Saint Cecilia’s Roman Catholic Church

Our experience with Saint Cecelia’s has been frustrating and sad with some truly glorious moments scattered through~like our son as an alter boy, and our little daughter in the Christmas pageant. The priest that was there when we first moved here in the early 80’s; was a very arrogant man. and he did not like children!!! My husband at one time while returning a movie to the video store (remember them?); saw this priest walk into the «back» room! it was rumored he had a girlfriend! Well, that rumor came true… and so did his charge of stealing money from the weekly collection! And yes he was excommunicated. But this man was there for several years telling us… married, young parents~trying to get it all right.
We left this church a while ago and it hurt both our children. They made their sacraments there. BUT… the last 3 or 4 pastors have practically dismantled St Cecelia’s. We so miss the 2 Fr Toms and Fr Dennis that served here in the very early years. One sadly was called home, and the other two of whom either would have made a great pastor~we’re transferred. We also had a great priest that was a widower and entered the priesthood late in life. He was wonderful, he understood the challenges and triumphs of young families unfortunately the parish wasn’t allowed for him to stay either. and as much we all loved him and fought to keep him, «they» moved him to be a high school principal, because he had been a teacher. Never mind the knowledge and compassion he had for parents and marriages! the funny thing is, that school was closed only a few years later! That’s when the parish was alive.
Unfortunately diocesan politics got in the way and we were sent a string of priests that had there own agenda, not the people~families, young couples, there were others along the 15+ years we were parishioners there with equally uncaring and disrespectful attitudes to their people. l one in particular, this man that became our pastor was a control freak and, found it necessary to change everything down to the most basic traditions that made our young parish unique. The saddest thing was that this took place at a very critical part in our children’s journey to adulthood. They still have their faith, in God. But not in the Catholic Church as the business that it is, the machine. And now as they start their own families, I worry that the damage in the trust of the church has been irreparably damaged.