St. Mary Roman Catholic Church — Local services in New York

Tried to get a church mass and ash blessing for my father who had passed. When I spoke to the church secretary she had confirmed that I had booked the mass and the blessing. I then called the day before the mass to CONFIRM that both the mass and the blessing was taking place and was once again told they would be happening and that my payment for these services had been accepted.

I checked in an hour a before the mass with my fathers ashes in hand to make sure everything was gonna go smoothly. Shook hands with the “pastor” (I use that term loosely) and seemed to be confirmed everything was happening correctly.

The mass went as planned, very smoothly with my fathers name being mentioned in the service. However it did not end as such.

Once the mass ended the “pastor” walked off his stage and my family sat in the pews waiting for the ashes to be blessed. I had 3 full pews of family that came from all over NY just to be in for the service. This “pastor” then proceeded to tell us that there was a miscommunication between the secretary and himself regarding the blessing of the ashes and that he did not plan on blessing any ashes.

Now, I am not upset about the miscommunication, things happen. How this “pastor” proceeded to address the issue is where things took a turn. Rather than try and fix the issue, he would blatantly refuse to do ANYTHING for my father, despite the miscommunication being the church’s fault. This “pastor” then proceeded to try to laugh off their mistake, blame me for not mentioning the blessing earlier and continuously refuse to do anything. He’s doing all this while I am HOLDING my father’s ashes and with my grandmother, my fathers mother, begging for anything to be done, no matter how informal. This man could’ve done ANYTHING and we would’ve accepted it. But his continuous blatant refusal left us confused, upset and overall disappointed.

So of course my family in shock spent more time in the church. Trying our best to do something to honor my lost father. We stayed for a little while after the mass, prayed together, splashed my dads ashes with holy water and said our goodbyes to each other. My emotional uncle stayed in a pew for a long time holding my father and grieving. As this is happening, I’m noticing the “pastor” continuously checking the church to see if we had left, seemingly trying to impose his will on us to leave.

He would come out again, still trying to continuously laugh off this issue and FINALLY apologize to us for the miscommunication, blaming his new secretary for the mistake, but still reiterating that he’s not gonna help us. We would then stay for a little while longer and the “pastor” would still continuously check the church and send someone else to check. He must’ve had a hot date and had to be on time for it, the elementary school was about to let out.

This is supposed to be a servant of god and he looked at a grieving family who only wanted their loved one to be paid some sort of respect in any capacity by the church and disrespectfully refused to do ANYTHING. This will be my last time ever interacting with...

Racist church — it is disgusting to see that in this day and age there is still SO much racism! One night I walked into this church with a friend and we were made so uncomfortable we left. Last night, I walked in and then my daughter walks in shortly after and some guy comes over to us, in a disgusting manner, aggressive tone, asking us to leave because the church is closed. I looked around and there were several (3) Caucasian people praying. I asked why they were not asked to leave — he replied the church is closed, come back — when it’s open! I waited outside for 5 minutes, the other folks never walked out! He locked the door behind us but the side door remained open. Disgusting — you should be ashamed...

Don't even think of donating clothes here. Their pick up schedule and service is horrible. They kept promising the pick up and after 5 days of keeping my 12 full bags of clothes in the middle of my apartment waiting for them, they said that they don't pick up from Queens. The agent was rude and when I said it is 12 bags of clothes and you should help the people in need and arrange a pick up, he said he...