April 23's "New York Times" piece,
At 75, a Battle-Tested but Unwavering Cardinal by Michael Powell presents a thoughtful and comprehensive portrait of Cardinal Egan, quietly raising some questions that have arisen in my mind. He quotes Cardinal Egan on Our Lady of Vilnius as follows:
"But when the archdiocese released the final list of 21 parish closings and a furor arose, Cardinal Egan viewed discussion as closed. (He opened his press conference by talking of finances restored and parishes saved, saying: “I’m delighted to be able to share with you a lot of good news.”) When parishioners loudly protested at Our Lady of Vilnius, a Lithuanian national parish in Manhattan, the cardinal invited the administrator to his office. He had the church doors padlocked while they talked.
“We sent people to attend Mass there: Not a word of Lithuanian,” Cardinal Egan said, explaining why he closed the church. “The pastor speaks not a word, can’t read it, can’t write it. They average around six people at the early Mass.”
He slapped the arm of his chair. “Is there any person in the world who has sanity who would keep open deserted churches?” he said. “I made a good move.”
.The archdiocese deserted the church, not the parishioners. The same inaccuracies and misleading information, this time directly attributable to the Cardinal.
Letters to the editor, anyone?
2 comments:
Sulzberger's NYTimes is for sale while Murdoch's NYPost does investigative reporting. New Yorkers should ask Sulzberger if he does not read other papers and writes what the archbishop wants him to write. Saulius Simoliunas
What is the matter with this stupid man? He thinks six attendees at morning Mass constitutes a deserted church. Doesn't he realize that a religion of over a billion people began with 12 men huddled in a room?
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