WESTWOOD, N.J.—Parish volunteers at St. Andrew’s Church are charging the Archdiocese of Newark and their parish with abandoning their commitment to talk about the “twin crises of sexual abuse and the cover-up” roiling the Catholic Church nationwide, according to a parish volunteer.
After seeing their pastor step aside a year ago amid sexual abuse charges and recent parish turmoil over the archdiocese’s alleged takeover of a clothes ministry run for four decades by parish volunteers, St. Andrew’s parishioners are again upset and protesting the cancellation of efforts to help heal and support victims of clerical sexual abuse.
Moreover, they wonder if and when the parish will get a full-time priest or pastor. On Sept. 7 and 8 approximately a dozen parishioners protested in front of St. Andrew’s during Mass hours.
“In the past year those in charge of the parish have squandered its most valuable resource, the lay volunteers, who devote their time, talent, and treasure to serve in ministries like Human Concerns, Parish Council and Liturgy Committee. In the ministry of Human Concerns alone, many volunteers have been told their service is no longer needed,” said Michael Fitzsimmons, a parishioner and co-leader of two cancelled parish events focused on the church’s sexual abuse crisis.
Fitzsimmons told Pascack Press in a letter to the editor that he and Fran Yates, another parish volunteer, took a training course over the summer to implement Healing Our Church, a diocese-wide program promoted by Archdiocese of Newark Cardinal Joseph Tobin as part of his Forward in Faith Together initiative to address what he called “the twin crises of sexual abuse and the cover-up…”
Fitzsimmons sent Pascack Press a copy of Tobin’s April 2019 letter to parish priests promoting the Healing Our Church initiative. Fitzsimmons said the Healing Our Church program scheduled for September was cancelled by the archdiocese vicar general, Rev. Thomas Nydegger, without explanation.
Fitzsimmons said when he and co-leader Fran Yates submitted a program notice for the parish bulletin in early August, he was told that the initiative had been cancelled.
He said he was told Nydegger had said that he felt Saint Andrews “should not participate in Healing our Church,” as the only reason given for the abrupt cancellation. He said he was also told the parish does not have a pastor and so could not hold such a program.
Following the cancellation, he said interim parish administrator, Father Sean Manson, agreed to hold a Sept. 15 parish listening session on the sexual abuse crisis.
On Sept. 3, Fitzsimmons said that he and Yates had a meeting scheduled with Manson and parish staff “to plan the first-ever listening session at St. Andrew’s,” he wrote to Pascack Press.
“[We] were treated in a confrontational and abusive manner by the administrator [Manson] bringing an end to [our] involvement in the planning, with no explanation given,” he said.
“Subsequently, [Manson] canceled the listening session designed to help heal the parish and move forward. Outreach to the Cardinal and RENEW International [trainers for ‘Healing Our Church’ sessions] have gone unanswered,” Fitzsimmons said.
In addition to canceling the two healing events, Fitzsimmons said, parishioners are upset about lack of a full-time priest or pastor and marched peacefully to protest the situation.
More parish dissent
Over the summer, dozens of members from Human Concerns Ministry at St. Andrew’s, led by longtime volunteer and parishioner Greg Ryan, protested the archdiocese’s abrupt replacement of the local volunteers and their oversize clothes collection bin with a Catholic Charities clothes bin to collect clothes being donated.
Ryan alleged the archdiocese removed the oversize bin—donated to them for their ministry—and refuse to return it.
Ryan charged the archdiocese was looking to “profit” off the high end attire that was regularly donated at local clothing drives.
Ryan also blamed Manson for the takeover of the volunteer effort and wrote a personal appeal to Cardinal Tobin to restore the clothing ministry.
Newark archdiocese spokeswoman Maria Margiotta, however, had said, “St. Andrew’s Church personnel made the decision to continue the clothing donation ministry in partnership with Catholic Charities to resolve the challenges in successfully administering the program,” saying donations had piled high in the church basement, serving no one well.
Ryan said in August he did not receive a response from Tobin.
Pascack Press reached out to Margiotta for comment on Weiner’s status, plans for a new priest or pastor, and why church officials cancelled the Healing Our Church program and parish listening session.
She wrote back Sept. 11 with a brief statement:
“We view our Archdiocese as a family—and, as is true with most families, members don’t always agree. Yet, it is unfortunate that some at the parish have chosen to mischaracterize our discussions on these matters, and it is especially disheartening that this is done so through the media,” said Margiotta.
She said, “We underscore the same information that we have provided to all parishioners. We await the conclusion of the matter regarding Fr. James Weiner, who stepped down voluntarily last fall.”
She concluded, “In the interim, a priest administrator has been leading the parish, which continues to build its strong congregation with ongoing and growing ministries, and the active engagement of parishioners remains vital to these initiatives.”
Weiner’s status?
In August 2018, Pascack Press reported Weiner had stepped aside at St. Andrew’s after the archdiocese said it reopened an investigation into alleged sexual misconduct due to new information from a past accuser.
Then-diocesan spokesman James Goodness said both Weiner and another priest, Gerald Sudol, a reverend at Our Lady of Czestochowa Catholic Church in Jersey City, “stepped aside temporarily in voluntary actions on their part while the archdiocese conducts a review of their particular [unrelated] cases,” he told Pascack Press on Aug. 29, 2018.
Weiner and another man, now deceased, are accused of assaulting Desmond Rossi, now a priest of the Diocese of Albany, N.Y., in incidents alleged to have taken place at St. Benedict’s Parish in Newark in 1988.
Rossi told a magazine that he brought his allegations against the transitional deacons to an archdiocesan review board.
“He said that his story was ‘found credible, but nothing happened.’ Instead, he claims the archdiocese turned against him for bringing the allegation forward,” Catholic News Agency reported Aug. 17, 2018.
Rossi led a “prayer demonstration” in front of Sacred Heart Basilica Cathedral in Newark on Aug. 29, 2018. Cardinal Tobin attended the protest and spoke with Rossi, according to a published report in The National Catholic Reporter.
Cardinal Tobin’s April 2019 letter addressed to “My Dear Brother Priests” promoting Healing Our Church urges priests to confront the sexual abuse crisis.
“I know this is a difficult issue for you—sexual abuse is a complex and painful personal issue for us as priests, but at the same time we need to fulfill our pastoral duty by helping our parishioners deal with the devastating effects of sexual abuse and the coverup,” Tobin wrote.
“We can’t move beyond this issue without confronting it head-on: ignoring the issue in hopes it will go away or out of fear that it will dredge up even more unpleasantness is not an option. We need to help each other and our people find a way Forward in Faith Together,” concluded Tobin.
Forward in Faith Together is a Tobin initiative to establish a foundation for healing and renewed missionary discipleship.
Tobin wrote Healing Our Church was developed “in direct response to the revelations of the past year and is primarily intended for the lay faithful who have been deeply affected by the crisis. It invites the laity to discover and claim their role in helping to rebuild and heal the Church.”
Healing Our Church, Tobin wrote, aims to engage the laity and foster lifelong faith.