Atlantic City parishes merging; two churches closing

Faced with declining finances and church attendance, Atlantic City's four Catholic parishes will be merged into one, Camden Bishop Dennis Sullivan announced Friday.

The combined parish will be called the Parish of St. Monica as of July 1. Our Lady Star of the Sea and St. Nicholas of Tolentine will serve as the churches of the parish.

The churches of St. Monica and St. Michael will be closed as of July 1, a diocesan spokesman said.

At a briefing Friday, Sullivan introduced the priests assigned to the merged parish. "I am giving Atlantic City some of the best of our clergy as a sign of our commitment to the city," he said.

The new pastor is the Rev. Jon-Peter Thomas, 33, from Our Lady of Guadalupe in Lindenwold. The others are the Rev. Thanh Pham, 34, who is Vietnamese and from St. Peter Church in Merchantville, and the Rev. Fernando Carmona, 42, who is from Argentina and serves at St. John Neumann in North Cape May, according to spokesman Peter Feuerherd.

In 2011, the diocese announced a plan to consolidate or close churches and schools in Atlantic, Camden, Cape May, Cumberland, Gloucester, and Salem Counties. Since then, the number of churches has been whittled from 124 to 68.

The decision to merge the Atlantic City parishes came after a two-year study that looked at Mass attendance, and parish finances and structures.

Since October 2011, weekly Mass attendance at St. Michael is down 16 percent; at St. Monica, 15 percent; and at St. Nicholas, 4 percent, according to Feuerherd. Our Lady Star of the Sea has seen a slight increase, he said.

The new parish is expected to have about 1,500 families, with weekly Mass attendance of 5,400.

St. Monica, on Pennsylvania Avenue north of Atlantic Avenue, was started nearly 100 years ago as a ministry of Emma "Mother" Lewis for Catholics of color who were not welcomed in white churches. It has prided itself on its diversity. Its website speaks of serving the African American, Anglo, Hispanic, Liberian, Nigerian, Haitian, and Filipino communities. Its Sunday Masses are in Haitian Creole, English, and Spanish.

Parishioners have spoken against a possible closing in the past, and their Haitian-born pastor, the Rev. Yvans Jazon, had encouraged them to fight a closing by bringing in more churchgoers.

Feuerherd said the new pastor will continue outreach to African Americans in Atlantic City. Jazon, he said, will be leader of the diocese's Haitian ministry but based in a different church. He said he did not know which one.

Feuerherd said Sullivan is considering starting an Office of Ethnic Ministries that would include Jazon.

Jazon could not be reached for comment Friday.

Feuerherd said the new pastor and the parish will decide what to do with St. Monica's and St. Michael's buildings. St. Michael's is across the street from the new Bass Pro Shops location.

Our Lady Star of the Sea, just a few blocks west of St. Michael's on Atlantic Avenue, has a school, which will also remain open. St. Nicholas is at Tennessee and Pacific Avenues.

At the news conference, Sullivan thanked Jazon and the other churches' lead priests for their service.

The bishop also showed a painting commissioned by the diocese for the new parish, of St. Monica, who was African, standing on the Boardwalk with the Atlantic Ocean behind her. Feuerherd said the painting also has an Asian child Jesus, a Caucasian child, and a young St. Augustine, who was St. Monica's son. The painting was done by Camden artist Brother Michael O'Neill McGrath and is intended to show Atlantic City's diversity.

"We are looking to the past with deep appreciation of the tradition and bringing it to the future," Sullivan said.