Another one bites the dust. R.I.P. St. Peter's

Despite giving us reason to believe that there would be no more school closings, the Archdiocese just announced that it will be closing the venerable St. Peter's Girls High School in June and moving the elementary school to the shuttered St. Paul's school complex on Clinton Avenue. The high school girls would be integrated into Notre Dame and Moore. According to the Archdiocese, the high school would only have a mere 95 students in the Fall, thus making it financially unviable. Students and alumni are understandably devastated. So, in the latest humiliation for Staten Island Catholics, the Mother Church of the island, our oldest parish, in our most populous and urban neighborhood, can't even keep their school open.

Predictably, many people are blaming the Archdiocese, but the culprits are endless. For one thing, rising costs have to be a factor. Tuition is $6900 a year. That is far, far above what my Catholic school tuition cost when I was in school, even adjusted for inflation. I can't imagine anyone who could afford that, especially if you have more than one child. In addition, since the Vatican II church's own lax theology has produced a vocations crisis, lay teachers are a considerable expense, as they do insist on being paid. On the other hand, St. Peter's Boys school has over 600 students, a brand new facility and is by all accounts flourishing. Are North Shore Catholic parents mysteriously having a preponderance of boys for some reason? Or perhaps it has to do with the fact that the boys' school is located in leafy Livingston, while the girls' school is located in gritty New Brighton. It's a fact that what was once a largely Irish/Italian/Polish neighborhood back in the 60s is now predominantly black and Hispanic. And as we know, most of us Catholic "ethnics" aren't too big on integration and multiculturalism. That doesn't reflect too well on our Faith, but it's a fact we must acknowledge- the school's base has fled from the area and is not too inclined to send their kids to school there.

Or maybe the problem begins at the top. I don't usually mention people by name here, but any pseudonyms would be transparent in this case. What exactly has Monsignor Dorney done to increase students and parishioners? I don't know much about him except that he has been pastor of St. Peter's for as long as I can remember, and his magnificent church seems to be crumbling about his ears, literally and figuratively. His sermons are dreary and demotivational in the extreme, delivered in a tone resembling that of Ferris Bueller's teacher on Ambien, although I can tell he was well educated. He does not seem to be in good health. He is the co-vicar of Staten Island, whatever that means. He has displayed no leadership over the island's Catholics as far as I can tell. He has officiated at funeral Masses for at least one pro-abortion politician I can recall. He supported the sale of the Margaret Mary convent to the Moslem American Society. I really can't see the man doing anything to evangelize, promote or defend the Faith.

I attended a recent Mass at St. Peter's. A glance at the bulletin showed that there was literally nothing going on in the biggest church and most historically prestigious parish on Staten Island. There were some announcements for events in other churches. Monsignor Dorney was listed as the only priest in residence. There were a mere 50 people at the 12:00 Mass. Surprisingly, there were a few young people. The music was performed by a middle-aged guitarist who I believe plays in a band at Adobe Blues on weekends. With his 1840s style grey mutton chops, he resembles a mild mannered school teacher, but I can testify that this guy can seriously rock out on a Saturday night. He toned it down for Mass, and played the usual syrupy 70s tunes that seem positively out of place in this Gothic style cathedral. Monsignor Dorney gave a sermon about Gandhi. It was excruciating. All in all, it was just a sad and depressing experience. Seeing how the church is run, it is no wonder to me that the school is in the shape it's in.

Victory in Midland Beach!

The anonymous board of trustees of St. Margaret Mary church finally met and anonymously voted against the plan to sell the vacant convent to the Moslem American Society. This is wonderful news. However, it is a disgrace that the Archdiocese and the pastor allowed this contentious issue to linger for so long, creating so much bitterness and ill-will. This plan never should have been approved in the first place, but once it became public knowledge and the intense opposition materialized, the archdiocese should have expedited a decision on this one way or another. Instead, for 2 months they've allowed this issue to boil over. There have been weekly protests, with signs like "Get out of my country"; there have been dueling Facebook pages; we've been lectured by our own Archbishop on tolerance; and the national media has focused its gimlet eye on Staten Island and its supposed bigotry. As we've seen in numerous other instances, our Church is utterly clueless about public relations; it's like they purposely do whatever will reflect most negatively on the hierarchy and Catholicism.

Nevertheless, we achieved victory eventually. And the lesson we can take away from this is that a significant percentage of the clergy and the bishops are wolves in sheep's clothing who don't give a damn about ordinary Catholics or Catholicism and who would sell us down the river for 30 pieces of silver or a pat on the head from the liberal media. It was a defiant and united people who stopped this outrage and forced the church to do the right thing in the end. Let us not forget that we ordinary Americans and Catholics have real power when we stand together and fight.

