Catholics Come Home, Says St. Albert's in Weymouth, by Sue Scheible, The Enterprise, February 14, 2011

Catholics Come Home, Says St. Albert's in Weymouth

By Sue Scheible
The Enterprise
February 14, 2011

http://www.enterprisenews.com/lifestyle/faith/x1179524838/-Catholics-come-home-says-St-Albert-s-in-Weymouth

[with video]

The. Rev. Paul Soper of the Church of St. Albert the Great in Weymouth and Betsy Clifford, pastoral associate and music director, consider hymn selections for the open house that will be held on March 9, 2011.

WEYMOUTH — The Archdiocese of Boston wants to gather its flock back into the fold. Hearing the call, the parish council at the Church of St. Albert the Great knew what to do.

As part of a new national campaign, Catholics Come Home, the church will hold a 24-hour open house March 9, Ash Wednesday.

Ads that are part of the archdiocese-wide campaign will begin airing on Boston television stations March 7, said the Rev. Paul Soper of St. Albert's.

Every parish in the archdiocese is being asked to plan something for the beginning of Lent to welcome back those who have left the church or feel distant from it. The council at St. Albert's decided to take a page from its vigil days of the past and be open around the clock with welcoming activities for that one day and night.

In 2004, St. Albert's parishioners held a 10-month vigil, refusing to leave the church, to protest plans to close it. In 2005, the Archdiocese announced St. Albert's would remain open.

At the Ash Wednesday open house, two Masses will be held and ashes will be given out all day. A priest will be available to take confession at anytime and lay people will be available throughout to sit down and talk and there will be refreshments in the parish hall.

Thirty to 40 members of the church will participate, including Betsy Clifford, music director and pastoral associate.

"We will have committed lay Catholics who have found their spiritual home despite the ups and downs, controversies and the failings of the church," Clifford said.

Those lay Catholics will include people who been divorced, who are gay, who have had an abortion.

"All the things that happen in life to all of us happen here," Clifford said. "That has not been incompatible with our journey as Catholics, it has been healed."

The national Catholics Come Home campaign to increase declining membership has been tried in other cities, including Providence, with reports of a 15 percent rise in attendance at Mass immediately afterward.

With new reports last week of charges of clergy sexual abuse, Father Soper expects that issue will raised by those who have left the church or question their faith.

"That is a topic people want to talk about all the time and we're not shy about talking about that openly and directly," he said Saturday. "If people have concerns ... we have no reticence at all about speaking about that."

John Hammel, director of religious education, will also be on hand to speak about his work with adults and their journeys of faith.

Clifford said some Catholics have left the church because "they misunderstand what the church asks of them as faithful Christians."

Ash Wednesday and the Lenten season will be a time to reopen their exploration of what that means, she said.

Sue Scheible may be reached at sscheible@ledger.com.