At the rectory of Our Lady Star of the Sea Parish in the St. Roch Neighborhood of New Orleans, I was sitting in a room where church volunteers come to count the offerings made during the masses on the weekends.
It was a bare bones room with a few chairs and two long tables pushed up against one of the walls. There were two women in the room. They were waiting on a third woman to arrive so they could begin the tallying process. That’s the protocol, three people to count and verify the amount. About five minutes after I turned on my microphone to capture some of the sounds of the money being counted, the third volunteer showed up and the counting began. The offerings were in three sealed plastic bags. The women broke the seals, emptied the money onto the table and began counting. Less than five minutes later, they were done. Weekly offerings at Our Lady Star of the Sea have steadily decreased over the decades. Parishioners told me it’s one of the biggest reasons why the Archdiocese of New Orleans placed their church on a list of parishes that would either close or be combined with another parish. The parishioners I spoke with told me it felt like a decision full of calculation and not enough consideration for the parish’s people.
“My issue is that it is a church. I know it’s a business, but it’s a church. It’s a home. So, I think it just needs more than just the financial part. There’s a spiritual part. There’s a family part. There’s a lot that goes into a church besides the money. So that was disappointing for me,” said Teresa Poche.
Last year, the Archdiocese of New Orleans announced it would be closing or merging 13 parishes. The closings and consolidations will take effect in July of this year. It represents the largest restructuring of parishes for the Archdiocese since Hurricane Katrina. The Archdiocese of New Orleans filed for bankruptcy protection in 2020 after an estimated 500 claims of sexual abuse were filed against Archdiocesan clergy or staff. If each of those claimants receive $300,000, which is the national average for such settlements, the Archdiocese of New Orleans would be facing about $150 million in pay outs. When the list of parishes that would be impacted by closures or mergers was issued last year, there wasn’t any mention of the lawsuits stemming from clergy sex abuse.
"Natural disasters such as floods and hurricanes over the past decade, the COVID pandemic, the challenges of Hurricane Ida recovery, inflation, and sky-rocketing property insurance rates impact our church communities just as they impact our families and our businesses," Archbishop Gregory Aymond said in a statement.
As it struggles with its own financial situation, the Archdiocese selected 13 parishes which consist mostly of ageing or lower income populations for closure or consolidation. Our Lady Star of the Sea was chosen to merge with St. Mary of the Angels in New Orleans. Our Lady Star of the Sea church was founded in 1911 and has undergone a lot of change since then. Some parishioners remember when they had to sit in a “colored” section of the church.
Today, it is a majority Black Catholic church. It suffered damage during Hurricane Katrina, but parishioners rallied around their church to restore it.
Now, many of them feel the Archdiocese has disregarded their commitment to their parish.
“It’s very distressful and disturbing. We have done so much to keep this church open. It has not been an easy road. We’ve had our financial ups and downs, and we have pledged money to get us out of debt. We’ve done all the things we could do to keep the parish going to keep this church, this family intact, and now it seems like none of that mattered,” said Cherly Beaco.
Many Catholics are taught that God is all powerful. But in earthly matters, it seems an all-powerful god can be rivaled by the almighty dollar. What I found surprising was the amount of money Cheryl Beaco told me it would take to keep the parish off the closure list. Despite the bleak outlook, she and other parishioners are trying to remain hopeful a miracle will be delivered. Listen to the podcast here.