management practices of American bishops
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/7/29/anger-grows-ny-archdiocese-closing-churches.html"...there is a lot of anger and suspicion pointed toward...Cardinal Timothy Dolan. She says the process used to decide which churches would close and which would survive, and the secrecy surrounding that process, has parishioners feeling more than a little deceived."
"...the decrees finally were released...in February, three months after the decrees were signed and well past the point when parishioners had the right to file for recourse,..."
"While most of these small, personal parishes take no money from the Archdiocese, they are nearly all financially sound, with many reporting budget surpluses. Yet they are being closed, their parishioners sent to larger, diocesan churches, many of which are heavily in debt, to the Archdiocese. "
Sanity Claws
(21,849 posts)Parishes with surpluses are being closed because they are located in wealthier neighborhoods and thus the real estate is more valuable. The sale of these churches will bring in more money to the church coffers than the sale of poorer churches in poorer neighborhoods.
Therefore, the Diocese is closing and selling the parishes that are financially sound and requiring those parishioners to travel further to a less wealthy area.
I wonder whether some parishioners in the closed parishes will go to closer Episcopal churches instead or simply stopped going.
Fortinbras Armstrong
(4,473 posts)A corporation sole is a legal entity consisting of a single ("sole" incorporated office, occupied by a single ("sole" person. This has the advantage of allowing the corporation to pass from one officeholder to his or her successor without any problems. This has the disadvantage in that the officeholder owns title, personally, to all of the assets of the corporation. Cardinal Dolan could sell St Patrick's cathedral, and there would be no one to say him nay.
47of74
(18,470 posts)St. Stanislaus Parishioners were worried that if they changed their 1891 bylaws to be the same as the rest of the Archdiocese that the next thing they'd know the parish would be closed.