by Gabe Donio

The subject of this column in the April 9, 2008 edition was a reaction to the announcement that Bishop Joseph Galante had decided to close St. Anthony of Padua Church on Route 206. The title of that column was “There is no reason to go down without a fight.”
Here is a bit of what I wrote in April:

My friends of other faiths who read this know what the loss of a place of worship means to a congregation. The Catholics of this region have not seen churches close that often – schools, but not churches.
It’s a more personal connection than a school. People are baptized in churches. They are married in churches. Their loved ones’ funerals are held there. Closing a church building will be like cutting off an arm or leg for many people.
And I’ll tell you what: If I had donated to a church for years, prayed in a church for years, stuck with it through scandal and strife, only to be told that the Church didn’t have enough priests, and the place had to be closed, I wouldn’t stand for it.
Who says this decision is set in stone?

What happened during the next several months in the wake of the announcement by Bishop Galante was inspiring. The parishioners at St. Anthony’s came together, organized and mobilized. They decided they did not want their church to close, and they decided to fight for it. Letters and e-mails were sent to the bishop – and those messages, some of them written in fairly blunt language — made an impact.
Some people scoffed at this effort at first, as they always do when people set out to do something that is supposedly impossible. It’s always amusing to me to watch people who never make an effort to fight for anything mock the people who do fight.
“Why are they wasting their time?” they always say.
And they’re almost always wrong.
It’s more fun for me to watch the looks on the doubters’ faces when the fighters win.
The looks on their faces were all over town, if you knew where to find them, last week. As those doubters scratched their heads, the fighters celebrated.
Let me take a moment to say this to everyone who wanted to keep St. Anthony’s Church open: this is your victory. You wanted it, you went out and did whatever it took to make it happen, and you made your dream a reality.
You have changed history, and that is no small feat.
On a personal note, I want to welcome the newly-named Priest Convener – who the Diocese of Camden said in a release would eventually be the new pastor here — to Hammonton. The Rev. Thomas Donio is my father’s first cousin. Many local readers may know Father Tom’s brother, Dennis Donio, who is a local farmer. Father Tom will be an excellent addition to the local community, and I want to welcome him home.
In recent years, we have seen local people fight – and win — battles for their school, their town, their hospital and their church. The unifying moral of the story from each of these battles has been this: no matter how strong an institution thinks it is, it is never stronger than the will of the people.
It is worth noting that St. Anthony of Padua is the saint Catholics pray to when they want to recover things that are lost. The faithful believe that if they pray to St. Anthony, whatever is lost will be found.
The parishioners of St. Anthony’s proved that point during these last several months. They never gave up; they always remained faithful, and they didn’t go down without a fight.
And what once was lost now is found.

Gabe Donio is the publisher of The Gazette.