Closure. It has hit our church, our spiritual home St. Rocco’s.

For the past few years we have watched and felt the disappointment and pain of our fellow Catholics as the announcement of schools and other churches earmarked for closure.

We watched and admired the courageous attempts of parents and students of St. John the Baptist School, St. Mary’s, Avoca and Sacred Heart School to save their schools to no avail. Dollars and cents made more sense.

Next to fall was Seton Catholic High School. A school where the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary taught for almost a century. The cries of parents and students went unnoticed after many hours of work formulating a financial plan they hoped would save their beloved school.

Then came the announcement of the phasing out and closings of three Greater Pittston churches:

St.Casimir’s, a church with an interior so beautiful and classic that it resembled a cathedral;

St. John the Baptist, the pride of the late Msgr. Joseph J. Super and descendants of the Slovakian culture

St. Joseph’s, labeled the “Pennies from Heaven Church” because of the diligence of Father Walter Skurski collecting pennies in his quest to build a church for his people.

You watch and wait as all this enfolds hoping that it will end soon. Then comes word of the proposed clusters grouping churches in a community to survey the attendance at masses and services, financial standings, and structural conditions of the churches now called buildings.

Several months later and many meetings attended by the committees the recommendations of the findings are forwarded to the Diocese of Scranton. We were informed that the decision and fate of our churches would be announced on Sunday, January 31 by the Bishop by way of a recording.

We wait, hoping that we may be the church to be spared but yet there is a feeling of dread for what will be heard.

The church was exceptional full on that fateful Sunday morning. I was seated in the sanctuary as the commentator of the Mass and was in full view of our parishioners as they sat quietly and stoically. Looking about my thoughts and feelings were that of the early Christians being led into the Roman arena to be sacrificed.

As the message unfolded and the expected outcome of our beloved St. Rocco’s Church being earmarked for closure the heads began to shake, tears fell and disbelief was written on many faces. We looked around our church that has been recently renovated to look like a piece of heaven with the stained glass windows duplicating the statues that have graced the church from early inception with great sadness. We were reflecting on the years and events this little church has been part of our lives from the day our parents carried us in their arms to be baptized.

Our thoughts were of our founders and their faith and foresight as they persevered in building the church with a manual labor of love as they dug the foundation of the church and laid the cornerstone for future generations.

Childhood memories flooded back to the many hours and activities spent in the church learning prayers preparing for First Holy Communion and Confirmation. The memory of receiving the Holy Eucharist for the very first time in a white dress that Mama had sewn for me is so vivid. Such a special day kneeling at the altar rail with our church family.

Traditions? What about all the beautiful religious customs that were observed in our parents and grandparents providences in their native land and have been continued by the following generations? I speak of the beautiful traditions of honoring our patron St. Rocco with a procession through the streets of Oregon; The Mother of Sorrows carried on the shoulders of the men who have ancestry in Serradifalco, Italy; and The Mother of the Rosary honored on her feast day in October by the people with ancestry in Montedoro, Italy. Each celebration beautiful and meaningful.

Resentful? Yes! Resentful that our beautiful customs and traditions are being taken away. Resentful that part of the history of our city is being altered.

Pittston is a city that proudly boosted of five Catholic elementary schools, one high school and seven Catholic ethnic churches along with churches of the Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Russian Catholic, and Italian Christian Churches. Pittston has been known as the “City of Churches” with its magnificent houses of worship. The church steeples, each different in design, that reach to the sky and can be seen from every point in the city have been our pride. What will become of them?

The churches that we knelt to pray in were called the “House of God”. Once the church is closed it becomes a building. How can we look at St. Casimir’s Church or St. John the Baptist Church and call it a building?

Hurt? Indeed! We are not only being denied our church but our spiritual family that for all lives have worshiped and prayed with. We will be denied meeting and greeting familiar faces that we have prayed with and shared good times and sad times.

One of the reasons sited for all this upheaval is the shortage of priests. Perhaps, foresight for solutions should have been thought of 20 or 30 years ago and allowed priest to marry and women to be ordained as priests.

To those Catholics who have walked this sorrowful and painful path before us we ask for your prayers and that of Our Father that we too may have the same courage and valor when faced with the final closing of St. Rocco’s Church.

Maria Capolarella Montante writes once a month is this space.

About the Author

$author.title covers $author.covers for the Times Leader. Reach them at $author.phone or $author.email.

Archives

Cemetery stones fascinating

All in a day, and then some

School bells ringin’; buses rollin’

More than just a farmers’ market

Make it happen!

It’s only a number

Aunt Rose’s words of wisdom

Claudia’s message

Women’s History Month

Et tu, St. Rocco’s