So, the mosque plan is finished. Good. But now what will be done with the vacant convent? In all this hubbub about the MAS, have Catholics experienced any shame at the fact that our religion is declining so rapidly that we are forced to sell off our religious buildings? Does the hierarchy experience any shame at the lack of vocations illustrated so dramatically in this vacant convent, not to mention the legions of shuttered churches? I wonder how many of the anti-MAS protesters are A&P (ashes and palms) Catholics, or simply functional pagans; I didn't see too many people at Mass when I visited St. Margaret Mary. I would hope that this controversy would impress upon us the need for a mass rededication to the Faith. We shall see.

Correspondence with the Archbishop

I recently sent a letter to Archbishop Dolan expressing my displeasure with the MAS situation, and urging him to stop this deal immediately, instead of inexplicably allowing the issue to linger and fester throughout the summer. I received the following absurd form letter, which defended Fr. Fennessy, whom I never even mentioned in my letter, and criticized me for blaming all Muslims for the World Trade Center attack, an accusation I never made.

Dear Mr. ***********

Thank you most sincerely for your letter of...Your thoughtfulness is deeply appreciated.

Father Keith Fennessey is, in my judgment, a fine priest and pastor of the archdiocese, undeserving of the criticism that he has been receiving.

As to the proposed sale of the convent to the Muslim American Society, the archdiocese consented to it when the pastor wrote in favor of it. Since then, he has decided to withdraw his support for the sale, and the parish is attempting to resolve the matter.

The Muslim American Society is in dialogue and communication with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and as such one must be careful about drawing conclusions. Also, as your bishop, might I suggest that it is very unfair to link all Muslims to the attack on the World Trade Center. It was not that long ago when Catholics in the United States were suspect because of their ties to the Vatican, and such bigotry should not be revisited by Catholics on others.

With prayerful best wishes, I am,

Faithfully in Christ,

Most Reverend Timothy M. Dolan Archbishop of New York

Archbishop Dolan shows support for gay groups?

Michael Voris recently publicized a visit by Archbishop Dolan to a Manhattan parish which is well known for being "gay-friendly". I encourage everyone to watch this video. During the visit to St. Francis Xavier, Archbishop Dolan was videotaped smiling and cheering as the parish's gay and lesbian groups were presented to him. A defender of the Archbishop could say that the speaker's description of these gay groups was somewhat ambiguous, as they were lauded for their efforts to help "LGBT Catholics return to the Sacraments and find an adult place in the Church of their youth", so the Archbishop could easily have thought that they were faithful Catholic groups trying to help gays live chaste lives in accordance with Catholic morality. However, an examination of the facts would disabuse us of that notion. The Archbishop is well aware of the stance of this parish and their gay groups; they march in the Gay Pride Parade every year under the banner of the parish and are quite public in their affirmation of the gay lifestyle. The archbishop wrote a letter to the lisping, effeminate pastor ordering him not to allow the gay groups to march under the church's banner. They complied by simply turning the banner around, an act of passive aggressive defiance, as everyone knew exactly who they were and who they were affiliated with. I bring up this story because it tells us New Yorkers something disturbing about the man who was appointed to be our spiritual shepherd. But on a more local level, I ask if this man is really going to have enough courage to quash the deal with the MAS, if he doesn't even have enough backbone to deal with an openly gay advocacy group in a Catholic church.

Meet the Neighbors

This video montage contains a clip of MAS Freedom Foundation Executive Director Mahdi Bray cheering for Hamas and Hezbollah.

What is to be Done?

What do we do now? According to the Advance, the ball is in the court of the Archdiocese. Archdiocesan spokesman Zwilling says that the trustees of the property consist of the pastor, 2 lay people, Archbishop Dolan, the vicar-general, and the Supreme Court. I say we keep writing and calling the archdiocese. The address and phone number are:

1011 First Avenue
New York, NY 10022
212-371-1000

Let's make their ears burn.

I see here that Archbishop Dolan is feeding us another load of BS about tolerance and hospitality, so I'm not sure how receptive he will be about the concerns of his flock. Try to leave a comment if you like, but his Eminence's blog, like silive, is not too friendly to opinions that question the PC orthodoxy.

Mosque meeting

I attended last night's meeting of the Midland Beach civic association and luckily made it in before the doors closed. There was an Arab Protestant church handing out fliers at the door which stated that they would like to buy the convent for the full asking price and they would ensure that the Cross would never be removed from its walls. I thought that argument was very effective. As I entered the building a woman handed me a 40 page expose' of the Moslem American Society, written by the Investigative Project on Terrorism. This damning report fleshed out in more detail what everyone already knows about the MAS- it was established as a front group by terrorists, it's currently linked with terrorists, and it seeks to infiltrate, conquer and convert the United States to Islam.

