TLM Question

[Living4Him]

In our diocese they have an FSSP priest that says mass Monday through Friday at a Church & on Sunday they have mass at a monastery chapel. The monastery chapel is very small & I haven’t gone in over a year because I’m claustrophobic. What I’m wondering is why would the bishop allow FSSP to come and do the TLM mass but not let them have a Church of there own? I sure hope they let them build a Church of there own some day.

 

[LilyM]

In our diocese they have an FSSP priest that says mass Monday through Friday at a Church & on Sunday they have mass at a monastery chapel. The monastery chapel is very small & I haven’t gone in over a year because I’m claustrophobic. What I’m wondering is why would the bishop allow FSSP to come and do the TLM mass but not let them have a Church of there own? I sure hope they let them build a Church of there own some day.

Churches don’t just grow on trees, y’know. They cost a fair bit - the building as well as the costs of keeping it running afterwards (electricity and water bills and so on).

Maybe the congregation isn’t large enough to be able to fund the building or running of their own church?

Besides which it’s not just up to the Bishop - buildings have to be approved by local civil authorities as well. That in itself can cause a whole bunch of headaches.

 

[Sure]

Perhaps there is no available church for the bishop to give? Or perhaps there does not seem to be enough interest for the bishop to give them a parish.

Keep praying!

 

[Living4Him]

Or perhaps there does not seem to be enough interest for the bishop to give them a parish.

The 2 masses on Sunday are filled to the rim with people even standing up in the back because there’s not enough room. I e-mailed a contact from there website and they said “We are hoping that the Bishop make us a parish and give us our own church or chapel”. I just don’t understand why the bishop wouldn’t if the attendance is obviously massive.

 

[markadm]

The motu proprio only came into effect 13 days ago. Whilst there is now the provision to grant a “personal Parish” by a bishop for the exclusive celebration of the sacraments according to the liturgical books of 1962, maybe your Diocesan machinery isn’t that fast!?

(Or maybe the curia just need to be told… )

 

[Scotty_PGH]

The 2 masses on Sunday are filled to the rim with people even standing up in the back because there’s not enough room. I e-mailed a contact from there website and they said “We are hoping that the Bishop make us a parish and give us our own church or chapel”. I just don’t understand why the bishop wouldn’t if the attendance is obviously massive.

Your best bet is to write a letter to the bishop, rather than listening to the speculation of the people you will find on this board.

 

[otjm]

The 2 masses on Sunday are filled to the rim with people even standing up in the back because there’s not enough room. I e-mailed a contact from there website and they said “We are hoping that the Bishop make us a parish and give us our own church or chapel”. I just don’t understand why the bishop wouldn’t if the attendance is obviously massive.

Your posts seem to be a bit internally inconsistent. If the Sunday Mass is at a chapel that is small enough to cause claustrophobia, then I would assume that it is not much larger than maybe 25 to 30 people seated. Much larger than that would seem to be a big room, but I am just making guesses from your post.

If it is standing room only, maybe 50 to 75 people? So with two Masses, maybe 150 people total? And that is just guessing.

So, 150 people. With no real idea of where you are and what land values are, lets just take a round number of $500,000 to get this off the ground - $1,500,000 may be closer to the truth, but lets go low. Assuming that they could get a mortgage for that amount at 7%, they would be looking at $3326.51 per month before electricity, taxes, heat, salary for the priest ( they may have a vow of poverty, but they still have to eat and the order still needs to be supported). And given that some of the people at the Mass will be related, we cannot assume out of the 150 people that there are 150 families. Nor can we assume that everyone will pay an equal amount each month. Oh, and we have no money for candles, or robes for the altar boys, or incense, or anything the priest will need to say Mass - chausible, etc., nor money for bulletins or hosts or altar wine.

And that is presuming we could even find a piece of property that already has a church on it for sale near $500,000. Try building one.

Perhaps my numbers are incorrect, and there is three hundred. Thjen, just possibly there is enough gathered together to get this going. But if the real numbers are closer to 100 than 150, and this is done anywhere near a large metro area, you may be looking at numbers well in excess of what I have suggested. But if you are looking for why no one is rushing to find a church, it may well be that there is no practical answer to the issue.

 

[Sure]

This might be something you could try…

I know years ago when a community wanted to found a new parish they would get together and organize, then each family would pledge a fairly substantial amount of money and then they would write a letter to the bishop asking for a priest to lead them. Now since you already have a priest, you could probably attempt to organize the frequent attendees and see what amount of money you could all come up with. I am sure that if you were to approach the bishop with a few hundred families and an initial pledge of a significant amount of money, he would help you to either purchase a church, build a church, or perhaps renovate an old closed church. The key here is organization and showing that you have the financial base to support a small parish.

May God grant you success!

 

[Living4Him]

If the Sunday Mass is at a chapel that is small enough to cause claustrophobia,]

I should have been more specific. It’s not the chapel itself that’s making me claustrophobic but, all of the people stuffed into the chapel that makes me this way. I understand that there may not be enough people to build a Church but, there’s no room to grow either in order for this to happen. I assume they can’t say mass at the Church they go to during the week because that Church has there own NO masses on Sunday. It’s too bad they can’t find a nice size Church that would let them have mass on Sunday.

 

[Sure]

I should have been more specific. It’s not the chapel itself that’s making me claustrophobic but, all of the people stuffed into the chapel that makes me this way. I understand that there may not be enough people to build a Church but, there’s no room to grow either in order for this to happen. I assume they can’t say mass at the Church they go to during the week because that Church has there own NO masses on Sunday. It’s too bad they can’t find a nice size Church that would let them have mass on Sunday.

Has the community that attends this Mass ever gotten together and asked another pastor for permission to use his church on Sunday afternoon? Most parishes could easily accomodate a Mass at 1:30 or 2PM as the regular Masses are usually done by then.

 

[otjm]

There is more than one way to skin a cat…

Our local Maronite Rite church is in a building that was originally built for a Baptist church. It is not particularly large; I am not sure that it could seat 150, but it works for the community present. From time to time, a church will become available on the market.

However, as noted, the easier route would be to request of several pastors if their parish church would be available for a Mass outside of the regularly scheduled Masses.

The route of building is the most expensive, and the best approach to that is to first find out what a reasonable estimate for building one might be, and then add 20%; then go to those who would attend on a regular basis and see if you could raise enough pledges above and beyond normal Sunday offerings to make it feasible. Asking for pledges without an initial exploration (property available zoned correctly, time and material costs etc) of feasiblity is worse than having the cart before the horse.

Our parish added a school (we already had the property) and that was a several year operation getting to the point of going and asking for pledges.