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Ellwood City’s Nativity display to move from borough site to private property
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By Bill Vidonic
Published: Friday, November 9, 2012, 12:01 a.m.
Updated: Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Ellwood City will have a Nativity display this year, but on private property about a quarter-mile from the borough building where the creche had been a holiday fixture for 50 years.
A religious freedom group from Wisconsin had threatened to sue the Lawrence County community last year over placement of the creche on borough property.
Ellwood City residents, frustrated that outsiders were trying to dictate what they could do, wanted the town of about 8,000 people to fight any lawsuit and keep the creche where it was. But town officials decided they faced an unwinnable fight.
Attorney Joseph Bellissimo of Ellwood City said he will put up a Nativity display outside the former St. Agatha's Roman Catholic Church, which closed about five years ago. Bellissimo and business partner Gene DiMeo bought the building and plan to open a restaurant inside. Bellissimo, 43, said he is paying for the new display.
“It's not about the money,” he said. “I think it's important because a lot of the people who were upset, I think they can take comfort in the fact that council didn't just walk away. They were looking for alternatives that would be acceptable by both the community and the borough. I think this is a good compromise.”
The new Nativity scene will be introduced at 2 p.m. Dec. 2 in a ceremony outside the former church at Fifth Street and Spring Avenue.
Some residents said they still are upset that the borough did not take on the Freedom From Religion Foundation of Madison, Wis., in court.
“It's been there forever,” Debbie Freshcorn, 57, of Ellwood City said of the display on the lawn of the borough building. “It wasn't even someone from town complaining. Who was it bothering anyway?”
Foundation Co-president Annie Laurie Gaylor said on Thursday that her organization has never opposed religious displays, only that they cannot be on government property.
“We're not going to churches and dragging people out of pews or knocking over crosses on private property,” Gaylor said. “But the government can't get behind (a display).”
Bellissimo said borough manager Dom Viccari approached him about putting a manger at the former church, since it's a heavily trafficked area. Bellissimo quickly agreed.
“I've taught my five children never to be embarrassed of their Catholic faith and be proud of it and live it. It's important as a parent to stand up for what you believe in,” Bellissimo said.
Viccari said the former church will be “a perfect backdrop.”
Council member Glenn Jones said research shows that communities fighting First Amendment lawsuits over religious displays have lost, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal costs.
“We didn't want to take that chance,” Jones said. “We were looking out for taxpayers' money.”
Ellwood City Mayor Anthony Court said the creche should be at city hall.
“The next step was to take them on in a court of law. I believe council lacked the courage, unlike the community and the rest of us,” Court said.
Bill Vidonic is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 412-380-5621 or bvidonic@tribweb.com.
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I’ve taught my two children to cherish the 1st Amendment, as it protects all of us. As a parent, it is important to stand up for this country and for the forefathers, who bravely (and wisely) established a secular government of the people. At the same time, I am very disappointed in Mayor Court, who still trying to make his personal beliefs the "state religion" of Ellwood City.
Submitted by: Carl on Friday, November 9, 2012
The fact that it was "outsiders" complaining should be irrelevant. Every American should be able to move to ANY town and not be confronted by public officials promoting their religion on public property. And public officials should not have spent ANY time seeking a relocation site for the creche---that's up to private citizens to do. And if the Mayor was so certain that he could win the case in court, he should have been willing to personally pay the legal fees of FFRF if he lost.
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