Resurrection of Our Lord Parish and Our Lady of Ransom Parish, both in Northeast Philadelphia, will merge effective June 19 at Resurrection in Rhawnhurst, it was announced on the weekend of May 20-21.
The merged parish will retain the name of Resurrection of Our Lord while Our Lady of Ransom will become a worship site for the new parish. The two churches are located about a mile and a half from one another. Any assets or debts of Our Lay of Ransom will pass to Resurrection.
As background, representatives of the two parishes, both in Pastoral Planning Area 520, met for several months to discuss how their parishes could collaborate in the coming years with an eye on sustainability, whether by merger or partnership.
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A committee consisting of parishioners of the two parishes and their pastors, along with representatives of the Portuguese Apostolate, which celebrates Mass at Resurrection, and also a representative of the Deaf Apostolate, which gathers at Our Lady of Ransom, met to discuss parish collaboration.
The report prepared by the Area Pastoral Planning Committee was reviewed by the archdiocesan Strategic Planning Committee and the archdiocesan Council of Priests, and the recommendation that the parishes be merged was reviewed and approved by Archbishop Charles Chaput.
With the merger, Father James DeGrassa who has been parochial administrator of St. Cornelius Parish, Chadds Ford, will become pastor of Resurrection of Our Lord Parish.
Father Joseph Howarth, who has been pastor of Resurrection, has been appointed pastor of Immaculate Conception Parish in Jenkintown and Father Thomas Nasta, who has been pastor of Our Lady of Ransom, has been appointed pastor of Sacred Heart, Swedesburg.
It will be Father DeGrassa’s task to form a transitional team made up of lay leaders of the two merging parishes in moving forward.
As with most parishes within the city of Philadelphia both Resurrection of Our Lord, founded in 1928, and Our Lady of Ransom, founded in 1954, have experienced a loss in membership due in part to the migration of families to the suburbs.
According to archdiocesan figures for the parishes comparing 2012 to 2016, at Resurrection baptisms declined from 97 to 77; marriages rose from 24 to 29; weekend Mass attendance rose slightly from 1,421 to 1,485; but registered population dropped from 8,476 to 5,691 and registered households fell from 2,967 to 1,982.
At Our Lady of Ransom the change was more dramatic. Baptisms declined from 34 to 16, marriages declined from seven to four, Mass attendance declined from 556 to 399, registered population declined from 3,550 to 1,296 and registered household declined from 1,097 to 534.
The declines, however, go back much further than five years. Figures from 1995, when the archdiocese began the October Counts of Mass attendance at each of that month’s Sunday Masses in every parish, show that Resurrection had a weekly Mass attendance of 3,252 and Our Lady of Ransom had 1,542.
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One of the contributing factors for a larger recent decline at Our Lady of Ransom may be the closing of the parish school in 2012 with children now attending Resurrection Regional School at Resurrection.
Our Lady of Ransom may be closing as a formal parish but its facilities are still in use. The convent is still home to Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, according to Father Nasta.
The former school is in the process of being transformed into the new home for the Archives of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, currently housed in the basement of St. Martin’s Chapel at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary.
The church with a capacity of 1,200 has been a favored venue for special Catholic events in Northeast Philadelphia, for example, an upcoming baccalaureate Mass for St. Hubert High School students, according to Father Nasta.
While both parishes are impacted by the merger, clearly Our Lady of Ransom is most affected.
“The people are sad,” said Father Nasta, who believes the main reason for the merger is people have moved and there are changing demographics. The more recent baptismal names do reflect a more multicultural dimension.
Father Nasta’s pastorship was for only three years, but enough time to recognize his flock for having “a great sense of community, spiritually uplifting and very prayerful.”
“I’m heartbroken,” said Tony DiCicco, a lifelong parishioner, who over the years did just about everything at Our Lady Ransom but celebrate Mass. “I went to school there, my son was in kindergarten when the school closed. My whole life has been there. I was an altar server, a lector, on the pastoral council, on the liturgy committee, I taught PREP for five years. I remember my dad saying I ought to move into the rectory.”
The parish, DiCicco remembers, “Always had a friendliness and openness and welcoming feeling. My wife, Mary, was on the committee and I understand the dynamics for what has happened,” he said.
But times change, and DiCicco conceded, “I have a wait-and-see attitude.”
