Locked-Out Parishioners Still Hurting, Hopeful

A follow-up story to the one I posted yesterday about a parish closing in the Toledo Diocese:

KANSAS, Ohio - Shock and outrage warred with faith last night, two days after St. James Catholic Church was locked shut against its parishioners.

About 75 people - half parishioners of the wood-framed church, half from as far away as Toledo and Kirby, Ohio - spoke during an impromptu prayer service in the yard across from the church, about 40 miles southeast of Toledo.

"Satan has won another victory against us, and the strange thing was, he had the help of the Bishop," parishioner Steve Johnson told the crowd. "So much for keeping promises."

The church was one of many closed by Bishop Leonard Blair last year during a restructuring of the Toledo diocese - but the only one to maintain a 24-hour prayer vigil in an effort to keep its doors open. Parishioners had kept the vigil since May 1.

[More]

(emphasis added)

My Comments:
Before you start accusing your Bishop of being a tool of Satan, you might want to take a look around at some of the other Bishops in the country and count yourself lucky. He hasn't "wreckovated" your Cathedral. He hasn't banned you from kneeling after the Agnus Dei. He hasn't given a de facto imprimatur to a husband's euthanization of his disabled wife and the subsequent remarriage in the Catholic Church of said husband to his long-time paramour.

Besides, it wasn't Bishop Blair's leadership that led to the sorry state of affairs in the Diocese that has caused closings and consolidations of parishes and Catholic schools, as well as payments of substantial sums to the victims of abusive priests. He was sent to clean up the mess of his predecessors.