Barb Piurkowsky said she wanted to draw attention to the impending second anniversary of the closing of her church, St. John the Baptist.
And she said she wanted the public to question why the church near Brown Street in South Akron was shuttered and has remained empty for two years.
Piurkowsky and 10 others — family and friends — picketed outside the church Saturday afternoon, holding signs and asking passing motorists to honk their horns for support.
Signs lining the street denounced the closing and criticized church officials. Messages included “Empty Church Empty Hearts,” “We Built Our Church. You Take It. Why?” and “Why Are You ‘Still’ Putting Money in the Basket?”
Monday will mark the official two-year anniversary of the church closing.
“We want to know why this has sat empty for two years,” Piurkowsky said. “We want people to wake up. Why don’t you care our church is closed when your church is open?”
The diocese closed St. John the Baptist Roman Catholic Church as part of a restructuring in the diocese that called for 50 parishes in the eight-county area to close. The smaller St. John’s parish was merged with the Church of the Annunciation parish.
The diocese has said the closings and mergers were needed to cope with low membership, financial hardships, population shifts and a shortage of priests.
But Piurkowsky and others say they continue to question the diocese’s decision, believing the closing was simply about money. They are hoping appeals to the Vatican will reverse the decision and allow them to come back and worship at the church that had been a major part of their families for decades.
Piurkowsky said she was heavily involved in supporting St. John’s, attended church services weekly, sat on the parish finance committee and helped run weekly bingo games. The parish was financially solvent, she said, and had a significant savings account when it was closed.
Akron resident Nancy McGrath came to the protest to support her friends. She said she belonged to another parish in Cleveland that was closed about the same time as St. John’s.
McGrath and others worry that St. John’s will end up being sold to a local charter school.
“The sad thing is, we don’t know what’s going to happen,” McGrath said. A Catholic group could buy a closed church but not use it as a church, she said.
“The only reason to close it apparently was money,” she said.
“Now the priest’s home is all boarded up. The nuns’ home is all boarded up. It looks horrible,” Piurkowsky said.
Her husband, Anthony, said his parents started attending St. John’s about 68 years ago. He said he was baptized in the church.
He and his wife said they have not been to a regular church service since St. John’s closed.
“I still believe in God, but I don’t believe in the Catholic religion,” he said.
Instead of the St. John’s parish merging with the larger Annunciation parish, the Annunciation parish should have merged into St. John’s, he said. The Annunciation church was in disrepair while St. John’s was in sound condition, he said.
St. John’s traces its history to 1907 as a parish for Slovakian families. The congregation bought property on Brown Street for an elementary school that opened in 1927. Ground broke in 1941 for a church, and a rectory, convent and gymnasium were dedicated in 1951. As the parish grew, the church was expanded in 1958.
But in more recent years, the number of parishioners declined, with the last full-time priest retiring in 2005. The diocese said the parish, at 300 households, fell below the minimum 500 required for a full-time pastor. By the time the decision was made to close St. John’s, the number of households was down to about 250.
Bill Piurkowsky, Anthony’s brother, looked at the church and said he could see what had been his eighth-grade classroom. “To a lot of people, this is home,” he said. “But look at it. It’s closed. It’s closed.”
“We’re fighting an uphill battle,” Anthony Piurkowsky said.
“But you have to let them know how you feel,” his brother replied.
Jim Mackinnon can be reached at 330-996-3544 or jmackinnon@thebeaconjournal.com.