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  Resurrection Church Will Close
Archdiocese Plans to Sell Property

By Matt Batcheldor
The Courier-Journal [Louisville KY]
December 13, 2004

The old Resurrection Catholic Church on Poplar Level Road, which has continued to hold weekend Masses after merging with Guardian Angels parish in 1999, will close permanently next month.

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville plans to sell the church property, part of which is leased to Pitt Academy, to the Highlands Latin School for an undetermined sum. The sale is not final, but the last Mass will be celebrated at Resurrection on Jan.9, archdiocese spokeswoman Cecelia Price said.

Proceeds from the sale will help rebuild the archdiocese's coffers in the wake of a $25.7million settlement last year with victims of priest sexual abuse, Price said. Selling the church property was included in a five-year financial plan issued last year.

"Certainly, we understand it's a loss for the people who had been worshipping there," Price said.

Pitt Academy will stay at the Resurrection site through the end of the school year, but it might move afterward, principal Melinda Keiner-Rummel said.

She said the school was considering a move before the sale, perhaps to the old Thomas Merton Academy on Poplar Level Road or the old St. Rose School on Burnett Avenue. Both of those schools closed in the past year. It also may remain at the Resurrection site.

Pitt Academy is a private school for 51 special-needs students from kindergarten to 12th grade.

Brian Lowe, a member of the family that runs the Latin School, said Pitt Academy would have a home there for the foreseeable future. He said that there are no plans to move the Latin School there, and that the Latin School would use the Resurrection property for its publishing division.

The Latin School, a private school for 140 students from kindergarten to 12th grade, meets at Crescent Hill Baptist Church.

Churchgoers, who were first told of Resurrection's closing at the 4p.m. Mass yesterday, were heartbroken but not surprised.

Barbara Sohan, who has attended Resurrection for more than 25 years, said that paying a settlement for priest sexual abuse was no reason to shutter a church.

"If you look into it, the archdiocese owns numerous amounts of property," she said. "For them to take and use this as a way to take care of their finances, I think that's all wrong."

Sohan said she had expected the church would eventually close since the parish school was merged in 1990 with St. Ignatius Martyr and Guardian Angels to become Thomas Merton Academy. Thomas Merton, which was located next to Guardian Angels on Poplar Level Road, closed last year.

Price said the archdiocese had pondered a sale since administrative offices for Resurrection were merged with Guardian Angels in 1999. Masses continued to be held at Resurrection as an outreach of Guardian Angels, she said.

Many of the people who attended Resurrection became members of Guardian Angels after the merger, and they are encouraged to start attending church there, said the Rev. Daniel Lobsinger, pastor of Guardian Angels.

Lobsinger said the closing was not his decision. But he offered another reason the archdiocese is closing the church: Mass attendance was dwindling, as airport expansion forced many of the residents who were parishioners to move. He said that while the Saturday Mass is well-attended because of its time, Mass on Sunday draws few people.

"I feel bad for the people, obviously," he said. "Some of the people had been there 50 years."

Bill Carlisle, one of the original parishioners, remembers meeting in an old produce terminal until the church was finished in 1957.

"I hate to see it go," he said. "Guardian Angels is a good place, but it's not home."

 
 

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