BishopAccountability.org
	St. Frances Fundraiser Is Aug. 22 By Brian P. Nanos Wicked local Scituate August 21, 2008 http://www.wickedlocal.com/scituate/news/x390408136/St-Frances-fundraiser-is-Aug-22 Scituate - Since October 2004, when Archbishop Sean O’Malley of the Boston Archdiocese closed St. Frances X. Cabrini Church in Scituate, parishioners have been running the church — holding weekly lay-led services, planning CCD classes and manning a 24-hour vigil — while at the same time fighting appeals of O’Malley’s decision. On Friday, Aug. 22, the 1,397th day of that vigil, the Friends of St. Frances will be holding the annual fundraiser that pays for most of these efforts, an “Under the Summer Stars” event at the Scituate Country Club from 7 to 10 p.m. Tickets are $30 per person. According to Maryellen Rogers, who with her husband Jon often acts as a spokesperson for the group, the event will be the largest fundraiser held by the Friends this year. Last year’s event, she said, was very successful. “I don’t want to talk all about money, but people have been very generous,” she said. The event will include auctions of Red Sox tickets, passes to local golf courses and jewelry. Attendees will also be able to buy a chance to win themed baskets. Local residents and businesses have donated the baskets, as well as the auction items and door prizes, she said. Rogers said that the tickets, which are available at the group’s Web site, stfrancesxcabriniscituate.org, have been selling quickly, but that in at least one way the fundraising event will be like the church. “We’re not going to turn anyone away,” she said. While the Friends of St. Frances attend their fundraiser, the church itself, on Hood Road, will be manned by a group from St. Albert The Great Church in Weymouth, Rogers said. That church was one of the nearly 80 originally closed along with St. Frances in 2004, but those parishioners were able to convince the archbishop to reopen St. Albert’s after a 10-month vigil. Rogers said the success of the vigil in Weymouth is an example to the parishioners of St. Frances. “They know how it is being in a vigil,” she said. “They are an example of living the faith.” St. Frances was one of a number of churches the Archdiocese voted to close down in 2004. In January of that year, O'Malley stated his initial plans to close more than 80 parishes within the Boston Archdiocese, based on changes in demographics, a declining number of clergy and fiscal shortages within some of the churches. St. Frances parishioners have refuted the claims of financial troubles, saying their church was fiscally sound and well attended. Jon Rogers has argued that the closings were instead driven by the church’s needs to pay settlements from the priest sexual abuse scandal. In decisions mailed in late May, the Apostolic Signatura, a Vatican appellate tribunal, declined to hear challenges to church closings throughout the state of Massachusetts. According to Jon Rogers, the group has appealed that decision to the next level and does not expect a new decision for some time. The parishioners have also sued brought a civil suit against O’Malley. The suit, which was dismissed by a Superior Court judge but has been appealed, claims that the church and its assets should belong to the parishioners. “This is far from over,” Jon Rogers said.
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