Page 6 - GC-Mar-Apr-2023

German places you should know about:

St. Matthew Roman Catholic Church in Buffalo

by Martin Ederer
omprising territories belonging
Cto the overcrowded parishes of
St. Mary Magdalene, St. Mary of
Sorrows and St. Gerard, St. Mat-
thew was created in 1908 by Bishop
Charles Colton, who appointed Rev.
George Sellinger its first pastor.
After the German parish was
formed in May 1908, it began work
on a two-story frame building on
June 19, 1908.
As it was nearing completion, a
thunderstorm almost destroyed it.
After a rebuild, Bishop Colton dedi-
cated the structure in August 1908.
The first floor was the church, and
the second floor was the school.
The sisters who taught in the school
lived in the attic.
Almost immediately the parish
laid plans for a more formal church
building, and in 1911 a cornerstone
likened the Romanesque Ohio sand- with Venetian mosaics, and a
for the new church was laid at East
Ferry Street and Wyoming Avenue, stone structure to Charlemagne’s Moeller organ.
cathedral complex in Aachen. In 1987, St. Matthew suc-
designed by architect George A.
Setter. Once the basement was While that may have indeed been cumbed to the same demographic
the inspiration, the similarities ap- problems many erstwhile German
complete, it served as the church
until the upper church was built. pear to be more imagined than real. parishes suffered – but with added
Outstanding furnishings includ- tragedy. In 1987 Rev. David Herli-
That portion of the project did not
begin until 1927. ed windows from Franz Mayer in hy, in residence at the rectory, was
Munich and local Otto Andrle win- murdered; a similar tragedy also
The fully completed church was
dedicated in 1928. Some writers dows, white Carrara marble altars occurred at St. Bartholomew
Church, where Fr. David Bissonette
was murdered.
Shortly afterward, the St. Mat-
thew was twinned with St. Bartho-
lomew Church. Both were closed in
1993 as part of a reorganization of
inner-city parishes.
Good intentions to make a major
Protestant spiritual center out of St.
Matthew’s Church in its post-Cath-
olic incarnation came to naught. By
2010 what little was left of the dere-
lict church had been stripped out. A
succession of real estate “flips” has
yielded no future. What is left of the
church continues to crumble.

War impacts

German economy
from page 1

ment should not increase subsidies
for fossil fuels.
Business lobby group
expects more losses
The Association of German
Chambers of Commerce and Indus-
try (DIHK), a prominent business
lobby group, on Monday also high-
lighted the costs of Russia's war to
the German economy.
The group forecasts that the war
and its impact would cost Germany
about 4% of GDP between Russia
launching its invasion in February
2022 and the end of 2023.
DIHK President Peter Adrian
told the Rheinische Post newspa-
per, the economy will generate
about €160 billion less – roughly
€2,000 per German resident.
Meanwhile, Germany's central
bank predicted that the country's
economy will likely enter a techni-
cal recession.
A recession is generally identi-
fied by a fall in GDP in two succes-
sive quarters, and the German
economy contracted in the fourth
quarter of 2022.
"Economic output in the first
quarter of 2023 is likely to be lower
than in the previous quarter once
again," the Bundesbank wrote in its
monthly report.
Looking ahead, the Bundesbank
said German economic output was
likely to decline slightly on average
in 2023, but that it was expected to
do a little better than the 0.5% fall
in GDP predicted in December.
rc/dj (dpa, Reuters)