So in (this) Part 8, I look at motives.
In Parts 6 and 7, I discussed what seemed to me a procedure for stripping a parish for parts preparatory to merging it with another parish or shuttering it. I asked, and responded to these questions: Why was it so important in this case to keep parishioners out of the loop? Why were there no parish-wide discussions? Why were there no/so few updates? There can be no doubt that sometimes closing and fusing parishes are necessary, but in this case, as in many, dishonesty, thoughtlessness, corruption and greed that appear to characterize these processes. In Part 8, I’ll analyze the corruption and greed which appeared — at least in part — to drive this merger. So in (this) Part 8, I look at motives.
Why did two parishes, one or perhaps both, struggling, need to merge? What other solutions were sought? Why were the parishes not brought into the conversation to seek alternatives to merging? What consideration was given to the truth that the especially parishes that are flourishing, are a delicate ecosystems composed of prayer, works of mercy and community? What particular factors influenced the manner in which the Diocese use of Brooklyn, Nicholas DiMarzio (its bishop) and his former secretary stripped St. Augustine for parts? In what ways did Nicholas DiMarzio’s disgraceful record, his jittery concern for his legacy, his lack of a cardinal’s biretta, and Opus Dei affiliation figure in to using diocese funds to build a spare cathedral while poor parishes, some of them flourishing, all around the area where his primary cathedral sits, were closing?
Barclays, Atlantic Yards, St. Joseph’s Co-Cathedral and the Lure of Prosperity
In 2010, Nicholas DiMarzio shuttered a group of parish in Fort Greene, Bedford -Stuyvesant, Williamsburg, and Bushwick. The demographics have changed dramatically over the course of the past decade. All of those neighborhoods and parishes were, at the time, populated by people of color. The bishop’s (then) secretary, Kieran Harrington, accounted thus, for the need to close and merge these parishes in a 2010 statement to The New York Times :
Msgr. Kieran Harrington, the diocese’s spokesman, said that in recent years 75 percent of the parishes in the diocese had gone into debt, sought diocesan subsidies or been forced to dip into reserves, which in most cases consisted of the proceeds of previous sales of church school buildings or other properties.
A monsignor and former secretary to Nicholas DiMarzio, Kieran Harrington has served as rector at The Co-Cathedral of St. Joseph since its opening in 2013. The Co-Cathedral is located in downtown Brooklyn within a few miles of Bedford Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, Brooklyn Heights, Prospect Heights, Park Slope, the Brooklyn courts, Fort Greene, Bush-wick, Cobble Hill and Prospect Heights. Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, Cobble Hill, and Fort Greene (Think: “Brownstone Brooklyn”) have long been three of the most wealthy and popular residential areas of Brooklyn. The other neighborhoods on the list, very generally speaking, are lower-wealth areas which have, within the last decade, become immensely popular with “gentrifiers.”
Barclays Center opened in 2012, at the site of the Long Island Railroad Terminal located at the corner of Atlantic and Flatbush Avenues, as part of large development effort, the Pacific Park Project (formerly known as the Atlantic Yards Project). The Co-Cathedral is located a half-mile away from Barclays Center. (See the map. The Atlantic Avenue/Vanderbilt Street juncture marks the location of St. Joseph Co-Cathedral, and the Atlantic Avenue Flatbush juncture marks that of Barclays Center.) It’s a seven minute drive and a ten-minute walk.
For those who live outside of New York City, it is useful to this analysis to know that the Atlantic Yards/Pacific Park area is about three miles from Wall Street in Manhattan. (about 17 minutes by public transit). It is also helpful to know that the properties owned by the various shuttered churches to which the above cited New York Times report refers, were located within a (roughly) two or three mile radius of the Atlantic Yards area.
Nicholas’s Vanity, Legacy and the Need for Two Cathedrals
So, as Atlantic Yards was erecting buildings for prosperous folks, Nicholas DiMarzio was hatcheting a slew of Black and brown churches in the immediate area, while collaborating with disgraced Vito (“Gropez”) Lopez and other local pols, and somehow raising $18.5 million to build a second cathedral — because the cathedral he had was not large enough, twice a year. (He needed a larger cathedral for the Holy Thursday Chrism Mass and the Ordination Mass in June.)
