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	Vatican Asked to Suspend Church Closings in N.o., 7 Other Dioceses By Bruce Nolan The Times-Picayune April 8, 2009 http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/04/vatican_asked_to_suspend_churc.html A businessman representing Catholic parishioners in New Orleans and seven other dioceses around the country said he delivered a 22-page letter on Tuesday asking the Vatican to suspend further parish closures and instruct local bishops to engage parishioners in search of alternatives for the good of the church. Meanwhile, two dozen parishioners representing four closed parishes in New Orleans gathered on the steps of one of the shuttered churches, St. Henry's in Uptown New Orleans, to declare they were still intact as communities. They reiterated their request to discuss reopening their churches, even if on a limited basis, with Archbishop Alfred Hughes. Peter Borre, a Boston businessman who delivered the plea to the Office of Secretary of State at the Vatican, said by phone he had confirmed that Catholic parishioners in the dioceses of Allentown, Pa.; Boston; Cleveland; Scranton, Pa.; Springfield, Mass.; and New Orleans had announced their solidarity with the effort. Those, plus church parishes in New York and Buffalo, were part of the joint plea he delivered, Borre said. In New Orleans, however, Hughes' spokeswoman, Sarah Comiskey, said his decision to close parishes as part of a post-Hurricane Katrina reorganization of the Archdiocese of New Orleans is final. "What we hope for now is that people work in their new parishes, that they work together and take their zeal for their faith and put it to good use sharing their gifts, " Comiskey said. Borre said he delivered the plea to Vatican security outside the Secretary of State's offices because he lacked an appointment with a Vatican official he wished to see. He said the petitioners felt they could not wait weeks for an appointment; a final decision on internal appeals by nine closed Boston parishes could come at any time. The parishioners' letter makes a broad case that the institutional church in the United States is stressed, steadily losing adherents and still rocked by the 2002 clergy sexual abuse crisis. Bishops' decisions to close local parishes risk the peaceful seizures of more churches, as happened in New Orleans, as well as lawsuits against the Vatican itself and even the possibility that locked-out Catholics will break away to form new faith communities outside the Catholic Church. Some parishioners in Boston have occupied their closed churches for more than four years while an internal legal appeal inches forward, with little prospect of victory, Borre said. "The day will come when some of those people will leave their church, march a half a mile down, buy a hall and set themselves up, " he said. In New Orleans, parishioners who renewed their plea to Hughes came from St. Henry's, Our Lady of Good Counsel, Blessed Sacrament and Epiphany parishes. At the first two of those, dozens of parishioners have met outdoors on the steps to pray on a regular basis once or twice each week. They keep up with where their former priests are saying Mass in nearby parishes so they can attend those. In a review of grievances, Alden Hagardorn, a leader at St. Henry's, raised a new charge about archdiocese actions since that church was closed in the fall. He said rental income that a private school, Ecole Bilingue de la Nouvelle Orleans, pays for the use of the old St. Henry elementary school is going into archdiocesan coffers. He said that is a violation of an archdiocesan promise that income generated by property belonging to the closed churches would follow parishioners to their new parishes. But Comiskey said the archdiocese is collecting income only to apply to the continuing maintenance of St. Henry's several parish buildings. She said any surplus will be forwarded, as promised, to nearby Good Shepherd Parish, into which St. Henry's was merged. Bruce Nolan can be reached at bnolan@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3344
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