{"id":10301,"date":"2017-01-31T00:43:08","date_gmt":"2017-01-31T05:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=10301"},"modified":"2017-01-30T22:55:30","modified_gmt":"2017-01-31T03:55:30","slug":"status-of-brick-catholic-church-remains-in-limbo-amidst-mergers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2017\/01\/status-of-brick-catholic-church-remains-in-limbo-amidst-mergers\/","title":{"rendered":"Status of Brick Catholic Church Remains in Limbo Amidst Mergers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Church<\/a>

Church of Epiphany, Brick, N.J. (Credit: Diocese of Trenton)<\/p><\/div>\n

Parishioners of one Roman Catholic church in Brick Township are hoping their parish family\u00a0will still be together in 18 months.<\/p>\n

Amidst a slew of decisions on merging and linking churches within the Diocese of Trenton, Epiphany Parish, in the township\u2019s Herbertsville section, was largely left in limbo.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cStatus of Epiphany to be reviewed no later than July 1, 2018,\u201d was all the diocesan report, Faith in Our Future, said about the church beyond a general instruction to work with other parishes in a local grouping known as a cohort. Rev. Michael A. Santangelo, the parish\u2019s pastor, did not return a call seeking comment. Rayanne Bennett, a spokeswoman for the diocese, said \u201cthere\u00a0is no further information or instruction on this matter beyond what was released from the Bishop.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no indication as to why Epiphany Parish was cited for further review, but these are matters that would be sorted out in the implementation phase, which begins within a month or so,\u201d said Bennett.<\/p>\n

Parishioners who spoke with Shorebeat said the parish owes no debt to outside sources, but is behind on assessments that are required to be sent to the diocese. Though Bishop David M. O\u2019Connell gave the church an 18-month-long reprieve, parishioners said, there was no indication as to what the parish would be required to do in order to stay afloat as its own entity.<\/p>\n

Across the diocese, churches were ordered to enter into a collaborative model with others, be formally linked to other parishes or to be completely merged into other parishes. Merged and linked parishes would share a pastor \u2013 merged parishes would maintain joint finances and ministries.<\/p>\n

Aside from Epiphany, Brick\u2019s two other Catholic churches \u2013 St. Dominic and Visitation \u2013 will remain separate and distinct\u00a0parishes \u00a0but were told to work together whenever possible.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Parishioners of one Roman Catholic church in Brick Township are hoping their parish family\u00a0will still be together in 18 months. Amidst a slew of decisions on merging and linking churches within the Diocese of Trenton, Epiphany Parish, in the township\u2019s Herbertsville section, was largely left in limbo.\u00a0 \u201cStatus of Epiphany to be reviewed no later […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5947,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[24,943,84,2741],"class_list":["post-10301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life-in-brick","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-diocese-of-trenton","tag-epiphany-parish","tag-roman-catholic-church"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/epiphany_church.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-2G9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}