SAVE ST. LUCY'S

St. Lucy's Roman Catholic Church, an enduring fortress of tradition in a changing Newark, will lose the priest who was its spiritual guide for a half-century. But Monsignor Joseph Granato won't go without a fight -- a fight his supporters say will both maintain that tradition and keep the cleric in the city.

Granato, with the parish since 1955, bowed to demands from the Newark Archdiocese -- first made five years ago -- that he step down from what had been the center of Italian-American heritage in the city's old First Ward.

"That battle is over," says Anthony Rosamilia of Parsippany, a church trustee. "He will retire. The only question now is what happens to him and to St. Lucy's."

Rosamilia says parishioners and other supporters feared Granato's retirement in June would end the conservative practices of St. Lucy's, whose priests still dispense Communion to devout kneeling at an altar railing, offer Latin masses, reserve seats for old families and encourage devotion to obscure, regionally known Italian saints whose statues fill the church -- among other traditions now rejected by most Catholic churches.

The pastor himself is under a gag order and cannot speak for himself, Rosamilia says. At 80, however, he is fit and willing to continue leading the parish.

"I can say nothing," is all he will say.

But parishioners themselves, led by Rosamilia and Michael Genevrino, the executive director of the state Italian-American Heritage Institute, began organizing a protest march from St. Lucy's to the archdiocese's home church, the Sacred Heart Cathedral-Basilica, blocks away. They also encouraged "friends of St. Lucy's" to inundate the archdiocese with calls and letters.

"St. Lucy's is erupting," Genevrino declared. "It's a culture war."

"Save Saint Lucy's" posters went up in stores on Bloomfield Avenue and other streets in what had been the Italian section of New Jersey's largest city.

Within days, Genevrino announced the archdiocese offered Granato assurances he could continue to live in the parish rectory -- the alternative was a home for retired priests -- and that his replacement would respect the church's traditions.

Archbishop John Myers called Granato, Genevrino says, and told him the church's traditions were "devotions he shared and would not want to see changed."

Jim Goodness, an archdiocese spokesman, confirmed Granato would stay as pastor emeritus. He said he was unaware of the contents of the call from the archbishop.

"I think too many people are jumping to conclusions about what might happen at St. Lucy's," said Goodness. "No one has been named to replace Monsignor Granato."

The archdiocese faces a problem by committing the next pastor in advance to maintaining all the church's traditions.

St. Lucy's was established in 1891 at the peak of Italian immigration to Newark. From 1910 to 1920, priests at St. Lucy's performed 10,694 baptisms and 1,495 marriages. Fifty years later, the numbers have shrunk to a fraction of those rites.

It became more of a museum to the city's Italian past and old traditions of worship than a true Italian-American parish -- the parish's community center contains a museum, headed by Genevrino, honoring the neighborhood that is no more.

Change is anathema to St. Lucy's Italian-American supporters, most of whose families moved from Newark long ago but return for weddings, baptisms and funerals.

"Not everyone embraces change," says Genevrino, who lives in Clark.

Many with roots in the neighborhood believe they were refugees displaced by urban renewal and other government projects that, beginning in the 1950s, destroyed their neighborhood -- Columbus Homes, a low-income project since razed; the Colonnades, once a luxury high-rise; Route 280 that sliced into the last viable section of the ward.

In an earlier interview, Granato insisted Newark's Italians were forced out of the city and did not flee the city because it became predominantly African-American -- although the church almost closed in the wake of the 1967 riots.

The priest kept in contact with the families whose children and grandchildren -- many successful professionals -- now live in suburbs throughout the state and country. They became a revenue source that kept the church alive and in sparkling condition. He also raised nearly $2 million to build an outdoor plaza and shrine to St. Gerard Maiella -- an Italian saint considered a patron to motherhood -- as well as nearby low-income housing.

"We stayed," Granato said in the earlier interview. "It's the deal we made with parishioners. We stay if they stay."

The scions of the old families also represent political and financial power within the archdiocese -- and could account for why it has failed in the past to persuade the monsignor to leave. It is almost unheard of for priests -- normally rotated regularly throughout the diocese every few years -- to remain as long as Granato stayed at St. Lucy's.

Genevrino insists the protest has only been "postponed," not canceled.

"We will be vigilant," he says.

http://blog.nj.com/njv_bob_braun/2009/04/longtime_newark_priest_fights.html