ST JOHN KANTY: A HARD BOILED PARISH?

In 1941 the article below appeared in The CommonwealCommonweal, founded in 1924, is the oldest independent lay Catholic journal of opinion in the United States. It was credited with helping to prepare American Catholics for Vatican II and its aftermath, and current readers say Commonweal has helped them weather the sexual-abuse scandal in the church and work through questions and frustrations related to the role of women, the relationship between religion and politics, and church teachings on sexuality.

Below is an interesting story about the East Buffalo-Broadway Fillmore neighborhood and the Parish: “At least 90% of the people were Catholics, but only about a third practiced their religion.”

Read this informative and sometimes entertaining piece to learn what was done to ‘turn things around’! Can history repeat itself? Are there any more Fr Garstka’s out there??!! (Read the article, followed by two photos of Fr “Shorty” Garstka which were reproduced from the SJK Golden Jubilee yearbook from 1942.)

An interesting parallel story in present day is the pruning back of the shrub growing at the corner of the church to open up the walkway between the parking lot and the Broadway entrances to SJK. This shrub also obstructed our cornerstone. The pruning ended up to be quite severe, but this Spring, with the coming of warm weather, the shrub started to sprout and is now on its way to becoming beautiful again. “WE SEE NEW GROWTH FROM OLD ROOTS” – CAN WE SEE THIS IN OUR PARISH COMMUNITY???

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