Save Sacred Heart rally set for 2 p.m. Sunday

A Save Sacred Heart rally will be held at the base of the iconic church’s steps, at Utica and Gratiot in Roseville, this Sunday at 2 p.m.
While the Detroit Archdiocese is determined to close Sacred Heart – the oldest suburban Detroit Catholic parish – parishioners are encouraged to attend the rally and tell their stories of experiences at the church: sacraments such as baptism, communion, confirmation, marriage and even funeral services for loved ones. A prayer for the survival of the 154-year-old parish will follow.

The Detroit Archdiocese, after less than a year, has abandoned its merger of Sacred Heart, Our Lady Queen of All Saints in Fraser and St. Athanasius in Roseville under the collective name-change of St. Pio – a three-campus parish with limited mass services at each of the locations.

The other two churches involved in this equation were created in the early 1960s as the Archdiocese chopped up the Sacred Heart parish into many new parishes as Macomb County’s population grew.

The latest information is that Queen of All Saints will shut down in a matter of weeks, with the last mass scheduled for June 30.


St. Athanasius

St. Athanasius will remain open and, once the building undergoes some “structural” renovations, Sacred Heart will close and the consolidation will be complete.
A Detroit Archdiocese spokesman told The Macomb Daily earlier this month that the plan to close the two churches will be reviewed by the Presbyterial Council, a priest advisory board that assists Detroit Archbishop Allen Vigneron on governance and pastoral matters.
“It would be up to (Vigneron) to accept, reject or modify the proposal,” Ned McGrath said.

But it now appears that no review is forthcoming and the decision is final.

Lifetime Sacred Heart parishioner Pat Chownyk, 82, organizer of Sunday’s rally, is now blamed by the newly created three-church pastor, Father Greg Rozborski, for spreading so-called misinformation about the Sacred Heart closure.

Chownyk

“Fr. Greg told me that it doesn’t matter what I do or what anybody says,” said Chownyk, president of the Roseville Historical Society. “He said Sacred Heart is going to be closed and put up for sale.”
Chownyk, who gained local Internet notoriety by vowing to chain herself to the church steps if Sacred Heart shuts its doors, said she plans to speak from those steps on Sunday, despite a warning that such a move would be trespassing.

Loyal parishioners hope that many of the large families that attended the church or the former Sacred Heart School will attend the rally. Sacred Heart’s extended family, those who were baptized or married there or who have loved ones buried in the church cemetery, are also invited to take part.