THE PASTOR RESIGNS

By Fr. Wilson (articles ) | Apr 06, 2004

The Pastor of Saint Francis de Sales Church in NYC passed out a letter to his congregation last Sunday explaining why he had resigned his pastorate two days before. The letter is fascinating: undoubtedly we'll be hearing more of this story.

But as Father Murr tells his side of the story, his efforts as Pastor to rectify the financial mismanagement of his parish school, and to insist that Catholicism be effectively taught to the students, have been stymied by his Archdiocese.

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Posted by: - Apr. 08, 2004 10:30 AM ET USA
No coincidence that this takes place at a parish named after St Francis de Sales -- he still has a fire for converts and orthodoxy in hostile territory and continues to intercede for us. St Francis de Sales pray for us.
Posted by: extremeCatholic - Apr. 07, 2004 10:53 PM ET USA
The story is in the secular media now. In my blog extremecatholic.blogspot.com I've started to link to them. I bet that Cardinal Egan expected Fr. Murr to fold just as he himself did. He's miscalculating the drive of his younger pastors to reform their parishes, financially, behaviorally, and catechetically. I met Fr. Murr once at St. Francis de Sales Church.
Posted by: shrink - Apr. 07, 2004 7:58 PM ET USA
In his resignation statement, one of the pieces of evidence that Fr. Murr produces to suggest there is a problem at the parish is the results of a standardized catechism test--66% students flunked it. We don't here much about how the other schools in the NYC diocese are doing on this test, but one wonders if since the arrival of Egan, there has been, along with an evident decline in morale, a decline in catechesis.
Posted by: - Apr. 07, 2004 3:45 PM ET USA
Bravo to Fr. Murr! And shame on Cardinal Egan! It is very clear which one is the true witness to the Catholic Faith.
Posted by: John J Plick - Apr. 07, 2004 11:08 AM ET USA
Amazing! A diminutive form of "living" martyrdom! May God have mercy on the soul of the Monsignor.
Posted by: - Apr. 07, 2004 6:57 AM ET USA
What is wrong with the Archdiocese of New York and Cardinal Egan? I always thought Card. Egan was a "conservative." I would of resigned also. In my diocese, very few seminarians are from Catholic schools. Most of them are from public schools. Catholic education has gone the way of CCD (or faith formation, or religious education): down the toilet. New York Archdiocese, I hear, has a serious shortage of priests. Dunwoodie has hardly any seminarians. Why lose a pastor who wants orthodoxy.
Posted by: - Apr. 06, 2004 10:41 PM ET USA
Fr Murr's letter was a witness to fortitude and faith; clearly there's no room in the diocese for a man like that. The diocese might be worried that if too many uppity orthodox Catholics see firings like this, they may start to connect the dots and wonder why it doesn't happen higher up the food chain.