Transcription with permission
FADING CULTURE
As churches close, ethnic groups worry about vanishing heritage
FORD CITY, PA (AP) – There were a host of reasons for closing Holy Trinity – a shrinking community, a shortage of priests, the finances – but what Rose Bloser knows is that when the predominately Slovak church closed, a big chunk of her past was lost.
“When everything boils down, all you have left is your roots”, said Bloser, 51, whose Roman Catholic church closed its doors several Sundays ago. “I realize we’re all in a melting pot, but you always keep some ties to where you came from”.
In the 1800s and 1900s, Eastern European immigrants flooded into southwestern Pennsylvania to work in the coal mines and steel mills, and in and around Pittsburgh, neighborhoods swelled with their numbers.
They brought with them their work ethic, their languages and their religions.
Churches-many of them Catholic-sprung up, statues of patron saints watching over them in the New World, masses being held in their natural tongues.
Now, in Pittsburgh and across the nation, many of those old ethnic churches are gone, and parishioners worry their cultural past could be lost.
In Ford City, located about 35 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, July 21 saw the closing not only of Holy Trinity but two other ethnic parishes: St. Frances of Paola, a predominately Polish church, and St. Mary’s, attended by German families. Church officials said there were too few people to support keeping all three.
A month earlier, St. Stephen’s in McKeesport-which had ministered to Hungarian immigrants for more than a century-shut down. It had gone as far in its early history to import a priest from Hungary to serve Mass; there were 13 oaken statues inside the church, each representing an aspect of Hungarian history and religion.
“I was baptized there, made my first communion there and was confirmed there,” said Zoltan Toth. “We are like a family because we all grew up there.”
It’s not only in Pittsburgh. Two years ago, St. Jehosaphat’s, a Polish parish in Cleveland, closed. In March, a Roman Catholic church in Gary, Ind., which once drew nearly 1,000 Polish, Czech and Lithuanian parishioners closed after attendance dwindled to about 200 parishioners.
From 1988 to 1955, the Pittsburgh diocese closed 19 ethnic parishes; at the same time, 19 territorial parishes-those serving people within established boundaries-closed because of costs and a declining number of congregants.
As steel mills, coal mines and other businesses hit hard times in the 1980s, people left the older ethnic centers to find work elsewhere. Also, for many people, the immigrant churches carried a connection to the past they felt they no longer needed.
FADING CLUTURE…8-18-02 cont.
National groups, such as the Polish American Congress and American Hungarian Heritage Association, say neighborhood churches were hurt as congregations got older and people fled the cities for the suburbs.
“That ethnic heritage is not as important to the younger generation,” said the Rev. John Rushofosky, who has served at several defunct parishes serving various ethnic groups in the Pittsburgh diocese. He said the loss of those churches left many older members resentful.
“It’s painful for them because I think what it means to them is that a lot of their ethnic heritage seems to be being disregarded,” he said.
In Pittsburgh’s Polish Hill neighborhood, Immaculate Heart of Mary still serves the ethnic community, a Mass being said in Polish at 8 a.m. every Sunday. The church school, where Polish was taught, has been closed for years; the Mass attracts only about 50 people-in a church which could easily hold many times that number.
Most of the people who attend are middle aged or older. Olaf Saykiewicz, a 30-year-old Polish immigrant, goes to Immaculate Heart of Mary to keep his traditions alive.
“We’re becoming more integrated, which is good, but at the same time we’re losing our identity,” he said.
This AP article appeared in the Herald Standard (Uniontown, PA) August 15, 2002