Father Joseph Howarth, former pastor of Resurrection of Our Lord Parish in Philadelphia, preaches the homily at the Mass where children of the parish made their first holy Communion on Saturday, May 6. (Truc Tram)
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I grew up in Resurrection parish, graduating from the grade school in 1962. At one point in the late ’50s early ’60s, as plans were being formulated for Our Lady of Ransom, students from that area attended Resurrection school. I remember the chartered buses in the school parking lot to transport those Ransom-area kids to and from Resurrection. Amazing how in 2017 a reverse history takes place.
So sorry for all of you going through these changes. We here. In Jenkintown at Immaculate conception have lost our pastor Msgr. Diamond to Chadd’s Ford . Father Howarth will be our new pastor. Hopefully we will all adjust to these changes with the help and guidance of the Holy Spirit. It won’t be easy and it will take time .God bless all of us.
While there were demographic changes in the neighborhood, it was only one of a multitude of reason OLOR closed: several short-term pastors in quick succession (some of whom should not have been pastors), uninspiring liturgy and worship, lack of outreach to the community, low attendance and contributions, etc. There are many parishes that do not have a school and every parish does not need a school. But it does need priests and parishioners who care – OLOR didn’t have enough of these to survive, much less thrive. Frankly, there are way too many churches in close proximity in this area, and maybe OLOR didn’t need to get built in the first place, even with area growth in the 50s and 60s.
Evangelization is so necessary. Why have the 80% stopped going to church? We need to have answers from the people not going to church. I know the Archbishop sent a letter to the parishes, an insert was in our parish bulletin. I volunteered and he told me he would get back to me when things got started. As of this writing there has been no action on evangelization.
The Church needs to change how She thinks and acts towards those who no longer participate in the Community. Jesus is the model of what we are to do. Jesus didn’t wait for people to come to Him, He went out to them.
Mergers are always difficult as the dynamics of the parish change, favorite pastors move on and new ones arrive. Your community is so blessed to be receiving Fr. DeGrassa as pastor. I believe your parish will flourish with his leadership. Many blessings to your community during this transition.
The Editor speaks the truth. Ransom closed because the neighborhood declined and people moved. That’s just a fact. It also closed because too many failed to practice their faith. Probably about 80% of the parish. Ransom is not alone in that and other parishes will face similar fates if things don’t change. It was a great parish but the 20 percent can’t keep the parish going forever. Many of the faithful died and others moved for various reasons. Those who moved in did not pick up where others left off. There were and still are enough Catholics in the parish boundaries to have kept the school and church going but they chose not to. I know, I was there and for several years as a member of the Parish Pastoral Council we dealt with this challenge.
It is not a Demographic Change, but a loss of Catholics after the Second Vatican Council. The Church keeps on telling fake news.
There is nothing fake about demographic changes. That term, by definition, means changes in a given population. As we reported, the biggest factors of the changes resulting in the parish merger are people — Catholics included — moving from the city to the suburbs and the decline in Mass attendance. These are quantifiable and objective. If you want to make a subjective judgment regarding changes in the Catholic Church after Vatican II, go ahead, but it is not accurate to call our reporting fake. Churchgoing people move away, non-churchgoing people move in and fewer people go to church than they did 20 years ago, at least in many city neighborhoods. This is reality; we are not making this up. We must look at the world as it is, not as we would wish it to be, and adjust accordingly. Find blame for the facts if you wish, but don’t blame CatholicPhilly for reporting facts. — Editor
Mr./Mrs. Editor – That “fake news” comment didn’t deserve the dignity of your response…
A member of this community – when the school was closed on us, many families didn’t bother continuing in Catholic education or even the faith.
The “demographic changes” were clear, except without a Spanish-speaking priest, the new residents of the neighborhood never found a spiritual home. Sending them to St Martin when they have no transportation is easier said than done.
Many who moved stayed in the parish until poor pastoral leadership took over. By the time Father Nasta arrived it was if he end in knowing had to minimize the financial damage until they closed the place.
My wife and I were parishioners from 1987 – 2016 at Our Lady of Ransom. Our children were educated there, made their sacraments there, my wife taught there and my oldest daughter was married there last year. It was a wonderful parish full of good people and a true blessing for our family. The parish clergy, the religious sisters and the faculty were second to none. The closing brings great sadness to us but our memories will stay with us forever and in our hearts, we will always be members of Ransom.