By Dan Laxer
The Suburban

St. Monica’s Parish Church has been in the same location, on Terrebonne near Bessborough, east of Cavendish Blvd, for three quarters of a century. This year is its 75th anniversary year, and church warden Paul Wong is worried that it may be their last in this location. Unless a solution can be found to the problems caused by the bicycle path that the Côte des Neiges-NDG borough installed last just July, deterring brides and the bereaved from accessing the church.

A similar bicycle path had been installed four years ago, but was removed due to public outcry. This past summer it was reinstalled on both sides of the street, and the configuration of Terrebonne changed to one-way on either side of Cavendish.

The street outside the front of the church is now a no-stopping zone, which means that seniors and people with mobility issues can no longer be dropped off out front. Bridal and funeral processions are also prevented from parking out front. As Wong told The Suburban, they’ve seen a drop in church attendance, which means a drop in collections, and other revenue streams, like hall rentals, that a church depends on. With little else left at their disposal, the church decided to write a letter to the city ombudsperson, Nadine Mailloux, asking her to intervene on their behalf.

“We have noted a 30% decrease in attendance at our masses and an accompanying decrease in donations,” Wong wrote to Mailloux. “We have had to [cancel] events. In the first time in our history we are running a deficit.”

They had appealed to the borough for solutions at least for funerals, to no avail. As per tradition, caskets are carried out the front door, down the front steps, to a waiting hearse. It’s dignified, say Wong and Father Joseph, and symbolic. But city officials won’t allow it. Rather, they have suggested the church use either the side alleyway, or the pathway between the church and the rectory. Wong says neither would work; the side alleyway is not wide enough to afford a dignified exit from the church. And the path between the church and the rectory is not structurally strong enough to accommodate a vehicle due to the tunnel that passes between the buildings (there are actually barriers installed midway on the path to block vehicular passage). A request for financial assistance to do the work necessary to widen the side alleyway was rebuffed, and the church can’t afford to have the work done on their own dime, especially since so many streams of revenue have been stymied by the bicycle path.

Another suggestion from the borough was to carry a casket out the back door, with pallbearers walking to the next street over – Borden — where a hearse would be parked, a ridiculous and unwieldy solution, say Wong and Joseph, and surely an unpleasant prospect for Borden residents. n