Published: May 01, 2008 06:08 pm            

LETTERS: An invitation from St. Leo’s

In invitation from St. Leo’s

In October 2007, Bishop Edward Kmeic made the announcement that our church, St. Leo’s, would be merged with Prince of Peace. We were all surprised by the decision because we had been told by him that we would remain open during this first round of mergers and would be looked at again in three years. Although we don’t understand the reasons for this, there was acceptance because we were told that both churches would be used.

As you know, in mid-March, we received a much greater shock when we read in our bulletin that as of Sept. 1, 2008, there would be no further Masses held at our church with the possible exceptions of funeral and weddings. Since then, there has been an effort by approximately 50 members of our parish to change this and we are having some success. We have a verbal agreement that we will have Masses at 4 p.m. Saturday and 9 a.m. Sunday. We are still working with the diocese to assure that this happens, and that we get equal representation during this process and beyond when we become the St. Vincent de Paul Parish. We have been assured that it was never the dioceses intention that our church would not be used for Sacraments. We have also been told that another priest will be assigned, so our hope is that we will be able to get more masses if we can demonstrate the need.

The final point we want to make is to ask all of our parishioners that have left recently or in the past to please come back to our church. Our goal is to make St. Leo’s one of the most well-attended churches in the diocese. For those who have been unfortunate enough to have their churches closed, please give St. Leo’s Church a chance to become your new faith community.

Our prayer is that we will actually have Masses filled to capacity. Wouldn’t that be a wonderful “problem” to have? We know that there may be some adjustments, but our goal is to continue to nourish our bodies through the Sacraments and to serve God.

Margaret Guiliani

Committee to Save St. Leo’s Church



Pot holes and skin patches in the Falls

Every spring, the city of Niagara Falls spends substantial funds and effort plugging pot holes and skin patching rough pavement areas. Jut as surely, traffic removes much of this work and nearly all of the rest is pulled out by the next winter’s snowplows. An exercise in futility which assures employment for the Public Works employees, but in the 85 years I can recall, it has never produced streets of which anyone can be proud. Our rough rides also help the auto dealers as our cars shake apart prematurely.

Recent years have produced excellent equipment to remove deteriorated pavement to a level base. Paving equipment, using lasers, can place surface free of bumps and dips over which it is a pleasure to ride without damage to your car.

In view of experience, skin patching should be abandoned, only dangerous pot holes fixed, and removal and replacement of deteriorated pavement proceed as fast as possible on a traffic-priority basis, until all this deteriorated pavement has been replaced.

To maintain high quality roads, it is essential that any pavement repairs for plumbing breaks or manhole work be carefully repaired with properly compacted backfill and smoothly repaved to leave no dips or humps.

If the Public Works Department is incapable of this kind of program, it is time for the city to hire a competent contractor.

How much longer must we tolerate these terrible roads? Why don’t we put some of that casino money we dribble away into fixing the worst feature of Niagara Falls?

Tom Hooker

Youngstown

        

• Click to discuss this story with other readers on our forums.