Auriesville Shrine's future in question

[didymus]

WNYT Albany, NY:

Auriesville Shrine’s future in question

AURIESVILLE - Earlier this month, the Society of Jesuits ceased operations at the Auriesville Shrine. Self-guided tours and prayer will be allowed come spring but there are no scheduled masses or religious services and the gift shop and cafeteria are closed indefinitely.
The diocese and the Jesuits are “in talks” regarding a transfer or sale but nothing is set in stone.
Jesuits first came to the property that now houses the Auriesville Shrine in 1884.
Three missionaries are believed to have labored and died here and St. Keteri Tekakwitha is said to have been born here.

“It’s really a treasure of the church. Not only the church but our region generally,” noted William Baaki, a shrine supporter.
The property, when open, has drawn religious pilgrims from near and far for decades. While the grounds will open again in the spring, there will be no official Jesuit presence or assistance at the historically important site.

“It’s a beautiful place and a peaceful place,” pointed out Baaki.
That’s why he and a small group of other Catholics from across the state and country are forming a non-profit to fund raise and support the holy ground. To goal is to maintain the property and restore services.
“We want it to carry on in whatever way, and be able to help in whatever way,” Baaki explained.

At the same time, a Jesuit spokesman reports that:
“The society has had conversations with the Albany Diocese regarding the future of the shrine but no decisions have been reached.”

This just makes me so incredibly sad. I’m from the area and my folks used to take us there for Mass in the summer and make a whole day of it.

 

[PaulfromIowa]

The fruit of liberalism and heterodoxy?

 

[tawny]

What’s happening in Auriesville, is what happened to the Mount Manresa Jesuit House on Staten Island with it’s subsequent closure & selling of the property. Very sad indeed. What a spiritual loss for the community.

 

[commenter]

WNYT Albany, NY:

This just makes me so incredibly sad. I’m from the area and my folks used to take us there for Mass in the summer and make a whole day of it.

I am sad too. Whenever we travel we visit any shrines along the way, but this one we have gone out of our way several times to see. I guess I have mixed feelings about saving the shrine.

On our last trip across NY State we stopped in Syracuse to see a historic church. Beautiful! Prayerful! Historic in many ways! However, the usher was overjoyed to see someone visit, and took us on a tour, because hardly anyone visits there now. Later we stopped at an enormous mall. Right alongside hundreds of stores there was The Franciscan Center. In the front part there was a bookstore and giftshop, in the back was a chapel where they have Mass or welcome people to just drop in for a visit. They offer confession at certain hours too. While I was visiting, a few younger mall employees dropped in on their break.

There’s no way that gift shop breaks even, that whole operation must be subsidized. Furthermore, they are committing a significant amount of priest time to this drop in type facility, when the local diocese is closing parishes due to priest shortage.

When I went to Auriesville they had full time priests, yet when we were there we saw very, very few other people, and they were, um, “mature” Catholics like me. The same thing at other shrines we visited. If I had to choose between raising money and committing a priest to either the Franciscan Center, or a shrine, or a historic church, I would support places like the Franciscan Center at the Mall. No young people happen to wander into the historic church, on their break, or pop into a shrine, on the spur of the moment.

Fortunately, or unfortunately it’s not that hard to get individuals and organizations, like the K of C for instance, to pour money into shrines; but nobody thinks of donating to drop in centers at malls. But if we don’t start investing in drop in centers and places near where teens and young adults spend lots of time, there won’t be any shrines in the future, no matter how much money we pour into them now.

 

[CB_Catholic]

I am sad too. Whenever we travel we visit any shrines along the way, but this one we have gone out of our way several times to see. I guess I have mixed feelings about saving the shrine.

On our last trip across NY State we stopped in Syracuse to see a historic church. Beautiful! Prayerful! Historic in many ways! However, the usher was overjoyed to see someone visit, and took us on a tour, because hardly anyone visits there now. Later we stopped at an enormous mall. Right alongside hundreds of stores there was The Franciscan Center. In the front part there was a bookstore and giftshop, in the back was a chapel where they have Mass or welcome people to just drop in for a visit. They offer confession at certain hours too. While I was visiting, a few younger mall employees dropped in on their break.

