Posted on 07/07/2017 8:12:02 PM PDT by Phillyred
The gas company supervisor showed up at Mother of Mercy, a storefront church on Allegheny Avenue, in late June. He’d just been inside the long-shuttered Ascension of Our Lord, a hulking cathedral of a building at F and Westmoreland. After what he’d seen, he needed to speak with a priest.
He’d been working in the neighborhood, the PGW man said, and slipped through a broken stained-glass window to take some photos for his wife, who had grown up in the parish. That’s when he saw the mess of needles carpeting the floor and pews — and the figures moving in the darkness.
“There were so many people in there it looked like they were waiting for Mass to start,” the man reported.
It made sense to Father William Murphy. For months, he and Father Joseph Devlin and Sister Ann Raymond had been feeding the young people who got high on the lawn of McPherson Square library. But then the police drove the crowds away. The addicted people had to have gone somewhere, he thought.
So Father Murphy and Sister Raymond walked the few blocks to the church that long was the jewel of the neighborhood, until it wasn’t. They stepped through a window, glass crunching underneath their feet.
In the half-light, they could make out thin forms. Some shot heroin in the pews, some laid half-naked on mattresses. Others stumbled past in their stupor, not noticing the priest and nun in their presence.
Father Murphy did all he could think to do. He began to bless them.
*
For nearly a century Ascension, with its towering columns and bell tower and interior that brought to mind the churches of Europe, was proudly nicknamed by parishioners the Cathedral of Kensington. It was deconsecrated in 2012 and sold two years
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
Yet Jesus loves them.
Philadelphia was the birthplace of the greatest nation on earth. Now, I would wall it off or just force New Jersey to take it.
It’s an apt comparison for our Congress though. The priest left the church for awhile, and these animals moved in. Well, we as a people turned our backs on DC for a few years and now look what we have.
You can’t just leave things alone and trust that everything will be fine. And like this church, we need to chase out the scum from America’s government.
Looks like he could afford the tattoos.
Jesus died for the junkie arms extended cruciform.
He doesn’t want him to remain addicted, but loves him nonetheless.
Sigh...Words fail...We can blame the usual suspects...When I see this my heart aches.Generations of great Americans and families with a love of God and country were raised in these Philly parishes. To see them come to this is an indication that American society is on the downward spiral never to return. The good news is that maybe the Muslims can turn it into a Mosque.
God love the first EVANGELIST to go in there... the absence of one or even talk of one is the starkest indictment of institutional church there could be!!
This is so sad. :-(
The drug war can simply be resolved by putting troops on the border, building the wall, cutting off all aid to Mexico, ending taxpayer funding for treatment programs, and conducting air-strikes on Mexican cartel bases. Has it been done?
If THAT is the only good news we are beyond all hope.
Hey but dope useagr is a victimless crime don’t ya know
Pass the extra tin foil
Leave it to the Democrats/leaders to turn a beautiful church into a drug-users cesspool.
The church at the corner of Broad and N. Diamond was never destroyed like this, and that was the drug-dealing center of North Philly when I went to Temple University, only a hundred feet away from it.
If the late Police Chief/Mayor Rizzo were still alive, no church in the city would be desecrated.
The white leftists and black racists who run/ruin Philly are the ones guilty of allowing this societal destruction to take place, yet the ignoramuses of the uneducated black masses and the far-left mini-me white Marxists have united to keep the city a leftist shit-hole par excellence.
You can’t fix stupid, at least not in Philadelphia, Baltimore, NYC, Houston, LA, SF, Portland and Seattle.
Sarcasm understood; but, given the total evil of Islam ..., your expression not too good.
You can blame the user but we really should have the death penalty for dealers
If the late Police Chief/Mayor Rizzo were still alive, no church in the city would be desecrated.
“Why is this sad?”
It’s sad because lives have been ruined and destroyed.
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