The meeting began with an address by one of the three MAS representatives, a young and affable physical therapist. Although all three were foreign born and spoke with accents, they were all very, very slick. The primary speaker spun the expected line about the MAS- they're a peaceful organization which works with children, feeds the hungry, stands for tolerance, etc., to which the audience responded with furious shouting. The thing is that Staten Islanders have been educating themselves about the MAS for about a month now and we have seen the facts about this organization in black and white; no amount of denials or slick presentation can change what this organization, and Islam itself, really are.

The floor was opened to questions and the first speaker, who looked Arab, turned out to be the famous anti-Islamic writer Robert Spencer. I've read Spencer's book, "The Truth About Mohammed" and found his arguments about Islam indisputable, although I object to his neo-conservative associations. However, the man knows Islam and Islamic radicalism backwards and forward and posed some pointed questions to the MAS men about their connection to the Moslem Brotherhood and their president's public defense of certain terrorist groups and individuals. Their answers were evasive and unsatisfactory.

Other speakers came forward with equally incisive questions, citing the Koran, investigative reports, and the public statements of the MAS' own leaders, to show that this group is untrustworthy and unacceptable. One man had a great point about the MAS' boasts of charitable programs. He pointed out that prison gangs, like the Latin Kings, also perform charity and write children's books, etc., but such public displays don't really mean a thing when such groups are also involved in crime and violence. He cited the MAS leader Mahdi Bray's public defense of 3 men who were arrested for terrorist activities. At one point a Middle Eastern-looking priest got up and shouting about how he loved Jesus and Jesus was God, etc. He had to be quieted down by ushers.

Surprisingly, most of the speakers seemed to be women. At least, most of the best speakers were women. The men who got up mostly spoke in weak, quiet voices and rambled on endlessly about irrelevancies. The women of this community, who are generally reputed to be loud and obnoxiously pushy, gained my undying respect. They certainly were loud and pushy, but for a great cause, which was to defend their families and homes from a threat. As the saying goes, "The female of the species is more deadly than the male". They were all like Joan of Arc: brave, defiant and eloquent. One lady called Father Fennessy a Judas and asked the MAS why on earth they would want to come to a community that doesn't want them. Another challenged the speaker's constant declaration of respect for Jesus, and demanded to know if he believed that He was the Son of God. Another Iron Lady said that the FBI had told her the MAS was on the terrorist watch list and swatted down the MAS man when he unctuously addressed her as "sister". One woman cited the Koran's dictate to slay the infidels and demanded to know if we were infidels. Another cited the MAS' well known terrorist ties. An Egyptian woman detailed the barbaric treatment of Christians in her home country. At one point, the crowd shouted down a white civic leader and an Arab Catholic priest from Brooklyn, who had been invited to testify to what good neighbors the MAS mosque in Brooklyn are. The meeting was adjourned early when the "priest" in the crowd, who turned out to be the pastor of the Arab Protestant church, started shouting and got a group of people to start chanting.

Although at one point one of the MAS men started lecturing us on the Bible, they were generally polite and calm and faced an extremely hostile crowd without losing their temper. But that's what the public face of any organization is supposed to do. The overwhelming evidence has shown that this organization supports terrorism. The overwhelming evidence is that the Koran itself supports violence against non-Moslems. With the exception of the sex abuse scandal, the sale of the convent to this group is probably the most outrageous and scandalous thing I have ever seen the Church do.

The natives were as furious as any mob I've ever seen, and rightfully so. It was like a valve had been opened that let out decades worth of frustration and anger. We Americans, and we Catholics, have been forced to swallow so much insulting BS about so many things (Islam being one) for so long, without being able to say anything about it because of politically correct censorship. The newspapers won't print how we really feel; the radio or TV won't interview us; internet forums like silive delete any comments they deem incorrect; last night we finally had our say.

Trahison des Clercs

The co-vicars of Staten Island, Msgrs. Dorney and Finn, have sent an open letter to the Advance calling for openness and civility from Catholics attending tonight's meeting with the Moslem American Society. This letter is an outrage.

If anyone should be admonished to display "civility", it should be the Moslems. Have Catholics held public protests calling for the subjugation and forced conversion of Moslem nations? Have Catholic priests preached terrorism and suicide bombing from the pulpit? Have Catholics cut off the heads of innocent Moslems? Have Catholics attacked and destroyed mosques or other Moslem holy places? Have Catholics waged a campaign of assassination against Moslem clerics? Have Catholics fired machine guns into crowds of Moslem worshippers? Have Catholics ethnically cleansed entire regions of Moslem people? Have Catholics flown planes into buildings full of Moslems? No, but these are all crimes that have been and are being perpetrated by Moslems all over the world against Catholics and other non-Moslems, yet our own Catholic leaders feel the need to publicly lecture us on proper behavior!

