WESTWOOD, N.J.—After suffering without a parish pastor for nearly 18 months, parishioners at St. Andrew Church—who held several rallies to protest church authorities’ indifference to their needs—will get a new pastor, Monsignor Joseph R. Chapel, currently pastor of Our Lady of Mercy Parish in Park Ridge, early next year.
In addition, former parish pastor the Rev. James Weiner, who had been on voluntary leave since late August 2018, officially resigned from his post.
Weiner had been under review due to a previous allegation of inappropriate behavior, said a statement from the Newark Archdiocese.
Over the last six months, beginning in June, parishioners volunteering at the church have criticized the Archdiocese of Newark for two situations still unresolved: its takeover of a long-running clothes ministry and its cancellation of a church-sponsored program to heal victims of clerical sexual abuse.
Both situations have caused a rift between active volunteers there and archdiocesan officials, and volunteer leaders see the new pastor as a positive sign that church officials, led by Newark Archbishop Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin, are trying to improve relations between the church faithful and archdiocese.
Tobin appointed Chapel as full-time resident pastor of St. Andrew’s effective Feb. 1, 2020.
“I regret any hurt or anger caused to the devoted parishioners of St. Andrew’s Parish, which has served the Westwood community for more than a century,” said Tobin’s statement announcing Chapel’s appointment.
The archdiocesan statement notes Tobin “accepted the resignation of Reverend James Weiner” and that Weiner’s resignation “is in no way an admission of wrongdoing” by either Weiner or the archdiocese.
“Father Weiner submits his resignation solely for the benefit and good of the parish community so it might continue to grow and thrive in the mission of Jesus Christ and His Church. The Cardinal looks forward to resolving the allegation regarding Father Weiner in the very near future. The hope is that Father Weiner will be reassigned at some point to ministry,” said Tobin’s statement.
Weiner’s leave of absence began in late August 2018 when the Rev. Desmond Rossi accused both Weiner and former Cardinal and Newark Archbishop Theodore McCarrick of sexual assault.
McCarrick, 89, was a highly popular and rising figure in Roman Catholic hierarchy before being removed from ministry in February due to sexual crimes against adults and minors. He served from 1986 to 2000 as Newark’s archbishop.
Tobin reopened the case against Weiner due to new information received about Rossi’s sexual abuse allegations.
Rossi initially reached a legal settlement with the archdiocese in 2004 due to his sexual abuse allegations.
Chapel, who grew up attending Mass at St. Andrew’s, also received his Sacraments there. He was ordained a priest in the Archdiocese of Newark in 1992. The new St. Andrew’s pastor is fluent in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, and German. In addition, he has earned several graduate degrees, including a doctorate in moral theology.
“I’m happy to go there because it’s a great parish, and I’m very sad to leave Our Lady of Mercy,” said Chapel Dec. 18.
Asked about the recent parish troubles. Chapel said those would be dealt with after he is installed on Feb. 1.
“I know some of the history of the parish, and after I’m there, we’ll study it and take things in order,” Chapel said. “It’s not stopped for a moment to be a terrific parish,” he added.
Two parish volunteer leaders, embroiled in negative encounters with church officials, seemed to view the appointment of a new pastor as a hopeful sign.
“I’m trying to get a meeting with our new pastor before he starts,” said parishioner Greg Ryan, who said he also had a meeting with Tobin and one of his assistants recently.
He said he wants to take back the parish’s four-decade-old clothes collection ministry and help needy individuals previously served by the ministry.
Ryan charged the archdiocese took over the St. Andrew’s clothes collection—without informing him of its plans—and was partly motivated to make profit off of high-end clothes collected by the Westwood parish.
A Newark archdiocese spokeswoman had said the clothing donation ministry had faces administrative challenges, saying donations had piled high in the church basement, prompting the change.
Ryan said Catholic Charities removed the ministry’s oversized clothes bin, replaced it with their bin, and never gave their bin back.
“We want him [Chapel] to come in and try to settle this thing,” Ryan said.
He said he was told by archdiocese officials that he would get the clothes ministry back “and that we should work together and not separate and that this should never happen again.”
Ryan led several rallies outside Sunday Mass, in one case drawing scores of volunteers holding signs and marching to oppose the closing of the parish’s 40-year-plus clothes ministry.
Ryan previously called out archdiocese and parish officials for indifference to longtime parish volunteers who selflessly donated time and effort to run church ministries.
Parish volunteer Michael Fitzsimmons, who was stopped by St. Andrew’s interim administrator from running a program to help parishioners deal with clerical sexual abuse, said he looks forward to Chapel coming to St. Andrew’s.
“That’s a win-win to get someone who actually knows something about our parish. Tobin made a very wise decision,” Fitzsimmons told Pascack Press.
Fitzsimmons said the addition of a multilingual pastor may attract more members of the Spanish community back to the parish.
”On the local level it all bodes well for us as we’ve been in limbo for a year and a half,” said Fitzsimmons, of time without a full-time pastor.
He said he hopes to hold a “Healing Our Church” program soon in 2020 to help parishioners struggling with sexual assault and its impacts.
