To the Editor:
The decision by the Catholic Archdiocese of Newark to close Our Lady of Assumption church has met with great sadness and disillusion by parishioners for whom it is the center of spiritual and social life. The church, founded in a storefront in 1902 by Italian immigrants seeking a center for their culture and faith, has continued its mission into the present. It now serves 1,700 families, including the city’s vibrant and growing Hispanic community, who are now more than 25 percent of the population.
Yet, rather than accommodate the needs of new immigrants whose growing numbers have sustained the vitality of the parish, the Archdiocese has announced its closing next year, part of a plan to consolidate Catholic churches in the city and redistribute their members. This decision was reached without information about the imminent closing or the future of the church complex.
Our Lady of Assumption now offers services in both Italian and Spanish, providing congregants an opportunity to affirm both their faith and their heritage in the city’s most modern Catholic church, built largely with money raised in the neighborhood where they live. The parish also actively responds to the needs of the poor in the city as evidenced by the active Food Pantry it maintains.
The plan put forth by the Archdiocese calls for creation of foreign language services in other Catholic churches in the city, far from the center of the communities served by Assumption. If the history of Catholic church closings is a guide, large numbers of Assumption parishioners will be lost to the Church at a time when its leadership and stability are most needed.
Census figures show that the city of Bayonne is growing. A few thousand new housing units are expected to be built in the next five years and the influx of immigrants, many of them Catholic, will continue apace.
Before Assumption is closed, the Archdiocese should reassess the church’s vital ministry, particularly in light of the message of Pope Francis in his recent visit. It should reassess its plans for the church that will benefit the congregation. Should financial considerations of the property outweigh the needs of the parishioners?
Once the church is shuttered it will be lost forever to thousands of people of faith and hope for whom it has been a beacon. For me it will be a loss of a congregation whose arms are open to all, and whose traditions and origins are examples of the forward-looking Catholic or “universal” mission.
CARMELA ASCOLESE KARNOUTSOS