Brooklyn’s (two) cathedrals are 1.7 miles apart. (See the map below):
I have lived within a two-mile radius of both of Brooklyn’s Cathedrals since 1985. I began tracking these commercial development projects in my backyard in the 1980s when Metrotech — which, in retrospect, seems a kind of trial balloon — was erected in downtown Brooklyn. I remember what St. Joseph Co-Cathedral looked like at the start of the restoration. Think: latter day Roman ruins vibes, crumbling neo-Classical pillars on the ground circumvallated by chain link fence. I’m not a construction expert. but the purportedly $18.5 million restoration figure has always sounded low to me. I have been told by employees of the Brooklyn diocese who decline to be named that the cost probably well exceeds $18.5 million. There is just no way to know, because dioceses, for the most part, operate with little to no oversight. Although I do not recall much discussion of this project among my fellow parishioners or other among other Brooklyn Catholics I know, I do know that at least a few priests in the diocese viewed the rebuilding oft his church as an unseemly project initiated by a vain and bilious bishop who was obsessed with his legacy.
How did the Brooklyn Diocese manage to raise $18.5 million when so many of its parishes were failing?
How did the Brooklyn Diocese manage to raise $18.5 million when so many of its parishes were failing? What are the moral implications of building an extra cathedral while poor people in the immediate area were losing their parishes? From where would the parishioners at the new cathedral come? Why not sell the property on which the old St. Joseph’s had sat in order rescue the several poorer churches in the vicinity?
It is easy to see on the map above that most of these neighborhoods listed above are located within a few miles or two of both cathedrals. Did DiMarzio close some of these churches in order to finance the restoration of his “if we build it they will come” dream cathedral?
The Atlantic Yards / Pacific Park Project left many people in the area, including some clients at the Helping hands Food pantry run by the parish of St. Augustine, without homes. The original Pacific Park plan was to erect fifteen buildings. Four of the fifteen have been built, but many of the luxury apartments in the residential buildings that were/are part of this plan are empty. Many are unoccupied investment properties, and work on eleven of the initially planned buildings is on hold until 2035.
If we build it a prosperous, fecund, softly hip, corporately artsy urban Catholics will come.
I think that it may have been on these “ultra luxury” apartments in downtown Brooklyn located a block or two away from the Co-Cathedral that the Harrington and DiMarzio pinned their hopes. They were hoping that a prosperous, ambitious, fecund crop of softly hip, corporately artsy urban Catholics who work on Wall Street, in midtown (Manhattan) and in the courts might comprise their vital new parish of St. Joseph Co-Cathedral and St. Teresa. These young people would be drawn by the beauty of the church, the discussion groups, book clubs and other programs for the discerning laity.
Kiaran Harrington in particular seemed to have his eye on St Augustine from the start, because for a very small church we had a strong arts presence. Elsewhere in “Death of a Parish” I write about my own contributions to this arts community within the larger parish community. For about ten years St. Augustine hosted a particularly beautiful Memorial Mass every September 11th. We had built a bit of a tradition around this mass and the luncheon that followed. A great deal of planning and effort went into this mass because almost every seat was filled and lots of ushers, extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion and others were needed. Some time in the Spring of 2013 or 2014, it seemed, Harrington swooped in and took “the 9-11 Mass.” Most of the parishioners did not even learn about this until after the September 11th Mass was celebrated at the Co-Cathedral.
It was a smart, if exceedingly venal move, on the part of team Harrington/DiMarzio. It was liturgies such as those (9-11 Mass) that attracted lapsed cradle Catholics, boomers with cash, and Gen Xers discerning whether to baptize their children or have them catechized. This was the demo they were after. However, “if we build it, they will come” * is only profitable if “they” “come.” Not only have “they” not “come,” but also, they might never come. Most of the Pacific Park luxury housing was put on hold — even before COVID struck, and that Co-Cathedral was far from full.
Michele Somerville
March 28, 2021
Read “Death of a Brooklyn Parish,” Part 1
Read “Death of a Brooklyn Parish,” Part 2
Read “Death of a Brooklyn Parish,” Part 3
Read “Death of a Brooklyn Parish,” Part 4
Read “Death of a Brooklyn Parish,” Part 5
Read “Death of a Brooklyn Parish,” Part 6
Read “Death of a Brooklyn Parish,” Part 7