At both churches, police were also accompanied by members of the archdiocese's property management office. They supervised the changing of locks and made sure the retaken buildings were secure.

"They broke in a door ... a 100-year-old door to get in," said parishioner Mary Alice Sirkis. "This is a very poor example of religion. Not only is it not Catholic, it isn't even Christian."

Later, another Good Counsel parishioner, Harold Baquet, who had talked of having a hard-to-locate hiding spot in the building, also was removed in handcuffs and placed in a waiting squad car.

NOPD officers remove protesters who had taken over Our Lady of Good Counsel after it was closed 10 weeks ago by the Archdiocese of New Orleans. Three people were arrested after the door was broken down. Reciting a prayer, Harold Baquet is led in hancuffs to the church on Tuesday, January 6, 2009 Photo by Eliot Kamenitz

Baquet said he climbed out onto the church's roof to escape notice, but police found him there. In an interview later, he indicated someone might still be in the church undetected, but did not elaborate.

The initial assumption at the scene was that the three occupiers at Good Counsel had been arrested. But a police spokesman did not immediately confirm that -- and Baquet reapppeared at the church 10 minutes after he had been taken away.

He said police drove him home and dropped him off.

Tuesday's action appears to end parishioners' long attempt to save their parishes, an effort that began in April, when Hughes announced they would be closed as part of a massive restructuring of post-Hurricane Katrina worship life in the archdiocese.

Parishioners seized their churches after their last scheduled Masses in late October. Since then, they have occupied them in shifts around the clock, holding priestless Sunday prayer services and, they said, steadily building support for their volunteer rosters.

As Comiskey arrived at Good Counsel, one person from the crowd asked loudly about an earlier statement from archdiocesean officials that those participating in the vigil would not be disturbed as long as they remained peaceful. She didn't immediately respond.

As police prepared to remove Baquet, others close to Baquet, including his attorney, Lee Madere, were furious that police would not allow them access to Baquet to make sure he had medicine he needs as part of his treatment for cancer.

"You ain't never eating at Lil' Dizzy's again," Madere, standing at a church door, told a police officer, referring to the Esplanade Avenue restaurant run by relatives of Baquet.

Shortly after police arrived at St. Henry, one distraught parishioner, Cynthia Robidoux, rushed to the locked door tearfully demanding entry.

Robidoux told Assistant City Attorney Nolan Lambert she wanted to swap herself for the three parishioners inside to spare them arrest. Moreover, she told Lambert and police, she said she wanted to be arrested herself.

"I want everyone to see what they're doing. I want them to be ashamed," she said, referring to Hughes and other church officials.

Lambert and Robidoux negotiated a deal on the sidewalk: She could enter the church if she agreed to accept a civil summons for criminal trespass instead of the spectacle of arrest and handcuffs before gathering media.

Robidoux agreed and accepted the summons. The others were not cited.

At Good Counsel, one supporter of the vigil waiting outside the church, Arthurine Payton, said her elderly mother was inside the church this morning and told Payton by phone that men had arrived at the door and appeared to be breaking in.

Payton said she couldn't understand why the archdiocese couldn't negotiate a compromise that would allow continued use of the old Uptown church.

Read today's Times-Picayune story below the church closure issue:

Property managers from the Archdiocese of New Orleans on Monday again visited two Uptown churches occupied by people protesting their closure, but left with protesters still in possession of the buildings as their standoff entered its 10th week.

Shortly after noon, archdiocesan staffers visited St. Henry Church and nearby Our Lady of Good Counsel bent on "routine inspections" of the properties, archdiocesan spokeswoman Sarah Comiskey said.

She and parishioners concurred that the staffers tried to enter Good Counsel, but were denied access by those inside. They briefly entered St. Henry, made a quick inspection and left, Comiskey and parishioners said. As a result, occupiers said they have reversed a former custom and now keep the doors closed and locked.

Although the day ended as it began, the visits only further heightened occupiers' wariness, given the events of the weekend.

In a sudden shift from a hands-off approach, archdiocesan officials hoping to end the occupations entered the two churches Saturday at 2 a.m. They awakened sleeping occupiers and asked them to leave.

St. Henry's occupiers refused; whether all occupiers left Good Counsel remained a matter of dispute Monday.

Harold Baquet, a Good Counsel parishioner, said an occupier there remained behind in hiding to repossess the church after the archdiocese officials left; Comiskey cautioned against accepting that version, but declined to elaborate. In any event, Good Counsel remains in parishioners' hands.

Comiskey acknowledged Monday that after weeks of allowing parishioners and supporters to hold the buildings, the archdiocese hoped to finesse an end to the occupations with a surprise appearance in the middle of the night without media or police, hoping to encounter two or three parishioners who could be persuaded to leave.

Comiskey said Archbishop Alfred Hughes wants an end to the occupations -- parishioners call them vigils -- so nearby Good Shepherd parish, into which St. Henry and Good Counsel have been merged, can get past its birth pangs and realize its full potential.

Hughes and Comiskey also cited other reasons for their change in concern, among them reports that children had spent the night inside the churches and that people were exercising in the buildings.

That apparently referred to some occupiers' walking laps around interiors during their two- and four-hour shifts -- as well as to "reports of people bringing yoga mats, things like that, " Comiskey said.

The archdiocese believes that either is inappropriate. Even though neither church contains the Blessed Sacrament, consecrated bread that Catholics believe is the body and blood of Christ, the churches are still sacred, consecrated spaces, she said.

Some of the holdouts are speculating that the archdiocese suddenly moved to end the vigils because the Vatican is ready to announce a replacement for Hughes, who is eligible for retirement but wants an end to the standoff so his successor does not inherit it. Comiskey dismissed that as a motive.

"That's never been part of any discussion that I've been part of, " she said.