of those keeping what they call a "vigil" at the church building, dedicated in 1899. Bob's also a member of the interim parish council, which is considered an outlaw by the diocese.

The vigil involves one of the group being in the church 24-7. Each takes a shift, praying and cleaning during the stay. The diocese does not permit priests to celebrate Mass at St. Mary, even though the parish council has requested that.

Someone has to be in the church, because workers hired by the diocese changed the locks the day before the last Mass. "We'll hold out until we hear back from the Vatican (on the protest petition)," Bob says. "That could go on for a while."

Bob handles finances for the interim council, which he says is current on its bills and self-sustaining. "This is a parish run by the congregation," he continues. "I think we're the first around here to do this. We could be a model on how to save a parish."

At Holy Cross, Yeazel says he has no doubts about the status of St. Mary, while he is sympathetic with grieving over the closing. "That church is closed," he told me. "The parish council has no standing."

He said he did not wish to comment further because of the action against the diocese by the vigil-keepers at Jamesville . He hasn't answered a letter from the group dated Nov. 5, which raised questions about the legality of shutting down the church while the Vatican petition is current, and other issues.

The interim council contends Bishop James Moynihan did not follow church law by refusing to suspend all actions against the protesters until the Vatican rules.

One matter raised in the letter involved St. Mary's food pantry, housed in the church rectory. Yeazel said the rectory is closed and the pantry - open 28 years and serving 1,200 individuals - will move Nov. 30 to a new building across from Glen Loch restaurant.

"It will be much enhanced," the priest said of the new venture, which involves five local churches, three of them Protestant. "That site (formerly a chiropractor's office) is much more accessible."

Ciarrai Eaton is president of St. Mary's interim council, which has 20 members, including her mother, Margaret DiCosimo and her husband, Fred Eaton. Both Ciarrai and her mom grew up at St. Mary.

She started the vigil the Thursday before the church was officially closed, with her husband and weeks old daughter, Moira.

"Our big question when we heard the bishop say the church would close was, "Why?"' Ciarri said last week when we talked. "Why close off people from the one thing that connects them to God? I never thought they'd close St. Mary's . I thought they'd work with us to keep it open. That's why we think something's not right here.

"We did everything we were asked to do."

Ciarri, a seamstress who works at home, has emerged as a leader of the rebellious congregants, who call their effort "Mission Possible." She says the vigil continues until the appeal is heard "and then we'll see. The group will decide."

I ask how the vigil has affected her faith. The answer is that it's been strengthened, particularly by the sense of community she feels. "I think this really brought our community together," she says.

St. Mary congregants gather to say the rosary every night and runs a service - "without Holy Communion" - each Sunday. Ciarri attends Sunday at St. Mary, then to goes Immaculate Conception in Pompey "only to receive Communion," she says. She tells me others in her group have "scattered" to other Roman Catholic churches, including St. James in Onondaga Valley, for the same purpose.

Bob Hopkins says he's involved in the vigil because these are residents "who are concerned about maintaining a Catholic presence in Jamesville ." However, this lifelong Catholic says he feels burned out by the protest and has stopped going to anything but the Sunday service at St. Mary.

"I'm in church, getting ready for the service, and the priest doesn't show up," Bob explains. "I'm not intentionally missing Mass."

As for Carol Busch, she's joined the vigil. Every week, she takes a shift watching over St. Mary.

Dick Case writes Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. Reach him at dcase@syracuse.com or 470-2254.