Altar

The snow was still coming, the cutting teeth of a harsh winter wind slashing at everything in sight, when Sister Mary Rosita Brennan stepped from a taxi in front of the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul to begin the long, slow goodbye to her dear old friend. It would be three more hours before the cathedral organ would sound the processional hymn signaling the start of the solemn funeral Mass and Rite of Committal with final commendation for Cardinal John Krol. But Sister Mary Rosita had come from Newark, where a sudden storm had turned the roadways into an icy agony.

As construction was winding down at the new Blessed Teresa of Calcutta Church building in Limerick, Jack Schmidt sneaked in to get a glimpse of his past. The retired Peco worker had grown up in West Kensington as a member of St. Boniface Catholic Church, which closed in 2006 and which was demolished last year. But inside Blessed Teresa was a 37-foot-high reminder of the years Schmidt, 71, served as an altar boy, attended Boy Scout meetings, and went to school in the Philadelphia parish.

If this is not an altar of justice which we stand about - if we are not all ministers here of justice to feed its sacred flame - what is the altar and what do we do here about it? It is an altar of sacrifice if it is not an altar of justice; and to what divinity is that altar erected? What, but the divinity of party hate and party rage? A divinity to which we may ascribe the Greek character given of envy: that it is at once the worst and the justest divinity, for it dwarfs and withers its worshipers.

The Pope of Eddystone, an outcast of the Episcopal Church of the 1970s, has emerged from more than a decade in obscurity. And he's dubbed himself the Archbishop of Bradford. After more than a decade of leading worship services in a side-street house in the Delaware County borough of Eddystone, the man who made himself pope finally has a church. However, he said in an interview on Sunday, no one in this small northwestern Pennsylvania town is aware that he once ruled as pope back in Eddystone.

Kids and adults yesterday joined in costume parades and contests for a Day of the Dead Fiesta - a Mexican folk celebration - along South Street. A procession with candles to honor those who have died moved to the Thrift for AIDS shop at 629 South St., where an altar was set up for gifts and prayers.

Among those at the altar are most of the first 11 women ordained as Episcopal priests. Marking the 25th anniversary of the event, at the George W. South Memorial Church of the Advocate, 18th and Diamond Streets, are (from left) the Revs. Eleanor Lee McGee, Suzanne Hiatt, Katrina Swanson, Marie Moorefield, Merrill Bittner, Carter Heyward, Alison Cheek, Nancy Wittig, Emily Hewitt and Alla Bozarth-Campbell.

Mass was celebrated in the sanctuary of St. Peter Celestine Roman Catholic Church in Cherry Hill yesterday for the first time since an arsonist burned the altar and caused $100,000 in smoke damage to the building on Christmas Eve. Church services had been conducted at Cherry Hill West High School and St. Peter Celestine School for the congregation's approximately 4,000 parishioners. A former Cherry Hill resident, described as a street person living in Philadelphia, was arrested Jan. 5 and charged with setting the fire.

The Rev. Robert W. Gaghan, pastor of St. Gabriel's Roman Catholic Church in the Grays Ferry section of South Philadelphia, died Wednesday. He was 60. A Norbertine priest since his ordination in 1954, Gaghan had been pastor of St. Gabriel's for the past four years. For 21 years he taught at Bishop Neumann High School. "Father Bob," as he was known to family and friends, was known by another name by the hundreds of children in his parish. He was called "The Candy Man. " He carried hard candy in his pockets for the children and traded the candy for a hug as the kids lined up before and after Mass.

Today we celebrate with joy. Our years of planning and waiting are complete. Our dreams have come true. That refrain, composed by a parishioner and sung to the calypso cadence of two 12-string guitars, seemed to sum up the feelings of many of the members of Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish last weekend as their new church was dedicated. The time-honored ceremony, which may be performed only by a bishop, is solemn, joyous and replete with Christian symbolism. Bishop James T. McHugh, who heads the Diocese of Camden, described the rite as "one of the most important things a bishop can do, second only to ordaining priests.

A three-alarm fire caused heavy damage to St. Irenaeus Catholic Church on 73rd Street near Meadowlark Place, Southwest Philadelphia, early today. It was the third fire to strike the church in recent years. No one was in the church at the time, and no one was injured. The fire, which may have started in the sacristy, just off the altar, or in the dormer above, according to fire officials, was brought under control at 4:29 a.m. Although the cause of the blaze was not immediately known, the Rev. Nicholas Cudema, assistant pastor, said: "If this fire is the result of neighborhood vandalism, it's almost like these people don't deserve a church.