They give a passing nod to the "legitimate questions" of the Midland beach residents, but then reveal what they really believe are the self-evident answers to those questions, when they sing encomia to the MAS' "sensitivity" to the community, and express gratitude to the MAS for "its commitment to dialogue and to fostering a better understanding between Catholic and Islamic faith communities". So what these fools are really saying is that they understand that the ignorant, uninformed Catholics of Staten Island have heard a lot of crazy rumors about their good buddies in the MAS and gotten all stirred up by fear mongering, but once the MAS meets us face to face tonight and says "We are not terrorists", we need to believe them, shut up and get back to being good, quiet sacrificial lambs again.

Why, oh why, have we been cursed with these weak and feeble minded shepherds? What they value most is not the good of their flock or the promulgation of the Faith, or even the safety of their community. Like other non-entities in this politically correct age, what motivates these weak men at their core is to be seen as tolerant, open-handed multiculturalists who get plaudits from liberal newspapers and get invited to fine banquets with politicians. These men are not made of the stuff of a Thomas More or John Fisher. These are the types who bend with every wind and base their values on the prevailing opinions of the powerful. Any priest with a brain or a backbone would have nixed this sale at the very beginning solely on the basis of the disheartening symbolism, never mind the issue of having a terrorist-affiliated group in the neighborhood. Instead, these simpletons take the MAS' sweet words at face value and see the golden opportunity to win brownie points from the media by an act of submission to Islam.

These men need not be heeded. Canonized saints who are now in heaven went on Crusade to defend Christendom from Moslem takeover, so modern Catholics do not need to feel guilty about fighting this current invasion of our nations, despite what the Advance and the Judases in the Church try to tell us. This sale must not stand. We've been betrayed by our natural leaders in the government and in the Church. It looks like we'll have to stand up for ourselves, and I intend to do so tonight.

Meet the MAS

There will be a public meeting of the Midland Beach Civic Association Wednesday, June 9th at 8:00 PM to discuss the convent sale to the terrorist group. The address is 1126 Olympia Blvd. Be there and voice your opposition, loudly and forcefully.

Mosque pastor leaves parish

Fr. Fennessy, who sold the convent to the terrorist-affiliated Moslem American Society, announced in last Sunday's bulletin that he is stepping down from his position to care for his ailing, 98-year-old mother. Whether this is fact, or the clerical version of "resigning to spend more time with my family", I don't know. And what impact this will have on the convent sale remains to be seen.

Convent sale not a done deal

Due to the popular uprising, the Archdiocese is now saying that the sale of the convent to the Moslem American Association is "not final". Spokesman Joseph Zwilling says that "There are still steps that need to be taken on a civil and church level." The Midland Beach Civic Association is holding a public meeting soon to discuss the matter. The Advance says that it's on 6/9 while the Association's Facebook page says it's on 6/10.

The Moslem American Society

In the recent story on the sale of the St. Margaret Mary convent to the Moslem American Society, our joke of a local newspaper didn't bother to tell us anything about this organization. A basic Google search reveals so much.

The Moslem American Society was founded in 1993 by American members of the Moslem Brotherhood. The Moslem Brotherhood should be familiar to many Americans, as it was the group that influenced so many of the terrorists who have spilled so much blood all over the world. Bin Laden himself was influenced by the Brotherhood and his second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian, was a member. It was founded in Egypt in 1928 on the principle that “Allah is our objective; the Quran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader; jihad is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations." The Brotherhood's goal was to submit society to sharia law. In keeping with these basic Moslem ideals, the Brotherhood began to engage in a wave of bombings and assassinations, which led to its suppression in Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries. However, it remains a powerful underground force.

With the influx of Moslem immigrants following the passage of Ted Kennedy's 1965 Immigration act, the Brotherhood began to take root in America. Like other subversive groups, they have established numerous front organizations, one of which is the Moslem American Society. The members of this new group were specifically instructed to lie in response to questions about its links to the Brotherhood, but the truth eventually came out. Nevertheless, they still lie about their ultimate goal, which remains a Moslem takeover of America, either through mass immigration or conversion, and the institution of sharia law. Over the years, its leadership has learned the way of the chameleon, and changed its appearance and its words to match that of any loyal American. They praise the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, and express their admiration for American freedoms. Yet, underneath they remain what they were founded to be: a front group for terrorists and Islamic conquest. And our Catholic clergy, who are either simpletons or traitors, allow them to establish a cell in Midland Beach.