St. Philip Church: Not Gutted Yet!
Parish councilmen fired for resisting destructive church renovation proposal
from the November/December 1998 issue

IN THE CONTINUING EFFORT to "sack" St. Philip Church in Morrow, Ohio, three parishioners who pro-actively opposed the church renovation plans there were recently fired from their positions on the parish council. A fourth council member voluntarily resigned when asked to do so by St. Philip pastor, Fr. "J.C." Allison.

When asked if they would continue to oppose the church renovation, Lois Westerheide, Roseann Siderits, Marion Ackman, and Carvel Steinke all said that they would. Siderits told SCR that Fr. Allison expected all council members to support what she believes is "the full-scale gutting of the church interior." The current renovation proposal includes disposing of the pews and replacing them with portable chairs, moving the tabernacle into a separate room from the main "worship space," removing the crucifix and the two remaining statues, and eliminating the sanctuary by moving the altar into the congregation with chairs arranged on all four sides of the altar.

Lois Westerheide commented that "we on the parish council are supposed to represent the parish. The parish is divided. Many parishioners have voiced objections to the proposal, yet every time parishioners—including members of council and the renovation steering committee—expressed their concern about the project, they did not get answers."

Siderits said she felt that the proposal was not one that would promote unity within the parish, and according to the "roles and procedures for parish council" distributed by Allison, members of council are "to be the ‘eyes and ears’ to the hopes, concerns and needs of parishioners, as well as any particular group or organization in the parish."

"He acted, rather, as if we ought to be sitting there like potted plants," said Sidertits. "No one has ever ordered me in my lifetime to go against my conscience. But it was Fr. Allison, the priest who gave me First Holy Communion thirty five years ago, who told me that I must not work to oppose his plans to gut and redesign the interior of St. Philip Church if I am an elected member of parish council. It was he who accused those of us wanting to protect the traditional atmosphere of our sacred church of having an ‘agenda.’ And when we would not agree to his way of thinking, it was he who ordered us to leave.

"I’ve been in the halls of congress; I’ve been involved in protests, been on talk radio, on television, and nothing has been more Hitler-esque than dealing with St. Philip’s Church."

Protesting the renovation

A month earlier, after parishioners’ objections to the renovations went unanswered by Allison and were subsequently dashed by Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk, sixteen members of St. Philip’s parish, including the four "dissenting" members of the parish council, formed the "Committee to Preserve Our Roman Catholic Faith." The Committee called an informational meeting at the Morrow VFW Hall to discuss objections parishioners had concerning the renovation proposal. An invitation was mailed to each of the approximately 500 registered households in the parish.

A few days before the meeting Fr. Allison told parishioners at his three weekend Masses that he would not be attending and he advised parishioners also to stay away. "There’s no object to this meeting," Allison claimed. "The [renovation] project is well under way and it will not change."

Allison explained to his parishioners that it is impossible to worship properly in the present traditional church arrangement and that renovation is a necessity. He expounded on his "theology of Eucharist" saying that in the new "church-in-the-round, we will all be together. What we have now is a hierarchical arrangement. I’m the priest; I’m up here [in the sanctuary] and I’m in this place of presiding and you’re out there sort of in attendance, or whatever. That’s trying to be a hierarchical set-up. It’s not supposed to be that way."*

It is going to be difficult, Allison explained to his congregation, because we’re not used to worshipping in the new arrangement. "It’s going to take a change in mindset and theology. We’re used to the hierarchical form," he said. "If you count about eight or nine pews back, that seems to be joined to this area [near the altar], but once you get out further than that, you forget what [Mass] is all about. It’s about celebration together. In that round situation we will be celebrating together, joined together, to receive Christ and his blessings."

Allison also addressed an article in the Sept.-Oct. issue of St. Catherine Review regarding the St. Philip renovation proposal ["Grassroots Effort Seeks to Thwart Church Renovation"]. He said that the publication "gets out to a lot of people and has a lot of disinformation… so you have to read it with open eyes. You have to scrutinize it." The only example of "disinformation" Allison cited from the article, however, was that "it says the pews are to be removed and replaced by portable chairs, but they [sic] don’t mention the kneelers."

Solidarity at VFW

Despite Allison’s efforts to affect a small turnout at the VFW informational meeting, approximately 100 people attended. Those who assembled on September 30 had one thing in common: they respectfully objected to the proposed renovation of their church.

The Committee members who organized the meeting stressed that they were not there to "bash" Fr. Allison or anyone else. "We are here to call attention to the needless renovation of the church interior," said parish councilman Carvel Steinke, who would later be asked to resign from his position because of his views. "If you are comfortable with the planned renovation," said Steinke, "you have every right to support it. But if you are not pleased with these proposed changes, you have every right to disagree and withhold your financial support."

