The creation of an art university

I've blogged here before concerning the wanton closing of my childhood parish.  Sorry to be a bore, but the story isn't mine alone.  Now Amy Welborn is linking to the most recent report about the closing and systematic desecration of St. Brigid, perhaps the most beautiful church in San Francisco and a parish that was, by all reasonable, relevant standards, doing just fine when Archbishop Quinn decided it would be useful for it to come to an end.   http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/25/MNGRSKRH2E223.DTL

This isn't just the now-usual business of selling everything to pay for the mistakes.  A long time ago, but within clear memory, Archbishop Quinn's administration decided to reorangize the Archdiocese of San Francisco.  Bells that used to ring out joy were ripped down and thrown away.  Why?

One thing the San Francisco Chronicle doesn't report this time -- it did years ago -- concerns how that administration's administration allowed the pastor of the neighboring (rich) parish to the vote to close St. Brigid, the parish that would most benefit from St. Brigid's destruction/suppression (btw,the parish of which he was previously an associate pastor).   Canon Law covers this stuff-- and for good reason. 

Rome, thank God, ALMOST came to the rescue.  One almost has to read the Chronicle -- the current story as well as many in the '90s and since -- to believe how Quinn manoeuvered to end the parish.  Its sale would generate the most money -- as the Chronicle alone revealed, back in the day -- to pay the settlements that, as we see now, loomed.   

Arch. Quinn's reported egalitarian protestations to Rome, about why not to save a "rich" parish when others would go hungry, should be read against the record that reflects -- and unequivocally -- that the parish promised not only to retrofit and support itself, but also to retrofit any parish of the Archbishop's selection.  Etc.  Be sure to add the fact that the Archdiocese harvested nearly one million dollars from closing the parish's savings account.  This is a story that reflects ill on almost all the American clergy involved, so far as I can tell. 

Fr. Cyril O'Sullivan, however, is a hero in the story.  He won't remember me, but I remember much of what he did back when the destruction loomed and then began. (Before and while he was defending the parish against the demolition artists, he was a wonderful minister to those who came to St. Brigid to pray and worship).  Many members of the laity at St. Brigid, including some mentioned in the Chronicle, also deserve great thanks.

St. Brigid church is now an "art university."