"Churches are feeling the Pressure Under Fire, Too"

The slow recovery from the recession not only hit the businesses and employment, but churches as well across this country. Churches such All Souls' Episcopal Church in Harlem; the Little Flowers Baptist Church formerly located on Frederick Douglas Boulevard forced to close because of its membership and finances declining. The list goes on with Mount Morris Ascension Presbyterian Church located on Mount Morris Park West, also struggling to fill the churches' pews, and many programs and services. The pastor of Rescue Baptist Church on West 123rd Street said that his church is not drawing enough to pay his salary and had to take a second job working at a concession stand at Yankee Stadium to make ends meet.

The Roman Catholic Archdioceses of New York is also struggling financially and has closed several church parishes: St. Thomas the Apostle Church on 118th Street; and Our Lady Queen of Angles on 112th Street in East Harlem.

All Souls Episcopal Church in Harlem on St Nicolas Avenue in the past was packed with families and neighborhood people who valued "going to church." But, recent reports of gentrification of Harlem has help to deplete their longstanding position as younger residents, black and whites have arrive but have not taken vacant places in their church's pews. Longtime Harlem families have either sold their homes or simply chose to move south for their retirement have left the neighborhood and its churches. Deaths years after year have chipped away the aging groups as well leaving the churches' pews to be filled with newcomers.

The recession has been felt by everyone even the churches. How can this type of pressure end? It can end by not asking the average American citizen to make sacrifices certainly as some of these churches and members [the religious sector] have done, but those of the secular-political sector too. The sacrifice should not be only demanded or burdened by the "Church House" but the "White House" as well.

Let's take a reality check. The members of the White House and, people of Congress are being paid high competitive salaries and are not doing their job for which they swore to do. Yet, they are looking to for more to fill their pocketbooks by pandering or begging for votes from their states to send them back to Washington. For what? To do more begging and skating off the American people? When the "pressure" starts hitting the churches, its time to step back and take a reality check. Don't you think?