A non-Filipino member of the shrine, David Bender, bluntly stated: “The proposal does not make spiritual sense.”
Many of those wearing custom T-shirts came from Holy Rosary, a parish in the Fells Point neighborhood that has connections to two Polish canonized saints. Some of their group wore ethnic attire and waved the white and red flag of their Eastern European homeland.
A young woman from Holy Rosary wondered why the archdiocese would shutter a place that was visited by St. John Paul II (when he was Cardinal Karol Wojytla in 1976). The parish is also directly tied to the canonization process of St. Faustina Kowalska, as it was the site of a documented miraculous healing attributed to the Polish sister.
Auxiliary Bishop Bruce Lewandowski gave a grim assessment as he spoke to local media before presiding over the listening session. “This is difficult. It’s heart-wrenching,” he emphasized. “But we’re at a pivotal moment in the city Church. We need to do this.”
Lewandowski led the attendees in prayer before starting the main presentation about the parish closure/consolidation proposal under “Seek the City.” He, along with two lay consultants, began a slideshow that first gave an overview of the two-year process leading up to the current juncture.
The trio then unveiled several slides that outlined the proposal to shrink the city’s parishes from 61 parishes to 26 parishes. The City of Baltimore, along with some immediate surrounding parts of neighboring Baltimore County, was divided into five regions (center, east, west, north, and south). While the first four regions would have three to five consolidated parishes, the south region would be reduced to only two.