St Alphonsus Church, Schumacher, Canada

An e-mail from Canada: I am saddened to tell you of our church closing on April 3, 2005. St. Alphonsus Church is in Schumacher, Ontario, Canada and we were a vibrant viable parish that tried for 15 months to keep our beloved church open. We met with our bishop on eight occassions and even appealed to Pope John Paul sending a comprehensive package to Rome in May 2004. We cannot understand why the Catholic Church is closing the doors of viable churches that are pleading to stay open. Our community church has been taken away from us. It is also a beautiful church as a talented parishioner painted the walls with paintings based on the Sistine Chapel. We are feeling quite lost and abandoned. Some of us continue to pray for a miracle.
 


One of the former Parish Priests was the great Father Costello.

Tantus labor non sit cassus- that so great a work should not be in vain.

A fuller description of the Bishop's hardness of heart.

This is the announcement from the Diocese. If they put half the efforts into pastoral care, that is now put into Committee work, the Diocese would be thriving. And what many could take for a sick joke, the Bishop proclaims a "year of the parish"!

St Alphonsus, Doctor of the Church and founder of the great missionary order, the Redemptorists, intercede for this Church. May the Redemptorists discover their lost sense of mission.