Anonymous $20 million donation saves church built by Irish immigrants

"But the facts—and the selective way they are dealt with in too much of the mainstream media—do suggest that the story line declaring the Catholic Church a uniquely perverse institution is a lie; those who perpetrate it are either ignorant bigots, or people with agendas other than the protection of young people, or both." (George Weigel, firstthings website, Dec 5th 2012) (George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.)

KweenOHearts.... So we are supposed to be "pathetic bigots" and "cyber-foaming at the mouth". Read "your post" once again, and see if the word transference comes to mind.

Dontcha just love faux-news orgs like Irish Cetral?? They provide such a wonderful service! Were it not for them... where would embittered, pathetic bigots Stan James, Will Hamilton, McNamara31 and, of course eiriamach, whose chosen denom: -the lilly-white, impeccable, never erring, homo-loving, and ever-fracturing-by-bits-and-pieces 'episcopasties church' is soooo perfect! Where would these folks go for their daily cyber-foaming at the mouth? I mean, has anyone ever heard of children being emotionally or physically damaged in that particular sect... or in ANY other prot sect for that matter? ---- Wouldn't it be uplifting to us all, if those people who surely wake up every morning -even before sipping their first cup in a long stream of 'Irish coffee'- instead of looking for their daily rant-vehicle gave us the pleasure of enumerating the number of hours they've volunteered at the perfect organizations they belong to, and/or the enormous amounts of $$ they've contributed to keep those places operating? --- Gawd, it must smart like hell, when rather than hearing that loud thud they so-long for at the disintegration of the CC, news of full pews and generous mega-donors assault their long-suffering sensitivities!

McNamara - I happen to agree with you. My comment was directed at the IC agenda and its daily if not hourly negativity vs the Church. A lot of good was done and is still being done. It's nice to see a positive IC article for a change; that was my point.

s/b: It's a very sad day, when the organization we are "saving" these churches from, is the RC Church itself.I wonder how many historic churches are demolished in Rome?

Smyrnian.... The situation the RC Church finds itself in today was not caused by "anti Catholic" views; rather its current state is in direct result of a hierarchy who acted like criminals in a cover up, rather than Shepherds of men and protectors of children. The reason for the continued silent stampede of "good Catholics" from the pews is due to a total lack of faith in this Pope, and some bishops because they looked out for their welfare and image, at the price of our children and the peoples trust.$2.5 billion has been spent by the church to clean up their actions; now they have utter disregard for the spiritual history of these first devout immigrants who built these churches and schools. Billions have been made by the Irish on Wall St and I hope this will start a trend to save "our" immigrant churches.It's a very sad day, when the organization we are these churches from, is the RC Church itself.I wonder how many historic churches are demolished in Rome?

It must have been painful for Niall to write a positive story concerning the RC Church. It is apparently agonizing for the usual anti Catholic posters as evident by their whining, hand wringing comments below and, no doubt, more to follow.

whoa! shoulda gave the money to our struggling Catholic Schools....

God bless this wonderful donor. I know people from this parish, and they were desperate to have the church & school remain intact. Cardinal Egan was "full steam ahead" to get rid of this church and sell the property for development. How's that working out Cardinal? I don't think the NY Archdiocese ever expected someone to step forward to donate that kind of money, but the people of this parish and the children of St. Brigid's School will do this donor proud. I couldn't be happier for them -- good does will out. When I see the College of Cardinals, all prancing around in their fancy dudes and $300 shoes, it makes me sick. They should all read "The Shoes of the Fisherman" by Morris West and get a grip on reality in the 21st century. The Catholic Church has so much money, art, priceless artifacts, that no church or school should ever close.

About twenty years ago the Archdiocese of San Francisco needed money so the sold off Saint Brigid Church, also built by Irish immigrants, to an art college. The exterior of the church remains, but what the inside is like, I don't know. People fought hard, but...not enough money.

It is so pathetic and, indeed, offensive to see the lies that people tell themselves when they cannot face the horrendous facts of their Church's sexual abuse of children and its cover-ups of crimes. Lashing out at those who are dealing with the brutish facts and who, in consequence, have separated themselves from that Church is blunt bullying and displaced fury. I enter a plea for understanding of ex-Catholics who are still working through what irishamerica46, with the beam blinding his/her own eye, calls someone else's "anger issues." It will be generations before the harsh reality of a multitude of children abused by churchmen fades into a paragraph in the history books, so let's try to deal with it in an honest and tolerant, if not a Christian way.

stanJames I totally agree we should fight each Bishop's attempt to limit the statue of limitations; however at the same time, these famine era churches were the work of the blood and sweat of the poorest of Irish immigrants, and should remain in memory of them and their devotion to God even though the present day church leadership fails to honor their memory.

SJ mentions SNAP. The “100,000 per SNAP” fallacy comes up regularly on this site. It is of course nonsense, and is debunked by the definitive reports of the (non-Catholic) John Jay College of Criminal Justice and (non-Catholic) Penn State professor Philip Jenkins.

Jacersagain, excellent post. And thanks for calling out StanJames. The embittered anti-Catholics and bigoted atheist fundamentalists are becoming increasingly desperate in their attempt to reduce every story about the Church to the issue of abuse. How tedious they are in their failing desperation. And, as you point out, they are just pathetic hypocrites, feigning sympathy and pretending they care about abuse victims, or the poor. It is well known that the historical incidence of child abuse in the Church is dwarfed by secular statistics and even by other religions. Also, that the Church has put its house in order since the Dallas conference and its child protection measures have recently been called “state of the art” by people like Elizabeth Yore.

There are men in every walk of life who have hurt children. Would you condemm all doctor's, lawyers, teachers,ministers, boy scouts etc and possible some who work in whatever field you are in? Yes the priests who molest kids deserve to burn in hell. But saving that beautiful Church is commendable and has nothing to do with bad priests.You need to look at what you're really angry at. If you can't see that there are good people in the Church who donate their time and talents to help the less fortunate perhaps a shrink needs to be in your future plans so you can learn to deal with your anger issues.