The Italian-Americans lost the 120-year-old church that houses the statue of San Gennaro, one of the longest-running street fairs in the United States, after a decade-long merger with another nearby parish was abolished. I also wonder if he was saved. .
Or, if this is the first step toward eventually selling the property to a developer, it would be the same fate that befell the former rectory on Mulberry Street about five years ago. The three-story building has been converted into luxury apartments.
In an unusual move, the Archdiocese of New York on Jan. 1 reversed the merger of Most Precious Blood into the parish of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral, which had been established 10 years earlier.
But the few remaining artisans are unsure of what the future holds. “We really don’t know,” said John Fratta, who recently founded the nonprofit Friends of Most Precious Blood to raise money for the church’s restoration and preservation.
Joe Zwilling, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York, said: “The merger was canceled because it was determined that the two dioceses were either not complementary or too different for a successful merger.” The two have never been civilly integrated, only formally integrated, so there is no need for civil court proceedings. Both Most Precious Blood and Old Cathedral maintained separate books of accounts and separate governance structures. ”
In recent years, Most Precious Blood has been home to a statue of the northern Italian saint San Gennaro after the former Little Italy church was closed. The parish itself was founded in 1888 as a national parish to serve a group of Italian immigrants heading to New York. The actual church was founded two years later by the Scalabrini order to become the national church for Italian Americans, but the order lacked funds and the church was completed in 1904 by Francis It was left in the hands of the association.
What supporters of the diocese could not decide in the days after the amalgamation was whether they had found a white knight to save and restore the church at the last moment.
But Zwilling said that’s not the case. “We have no donors or donations,” Zwilling said in an email.
Sixteen years ago, there was an emotional battle in the East Village over the fate of St. Brigid’s Church. The church was built in 1848 by the Irish during the Famine, and the archdiocese wanted to close it and sell it to a developer. The wrecker’s ball was literally stopped in its tracks by a last-minute restraining order, but an anonymous donor came forward with $20 million to make structural repairs and shore up the finances of the church and elementary school. That saved me. The archdiocese closed the school in 2019 after the school ran out of funding and enrollment declined. The former school is now used as an immigration check-in center for asylum seekers. Asylum seekers are applying for a new place to stay after receiving boots from asylum seekers. After 30 days, he went to the city’s evacuation center.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan originally announced on November 2, 2014 that the Diocese of Most Precious Blood would be integrated into the former St. Patrick’s Cathedral as of August 15, 2015.
However, all of that was overturned by the New Year’s Day ordinance, which is considered one of the few times a parish merger has ever been overturned.
“The order of November 2, 2014, merging the paradiocese of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral in New York and the personal parish of Most Precious Blood is hereby revoked,” Cardinal Dolan said in his Jan. 1 proclamation. “The Department of Pastoral Planning is responsible for the enforcement of this statute.”
“This decree takes effect immediately,” Cardinal Dolan added.
Father Enrique Salvo, pastor of Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral, did not respond to several phone calls and emails. The Church of the Most Precious Blood is located at 113 Baxter St., but Little He also has an entrance on Mulberry St. in the heart of Italy.
“We didn’t expect that,” Fratta said of the demerger ordinance in an interview. our city downtown Early this week. “Now we need to see what our future plans are.”
“This parish is very important to a lot of Italian Americans because that’s where many of them started in Little Italy when they first came to America,” he said.
He said he was told it would cost $100,000 a year just to maintain the building, which only holds one Sunday Mass.
Parishioners remain concerned that the church could be sold if enough money is not raised to keep it afloat. The rectory, which once housed parish priests, was sold in 2018 for about $14 million to a developer who built luxury condominiums on the site.
“I have $50,000 sitting in my checking account at San Gennaro Bank that was once sent to the old St. Patrick’s,” Fratta said. “I might go to Most Precious Blood now,” he said.