There’s no way that gift shop breaks even, that whole operation must be subsidized. Furthermore, they are committing a significant amount of priest time to this drop in type facility, when the local diocese is closing parishes due to priest shortage.

When I went to Auriesville they had full time priests, yet when we were there we saw very, very few other people, and they were, um, “mature” Catholics like me. The same thing at other shrines we visited. If I had to choose between raising money and committing a priest to either the Franciscan Center, or a shrine, or a historic church, I would support places like the Franciscan Center at the Mall. No young people happen to wander into the historic church, on their break, or pop into a shrine, on the spur of the moment.

Fortunately, or unfortunately it’s not that hard to get individuals and organizations, like the K of C for instance, to pour money into shrines; but nobody thinks of donating to drop in centers at malls. But if we don’t start investing in drop in centers and places near where teens and young adults spend lots of time, there won’t be any shrines in the future, no matter how much money we pour into them now.

The Society of St. Paul (known for Alba House Communications) has opened a Catholic bookstore and gift shop along a main and heavily trafficked shopping district here, They have a monastery near here. The priest has made a storage room into an Eucharistic Adoration Chapel which anyone may visit during the day. They do not say Mass there. The store is fairly busy and the priest says many people visit the Blessed Sacrament when it is exposed while they are in the bookstore. It is a lovely little chapel and very quiet. It must be a joy to work there and have access to this on your lunch or break.

 

[didymus]

I am sad too. Whenever we travel we visit any shrines along the way, but this one we have gone out of our way several times to see. I guess I have mixed feelings about saving the shrine.

On our last trip across NY State we stopped in Syracuse to see a historic church. Beautiful! Prayerful! Historic in many ways! However, the usher was overjoyed to see someone visit, and took us on a tour, because hardly anyone visits there now. Later we stopped at an enormous mall. Right alongside hundreds of stores there was The Franciscan Center. In the front part there was a bookstore and giftshop, in the back was a chapel where they have Mass or welcome people to just drop in for a visit. They offer confession at certain hours too. While I was visiting, a few younger mall employees dropped in on their break.
There’s no way that gift shop breaks even, that whole operation must be subsidized. Furthermore, they are committing a significant amount of priest time to this drop in type facility, when the local diocese is closing parishes due to priest shortage.

There is a Franciscan chapel in a strip mall near here sandwiched between a gym and a Cici’s Pizza. The best thing (to me) is that they hear confession all day, every day given most parishes are either by appt only or Sat. afternoons 3:00-3:30 or the like.
As for the investment in money and priests, well, the Franciscans are independent from the diocese. I think the ones who run the chapel here are out of Siena College.

Yeah, attendance at Auriesville has been dropping off for years and I suppose one can’t expect the SJs or the diocese to subsidize a place no one is interested in anymore. Still, it’s a loss, like all the beautiful churches now closed.

[/QUOTE]

 

[tweedlealice]

Dear Didymus,
We are in need of a revival in our church. The church donates to mission fields abroad and maybe in Appalachia. I don’t know when Catholic schools started closing. Our teenagers in America are our mission field. The teen age culture has embraced the new age movement, Wiccan practices, Satanists movements. When money got short for our schools, there had to be ways of fund raising? Charge $50.00for tuition. supplement tuition w an extra collection at church?
We now are dry bones. Imperfect homes without the kindnesses available from the schools of the RC community. Then, the nun and priest population decrease because the Catholic schools are closed. We have nO examples of nuns and priests.
So how can we get Catholics to save shrines is for the church to continue schools w nuns and Brothers.
It is time for Rome to see we are an arid desert and we need the flowing of LIVING WATER OVER OUR DRY SOIL AND DRY SOUL’S.
Dear Lord send a revival. Holy Spirit awaken our own hearts to find more love for our youth and ideas to make an increase in parochial schools with religious a reality.
in Christ’s love
Tweedlealice