2 Friars’ Mission: Reviving a Brooklyn Church in a Religious ‘Dead Zone’

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/03/nyregion/friars-reviving-brooklyn-church.html

Version 0 of 1.

The two Franciscan friars, complete with floor-length robes, stood behind the bar outside the 100-year-old church taking cash and slinging cans of Coors and Lime-A-Ritas in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Drinks in hand, over 200 people, many wearing black chokers, macramé bikini tops and denim overall shorts, crowded into the pews on a recent Thursday night, the pop of beer cans punctuating their arrival. But they were not waiting for a sermon — they were waiting for Josiah Wise, who goes by the name serpentwithfeet, an R&B singer whose songs have heavy gospel overtones.

This was not a typical church meeting, but the San Damiano Mission is no longer a typical church. On the brink of closing the church, the Diocese of Brooklyn called in the friars, Nicholas Spano, a deacon, and the Rev. Raphael Zwolenkiewicz, who are reintroducing Catholicism to the neighborhood in unconventional ways.

“We’re not here to be an invisible presence, but something very tangible,” Father Zwolenkiewicz, 65, said. “Whether it’s services in the church or out in front of the church just hanging out, or even on the corner, we’ll be in our vestments and saying hello to people as they walk by.”

On the border of Williamsburg and Greenpoint, where Sunday Mass often takes a back seat to brunch and shopping, the church had seen its membership dwindle.

“That area in Brooklyn, like many other areas in the Brooklyn Diocese, is undergoing a dynamic change in demographics,” the Rev. Msgr. Joseph Grimaldi, the Brooklyn vicar for the diocese, said last month. “Williamsburg is one of the largest areas that many millennials have settled in, and a good number of them are baptized Catholics, but have not really practiced their faith.”

“With 30 people, you can’t sustain a church,” Father Grimaldi said, “but in this case we came up with a novel approach.”

The friars, members of the First Order of St. Francis, took over the former Holy Family Slovak Church on Nassau Avenue in 2015. First, they changed its name to the San Damiano Mission.

Then they looked around. Masses were still being celebrated when most of the neighborhood was asleep, and the oak doors were chained and padlocked much of the time.

“All of our images said, ‘We’re gone and closed,’” Mr. Spano, 35, said.

They replaced the oak doors with glass ones.

“There’s a lot of foot traffic here Wednesday through Sunday between 10:30 p.m. and 4 a.m.,” Mr. Spano said. “To have the church not look its best at that time doesn’t help us.”

On a good Sunday, as many as 50 people now attend Mass. It is not a huge number, “but it is a difference,” he said.

St. Francis of Assisi was called upon by God to “rebuild my church for it is in ruin,” Father Zwolenkiewicz said. “So it’s the same idea that we were invited to come here and to reach out to the neighborhood and people who are here, to rejuvenate and to restore part of this community.”

Mr. Spano developed proposals to turn the church into an arts hub and a focal point for the community.

The friars wear their robes in public and can often be found running errands and grabbing their morning coffee in the neighborhood. Many are surprised to see the friars, they said, and some even mistake them for actors from a nearby film and television studio.

They frequently attend the concerts put on by the Lot Radio station, which operates out of a converted shipping container across the street. The groups have joined forces to raise money to restore a $226,000 pipe organ for the church by holding shows inside the mission, like the one featuring serpentwithfeet.

Sabrina Tamar, 27, has lived near the mission for 10 years.

“Most people weren’t aware of this at first, but there’s definitely a sense of community I feel hasn’t been in this neighborhood in a while,” she said before taking her seat at the concert. “It’s wonderful. The friars are so tolerant and welcoming.”

Other residents agreed.

“The friars know religion is a dead zone in this neighborhood, so if you want people to participate, you have to not preach,” one resident, Nikki Cohen, 30, said. She said she discovered the church through the radio station and the concert series. “This is a social place,” she said, “a community place you can come and hang out.”

For Aaron Sutula, the church beckoned.

Mr. Sutula, 34, attends church only on Christmas. But he said he walked by one night and the mission was empty, but its lights were on, so he stepped inside and lit a candle.

“My grandfather had just died the year before,” Mr. Sutula said. “They don’t have real candles because it’s New York City, so you just hit a button and it turns on the light. But it was nice.”

The friars have also paired with a Lutheran church to offer some services to homeless people, including making showers and barbers available every other Monday at the mission.

At a recent Sunday Mass, only about 25 people were in the pews. On this particular Sunday, a party at the Lot Radio the night before had kept some parishioners home from services, Mr. Spano said.

Toward the end of the Mass, Mr. Spano made several announcements, including an update on the pipe organ. They hope to have it back by Easter, he said, though once the organ is reinstalled, the fog machine used for concerts will have to go.