The news prompted them to speak of intimate family memories like births, graduations, marriages and deaths–milestones of personal histories linked by fellowship and shared faith over the years.
Their pasts reconfirmed, the parishioners of Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church, 2938 E. 91st St., then wondered aloud about where they would worship in the future.
”This is the only parish I`ve come to most of my life,” usher Steve Blaho, 64, said somberly shortly after hearing Sunday that the church, like two others in South Chicago, will almost certainly be closed.
”My children went to school here. I went to school here. My brothers and sisters went to school here,” he said, his voice choked with emotion.
News of the planned closing had come from the pulpit, words of facts and figures instead of the usual homily based on scripture.
It was the same message delivered an hour earlier to sparse congregations at St. Joseph Catholic Church, 8801 S. Saginaw Ave., and St. Patrick Catholic Church, 9525 S. Commercial Ave.
Parishioners flipped through eight photocopied pages of graphs and charts that outlined declining attendance and eroding financial support.
”It is our best judgment at this time that we recommend to (Joseph)
Cardinal Bernardin that the three churches should be closed,” said Rev. Walter Turlo, a part-time pastor at Sts. Peter and Paul.
According to a statement from Cardinal Bernardin that Father Turlo read to the congregation, the Chicago archdiocese is seeking to consolidate parishes to make better use of declining revenues and fewer priests.
”It is also not something that in your heart of hearts you did not expect would be said to you at some time,” Father Turlo said.
The signs had all been there, the parishioners ruefully agreed. They recalled that the high school had closed more than 10 years ago. Within recent years, the grade school was merged with the one at St. Mary Magdalene, 8401 S. Saginaw Ave. The church hasn`t had a full-time pastor in a year. Three priests, including Father Turlo, divide their time among five churches that joined in 1983 to form the Parish Cooperative in South Chicago.
According to the proposal, parishioners of the three churches that would be closed would become members of the two remaining churches in the cooperative, St. Mary Magdalene or Immaculate Conception, 2944 E. 88th St.
According to figures distributed by the archdiocese, 30 couples had been married at Sts. Peter and Paul in 1950. Last year, only one wedding was celebrated. Thirty-five years ago, 93 babies and adults were baptized. Last year, there were 10
There were other signs as well.
Vincent R. Farrell, a wiry 72-year-old retired stockyard foreman and custodian, said the Holy Name Society disbanded several years ago ”when there were only three of us left.”
The parish`s history and demise are closely tied to the steel industry that once flourished in South Chicago. Sts. Peter and Paul opened its doors in 1882 to serve the influx of European immigrants who flocked there to work in the mills.
By 1941, the congregation had swelled to 750 families, and construction was begun on a new church and school to accommodate the overflow. But by 1975, the congregation had dwindled to slightly more than half its former strength, according to the archdiocese.
Although the congregation is racially and ethnically mixed–on Sunday blacks, Hispanics, Asians and whites embraced as they consoled one another over the news–the neighborhood surrounding the parish grew increasingly foreign to its members.
The steel mills shut down. People moved away to find work.
Now only 144 families remain in the parish. Most are elderly, and their children and grandchildren, those who were to form a new generation of parishioners, ”have moved away,” said Father Turlo.
All three churches have scheduled meetings for Saturday to discuss the planned closings. But few hold out any hope of reversing the recommendations of the priests to shut down.
”It`s signed, sealed and delivered,” said one parishioner in disgust as he left St. Joseph.
