By Jennifer Mann
The Patriot Ledger
October 20, 2010
http://www.patriotledger.com/features/x2048878636/Closed-churches-deliver-last-ditch-appeal-to-Pope-Benedict
 |
| More than 100 people attend a prayer vigil outside the Star of the Sea chape after the Boston archdiocese unexpectedly announced the church would no longer hold its weekly Mass. |
Parishioners in Quincy and Scituate have joined seven other closed Catholic churches in taking their pleas directly to the pope, after exhausting the traditional canon appeals process.
Peter Borre, head of the Council of Parishes, said he delivered a 29-page appeal to a monk at the steps of the Vatican on Tuesday. He said he was assured that it would be passed along to a top Vatican official. The appeal asks Pope Benedict to annul decisions by Vatican courts.
“I want Rome to know at pretty high levels what kind of situation is going on with the Archdiocese of Boston,” said Borre, whose group formed in 2004 to support churches scheduled to be closed.
Borre, calling the appeal “unusual, but kosher under the canon laws of the Catholic Church,” said only seven canon lawyers are qualified to bring a direct appeal to the pope, two of whom his group enlisted. He said no American parish has taken this last-ditch step in at least 40 years.
In May, the Vatican’s highest court, the Collegium of the Apostolic Signatura, upheld lower courts’ decisions regarding the church closings. The court ruled a diocese can close a parish, regardless of that parish’s health, if the good of the church’s religious mission is at stake.
Terrence Donilon, a spokesman for Cardinal Sean O’Malley of the Boston archdiocese, said Tuesday that he had not yet seen the appeal, but he dismissed the parishioners’ latest effort, saying the Apostolic Signatura’s decision was in the name of the pope.
“Our folks were pretty emphatic. There just are no more appeals,” Donilon said.
Donilon said protesting parishioners can join one of the 291 remaining parishes and help rebuild the state’s Catholic community.
More than 60 churches were closed by the Boston archdiocese in 2004 as part of a cost-cutting reconfiguration plan that aimed to cope with a drop in attendance, a priest shortage and financial problems amid the clergy sexual abuse scandal.
Parishioners at three of those churches, including St. Frances Cabrini in Scituate, have occupied the buildings around the clock to prevent them from being closed.
Mary Star of the Sea in Quincy, which has also joined the appeal, reopened in July 2005 as a chapel of Sacred Heart Church in North Quincy. It only held one Mass a week and no longer held funerals, baptisms or weddings. The chapel had its final Sunday Mass last month after the archdiocese unexpectedly placed locks on the doors.
St. Frances parishioners will mark their sixth year in vigil Tuesday.
“We’ve come six years and we’re no closer to a solution than we were on day one,” said Jon Rogers, a spokesman for the group. “This just shows the extraordinary level that we are willing to go to to find a fair, equitable and peaceful solution to this problem.”
Jennifer Mann may be reached at jmann@ledger.com
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.