Steinke quoted Canon 212.2-3 of the Code of Canon Law: "The Christian faithful are free to make known their needs, especially spiritual ones, and their desires to the pastors of the Church… they have the right and even at times a duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church, and they have a right to make their opinion known to the other Christian faithful."

Steinke explained that the Archdiocese is "mandating the use of the document Environment & Art in Catholic Worship" (EACW) to justify the changes to which parishioners strongly object. "As [my wife] Marlene and I travel around the country, it is obvious to us that the churches built to the specifications of EACW are primarily gathering spaces, designed to make people feel good," he said. "The Mass almost seems to be secondary," he added, "and we don’t want this to happen in our church."

Steinke emphasized the fact that EACW was not an approved Church document, much less a set of official directives which mandate distinct changes in church architecture. "You have every right to disagree," he told his audience.

Marion Ackman, another councilman, showed slides of the drawings proposing the renovation of the church. Many parishioners in attendance commented that they had not yet seen the proposed plans. "If we are so proud of our renovation plans, why aren’t these plans on display in the vestibule of the church for everyone to see?" wondered one parishioner.

Speaking the language of the checkbook

During the question and answer session which concluded the meeting, one man from the audience pointed out that many of the parishioners have already pledged money—unwittingly— toward the project. "Now here’s a parish that can’t make their weekly budget," he said; "we’re under budget every week and now we’re going to extend ourselves almost a million dollars. Now where is the logic to that?" When the man then asked if parishioners shouldn’t withhold their financial support, the assembly broke out in a burst of spontaneous applause. One woman even cried, "Hip! Hip!"

Another woman, in response, related an anecdote about an Irish priest she knows, who has a parish in Texas. The priest’s parish submitted a renovation proposal to the local bishop, she said, and the bishop sent it back to the parish stating that the plans were unacceptable. The bishop asked for many changes, which included removing the tabernacle, the statues, the crucifix and rearranging the seating in the church. "The same scheme that is proposed here," she explained.

"That priest took the pulpit on the Sunday of the Bishop’s Fund Drive and said, ‘I want to remind you that giving to the Bishop’s Fund is an option. It is up to your conscience. You are free to give and your are free not to give.’ The bishop usually got between $25-30,000 each year from that parish. That year, however, he got nothing. When the bishop threatened to take the pastor out of that parish, the priest said, ‘fine, I’ll just return to Ireland.’ The bishop then backed down and approved the original renovation plan.

"The only language some bishops seem to understand is written in your checkbook. They will not listen to your words; they will not listen to your arguments, but they will listen to a red on the balance sheet," she said.

Another woman wondered what was the actual percentage of parishioners who had pledged money in the renovation fund drive. Marion Ackman explained that no one knows. "Fr. Allison won’t let anyone look at the books," he said, "which creates a great deal of suspicion."

Another St. Philip parishioner advised that "if your decision is that you are not going to support the renovation of the church, and you have already made a pledge, you have to let Father know that you are withdrawing the pledge. I have made a pledge without my heart in it and I am going to withdraw it."

Another parishioner said that "until I found out about this meeting, I thought I was the only one who felt this way." That sentiment seemed to be shared by many in the room, who nodded their heads in concurrence.

Parishioners also lined up three abreast to sign a formal letter of petition to the archbishop, requesting that he intervene and stop the renovation of the church as it is currently planned, and to discontinue his use of the EACW as guidelines for church renovations in his archdiocese.

"Many people have asked me what we hope to accomplish with this petition," said Steinke. "Simply put," he explained, "we want to stop the proposed interior renovation. It’s probably too late to stop the whole renovation, but we hope at least to stop the destruction of the interior. And if this petition does not help St. Philip’s, maybe it will help the next church."

"Let’s take it directly to the Vatican," suggested one St. Philip parishioner, who said she thought petitioning the archbishop would affect no change.

Just a beginning…

"I think it is time that the Archdiocese be exposed," Roseann Siderits told SCR after being fired by Allison. "They are destroying Catholic churches throughout the greater Cincinnati area. This renovation project was sold to us as an ‘expansion’ project. To the tune of $1 million dollars we are putting in an extra 150 seats. We did some calculating and interestingly enough that comes out to $6666.66 per chair. You’ll notice that’s a double 666!

"Throughout this whole debacle I have seen nothing but pure contempt on the part of the pastor for his people. He accused us of undermining the unity of the church, when in reality we had 100 people show up at our meeting. You would have thought we had tied them up and dragged them to the meeting."

Siderits added: "The renovation construction and destruction was scheduled to begin in mid-October. Well, mid-October has come and gone, and St. Philip’s is not gutted yet! Our meeting was not an end; it was just a beginning."

—Michael S. Rose

RELATED ARTICLE: Grassroots Effort at St. Philip Church

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