Text of Éva Szabó (Templom Örzö) Speech at St. Emeric Closing Protest

Requiem for St. Emeric

by Éva Szabó, president, Templom Örzö

June 30, 2010 is an epic day in the history of St. Emeric Parish, the parish building before which I stand.  It is our day of death.  In our 106^th year, our parish has 350 households, still serving the needs of the Hungarian-American community, especially those for whom English is their second language and who still seek spiritual guidance and liturgy in Hungarian. This parish is a community of Hungarian-Americans who wish to worship together as a congregation of faithful in the Roman Catholic Church in their native Hungarian language with traditional liturgical music.  This church in its entirety has also been and still is a center for cultural activities that embrace Christian values for members of all ages, the elderly as well as the youth, enriching lives both spiritually and socially. We cannot separate ONE man from his language, culture and faith.  These are embedded in him.  To rip these entities out at this time would be no less than destroying that ONE human being.  You have told us to prayer in our own languages for over 50 years.  Now you are taking this away from us.  The churches which have been closed are mainly ethnic and have all experienced this wrenching action.

We are here for St. Emeric’s requiem as well as for the other 55 churches which have been closed in these last few years by Bishop Lennon in the Diocese of Cleveland. Countless correspondences to the Bishop failed to bring about any mutual understanding and later, any return correspondence at all.  We question the Bishop’s fulfillment of Canon Law 378 which states that a candidate for the episcopacy is in good morals, piety, zeal for souls, wisdom, prudence and human virtues. St. Emeric, as well as 11 other churches, have had to turn to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy requesting that authority to overturn the bishop's decree.  The Vatican has given countless delays and we stand today without any answers from the Bishop or from the highest authorities in our religious empire.

We DO NOT oppose the closings in general.  We are realistic enough to know that when certain conditions exist, the churches must close.  These conditions are a lack of money, parishioners and a priest.  What we fail to understand is that when these three conditions have been met, conditions which the Bishop himself has selected as criteria for staying open, we are still being closed. The St. Emeric parishioners fail to understand that in a diocese where the Bishop proclaims a shortage of priests he has sent our Pastor away without assignment.  He has stripped him of his priestly duties at St. Emeric as of today.  How inconceivable a concept when we look at the life of Christ and how happy He was with all the apostles who followed Him and His creed.

We have prayed for many years for this day not to turn into a reality. In our plight we have not forgotten that we are Christians and still turn to prayer because it is our greatest power.  At four o’clock today, we will enter the church for a litany event.  We invoke the Blessed Mother to whom Hungary was dedicated by its first Christian King, Stephen, to help us understand the insanity and injustice which these closings have provoked.

We have asked the two other opposition groups Endangered Catholics and Code Purple to support us in our last endeavor.  May God ring true justice in His own time.

Our death toll is ringing as we stand here today to witness the end of a spiritual life which makes us whole.