Not true! It's a matter of demographics. As I pointed out to freeper Salvation, immigrants from western Europe built these churches in NYC. Their descendants moved to the suburbs and built new churches there. Now, their descendants have relocated to other US states, bringing their faith and constructing new churches in those communities.
These churches in NYC are testimony to the faith of the immigrants of the 19th and early 20th centuries. They stand as witnesses to their faith and determination to ensure their children would be properly baptized and catechized in their catholic faith. Now, 3 generations later, the demographics of NYC have changed. The immigrant families now arrive from diverse countries and different faith traditions. The "hey day" of catholicism in NYC is history. Time to move on, albeit painful for those of us who cherish the memory of our ancestors.
“...The “hey day” of catholicism in NYC is history. Time to move on...”
It is never time for the full Truth found in the Catholic Church ALONE to move on.
The immigrant families that are now arriving from diverse countries and faith traditions and arrived since the 60’s (when the flight to suburbia began) should have been evangelized. This is the bad fruit of dreadful Vatican II ideology consisting of the entirely new novel and erroneous premise that our “separated brethren” did not need to be converted. The result? Closed churches in the inner cities that should have been thriving with activity by the new occupants of the neighborhoods.
Matthew 28:19 was deliberately ignored and the spiritual work of mercy to instruct the ignorant was abandoned.
The newcomers ought to have been converted through prayer, works of charity, instruction and patience. This happened all throughout the cities in upstate New York as well; the excuse that it is demographics and nothing can be done is a travesty (the liberal Bishops, not you personally). There is no excuse for any of these closings. Maybe now it is too late, however the Church leaders in the 70’s when it was starting ought to have known better.
More evil fruit from Vatican II. This should NEVER have happened.
St. John Neumann and St. Katharine Drexel, ora pro nobis.