Letter to editor about St. John Parish

The following letter was published in the Akron Beacon Journal today, Tuesday, June 30:

Decision on St. John made thoughtfully

I am saddened by the anger and misinformation in Barbara Piurkowsky's letter (''Faith shaken by church merger,'' June 12) concerning the merger of St. John and Annunciation parishes.

The decision to merge Annunciation and St. John parishes was made by 30 people from six different cluster parishes over 18 months, and wasn't based on cronyism, greed or deception, but on factors related to location, membership, ministries and other facts and figures. The process has been difficult, inspiring, time-consuming, fulfilling, exhausting, exhilarating and always based on faith and transparent truth.

Some reasons for locating the new parish at the Annunciation site are: St. John the Baptist is an ethnic/personal parish with approximately 320 registered members (some live close and many are scattered) with no boundaries. Annunciation is a larger territorial parish serving East Akron/Goodyear Heights with approximately 1,492 registered members (two-thirds within a two-and-one-half-mile radius).

Annunciation Church is in excellent condition, generates rental income, is compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, landscaped with green spaces, and has a senior-citizens apartment, the St. Vincent DePaul Center, HM Life housing, parking next to the church, a lot across the street and soon about 40 more angle parking spaces in front on Broad Street.

Statistics don't show the Annunciation area to be any higher in crime than the St. John area.

The merger of St. John and another parish was an afterthought, after the clustering process was complete and would merge two parishes that still would fall short of the 500 families needed for a full-time priest.

I encourage the people of St. John to participate in the merger process to create a vibrant new parish.

Michael J. Herhold
Akron

Editor's note: The writer was a member of the team that worked on the merger.