Friends Of Saint Vincent Pallotti

Friends Of St. Vincent Pallotti

Preserving and protecting the spiritual, pastoral and temporal rights and assets of the parishioners of St. Vincent Pallotti parish

Home | News | Media Coverage | How To Help | Links | Contact Us

"Diocese's merger reversal spares St.Vincent Pallotti"
By Wilford Shamlin • Courier-Post • October 12, 2010

The Diocese of Camden has reversed its decision to make St. Aloysius Church in Oaklyn the seat for the parish's merger with St.
Vincent Pallotti in Haddon Township. The move instead to make the Haddon Township location the seat of the merger closes an
appeals process that reached the Vatican.
The decision is great news for 54-year-old Tricia Newman, who uses a wheelchair, because she will be able to continue to be an
altar server, assisting the priest at Mass, and a lector, reading from the Bible at liturgical services.
"It's so rewarding for me because there's something I can do," Newman said from her Haddon Township home Monday. "A lot of
the time you're not able to do much. But here, I can because it's wheelchair-accessible, which makes me feel like a human being
like everybody else."I'm not just happy for myself but for everybody. For the elderly and disabled, it's easier to attend Mass. There
are no steps," she added.

When Camden Bishop Joseph Galante announced his intention to merge the two parishes as part of a diocesan reconfiguration plan
in 2008, he chose the Oaklyn location as the seat for the merger. St. Vincent Pallotti was targeted for closing.
Parishioners of St. Vincent Pallotti, which recently underwent capital improvements worth about $1 million, filed an appeal with
the Congregation of the Clergy. The Vatican body rebuffed the appeal.
A team composed of representatives from St. Vincent Pallotti and St. Aloysius recommended the Haddon Township location as
the seat, noting it had easy access for disabled and elderly people.
In an announcement last week in the diocesan newspaper, the Catholic Star Herald, Galante said his intention at the time he
devised the reconfiguration plan was to keep a parish on or near the White Horse Pike in that area. However, that no longer is an
issue now that a West Collingswood parish on the White Horse Pike in that area has been chosen to be the seat of a merger with a
Woodlynne parish, the announcement read.

Margie Esposito, 56, of Haddon Township, who cares for two adult children -- Mark, 28, who is blind, and Stacy, 24, who has
cerebral palsy -- applauded the reversal because of St. Vincent Pallotti's accessibility."You just walk in," Esposito said. "Parking is
very accessible no matter where you park. It just makes it so much easier and convenient. We really feel blessed."
On Monday, parishioners at St. Vincent Pallotti expressed a desire to move forward with the transition.
"It came to a logical conclusion and it was amicable between us and the diocese. It was never about us versus them. It was
always about what provides the best solution for both parishes," said
Ed Pierzynski, vice president of the Friends of St. Vincent Pallotti.
The Diocese of Camden could not be reached for comment, as its administrative offices were closed Monday for Columbus Day.
~ ~ ~

"Camden County Catholic parish consolidation plan changed"
By Edward Colimore - Philadelphia Inquirer - October 14,2010

Following appeals that traveled all the way to the Vatican, the Catholic Diocese of Camden has announced that St. Vincent Pallotti
Church in Haddon Township will become the seat of a new parish to be formed through consolidation with St. Aloysius Church in
Oaklyn. The decision reverses a proposal in a 2008 diocesan reconfiguration plan that designated St. Aloysius as the seat of the
new parish. At that time, the diocese considered closing St. Vincent Pallotti.

Bishop Joseph Galante said St. Aloysius was proposed as the seat to provide a parish presence near the White Horse Pike. That
became important with the planned merger of Transfiguration Parish on the White Horse Pike with Holy Savior in Westmont and
St. John in Collingswood. Under that change, Transfiguration would not have continued as a worship site. But consultations with
the Presbyteral Council, an advisory council of diocesan priests, helped convince Galante in May 2009 that Transfiguration should
remain as the seat in a new parish that paired it with Heart of Mary Parish in Woodlynne.

"Bearing in mind the necessity of providing the faithful with ready access to worship and the sacraments, it consistently has been
deemed necessary that a presence be maintained" along the White Horse Pike, he wrote in a letter to the Rev. Walter Norris, pastor
of St. Vincent Pallotti, who is overseeing the work of parishioners preparing for the merger of St. Vincent with St. Aloysius.
"As a consequence of [the Transfiguration modification], the church will continue to have a direct presence on the White Horse
Pike, satisfying the aforementioned concern."
Galante's decision to designate St. Vincent Pallotti as the seat of the new parish was welcomed by many. "This is good for
everybody," Tricia Newman, a parishioner at St. Vincent Pallotti, said Wednesday. "Church is not for one person but the whole
community. I believe this was a very good decision."

The change is part of a reconfiguration that will reduce the number of parishes in the diocese from 124 to 68, church officials
said. The diocese includes Camden, Gloucester, Salem, Cumberland, Cape May, and Atlantic Counties. On Nov. 10, four other
churches - all in Camden County - will be consolidated into a single parish. St. Lucy and Sacred Heart, both of Winslow
Township, and Assumption in Waterford Township - which together formed Blessed John XXIII parish - will be joined with St.
Anthony Parish in Waterford.

The plan to close St. Vincent sparked fierce opposition from the church's pastor, Msgr. Louis Marucci, and many parishioners.
They noted that more than $1 million had been spent for renovations and to make the church and its rectory handicapped-
accessible. The parishioners filed an appeal with the Congregation of Clergy at the Vatican, which was rejected. Marucci, who has
multiple sclerosis and uses a wheelchair, was moved in June to St. Andrew the Apostle Parish in Gibbsboro. He was unavailable
for comment Wednesday.

The decision "helps out a lot of people," including "those who are disabled and elderly," said Newman, who uses a wheelchair and
can now continue as an altar server, helping the priest at Mass, and as a lector, reading from the Bible at services.
"It's good news for me; I enjoy altar-serving and lectoring," she said. "I couldn't do that at other parishes because there are steps
to the altar." At St. Vincent, "there is a ramp up one step on either side of the altar." Newman said she and others were never
against merging with St. Aloysius. "I know people there," she said. "It was the right move."

A team of parishioners is now helping the parishes unite and has been praised by Galante because they "not only have seen the
need to unite these parishes, but have themselves joined together for the sake of the common good and to advance the life and
mission of the church."

~ ~ ~
Li nk to CATHOLIC STAR HERALD article (10/8/10)
~ ~ ~

Link to The RETROSPECT article (10/15/10)

Decision Reversed, St. Vincent Pallotti Named Parish Seat
• Fri, Oct 15, 2010 The RETROSPECT
Bishop Joseph A. Galante last week reversed a 2008 decision which would have made St. Aloysius in Oaklyn the primary worship
site in its merger with St. Vincent Pallotti in Haddon Township.
Instead, the Camden Diocese bishop said last Friday that St. Vincent Pallotti, not St. Aloysius, will become the seat of a new
parish to be formed by consolidating the two parishes.

~ Recent newspaper stories ~