Monthly Archives: June 2022

Our Lady of Good Counsel Catholic parish sits at the bottom of Forest Hill in the North Ward of the City of Newark, NJ. The parish was established in 1904 and built up by waves of immigrant Catholics. Hard working Catholics. Pious Catholics. God-fearing Catholics.

By 1941 a massive new church building opened. Constructed under the direction of famed architects Maginnis and Walsh, the Irish neo-Gothic structure seats around 1,000 people. From early on there was a thriving school system in place centered on the parish. Generations of Catholics learned the faith – and the mass – from the Sisters of St. Joseph of Chestnut Hill and holy priests like Fr. Tom Smith

And then the asteroid hit. And like everywhere else the parish began slowly to die.

How do I know so much about this place?

Our Lady of Good Counsel was my home.

This was my father’s parish as a boy and into adulthood. He was baptized here. He received First Holy Communion and then Confirmation in the beautiful big church. He and Mom raised their family here. At least half of the sixteen of us kids were either baptized here, confirmed here, or married here. Six of my siblings are dead and three of them and my dad were buried from here. Many of us attended the grade school here. We worshiped here at daily mass every day for years. My own son was baptized here.

In the 1980’s the parish survived the monstrous and demonic Fr. Richard Galdon. For 25 years three successive Archbishops of Newark (including Peter Gerety and Ted McCarrick) allowed Galdon to stay despite his proclivities for sexually abusing altar boys and Boy Scouts.

There seemed to be a revival of sorts or at least a leveling off in the 90’s. But that was just the sense that it couldn’t possibly get much worse. My father railed against the sex ed curriculum. My mother pulled the youngest two of us out to homeschool us.

Then we had the influx of the Neocatechumal Way and their bizarre nonsense. Oh, by the way, ever hear of McCarrick’s “pipeline”? Yes. Look it up. It was confirmed to me by a very reliable source that it was all true. I guess the pipeline had a spout that run into the gutters of Good Counsel. There’s more. Check out the court filing of Fr. Bob Hoatson and draw your own conclusions.

Coof-o-Rama came along and effectively killed what was left of the core family or two who remained. The parish is still open and “active”. Sure, the schools all closed and the masses are almost non-existent. And now to pay the bills, the pastor and the Archdiocese lease the school buildings to a public high school. This is where we join the story tonight.

The Newark School of Fashion & Design occupies at least some of the property these days. And what a wonderful treat we get when we visit their Instagram page!

What Pride Month celebration would be complete without vulgar displays of twerking, rainbow flags, and God knows what else in the very shadow of the church? I mean, come on, you know the answer. Check out the pictures and video above. I’d recognize that 1950’s-era Catholic Institutional Style linoleum cafeteria floor anywhere! Mrs. Mooney used to serve me lunch there. The outside wall of the school building? Sr. Therese used to greet us good morning and clang her giant brass nun bell right there. And the red brick wall to the right of the kids twerking? That’s the dining room window of the rectory where Galdon abused children and stole their innocence.

Do we expect anything less from Joe “Nighty Night” Tobin? By the way, I’m not being disrespectful. Tobin met with a group of queers in the Cathedral Basilica and told them to call him their “brother Joe!”

Brother Joe, do you support this? Are you one of them? Do we know the answers? Could be. Something about walking like a limp wristed duck and all.

But for the sake of charity let’s assume no one at the chancery had a clue that by leasing space to a school for fashion design there would be a satanic parade on church property.

I’m sorry. I know you’re not dumb. Forgive my use of a literary device.

Call them.

973-482-1274. That’s the parish.

973-497-4000. Ask for Maria Margiotta, the Archdiocesan Comms Director.

And when Brother Joe gives you his tired synodal gay ways nonsense and says he’s building a bridge and accompanying people and not at all laughing at you for your silly adherence to the sixth commandment and the laws of nature; you can hang up and say a prayer for him.

Just don’t forget to tell him…

Nighty Night, Baby.

Mater Boni Consillii, Ora pro nobis!