By Laura J. Nelson
Boston Globe
July 18, 2011
http://articles.boston.com/2011-07-18/news/29787739_1_shuttered-churches-churches-plan-protest-vigil
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| Maryellen Rogers knelt yesterday at St. Frances Xavier Cabrini in Scituate.… (Dina Rudick/Globe Staff) |
The quilt draped across the altar of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Catholic Church offers an image of peace, a dove with olive branch. But woven into it is a message of defiance: “Sixth Year Anniversary in Vigil.’’
The quilts that fill St. Frances tell the story of an embattled congregation that has kept a protest vigil since the Archdiocese of Boston closed the parish and removed its priest in 2004. The congregation is readying a quilt to mark the end of year seven, defying Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley’s decree, which takes effect today, that would strip six church buildings of their religious classification and pave the way for their sale.
Today, all six churches plan to send letters to O’Malley, kicking off an appeals process expected to last two to three years. Until a decision is handed down by the Vatican, canon law dictates that the archdiocese cannot sell the church buildings, said Peter Borre, cochairman of the Council of Parishes, an organization that supports parishes slated to close.
“We’re still here, and we’re not going anywhere,’’ Maryellen Rogers said during the St. Frances service yesterday, to applause from the pews. “This is our church.’’ Today marks the 2,456th day of their vigil.
The churches slated to lose their status are St. Frances in Scituate; St. James the Great in Wellesley; St. Jeanne D’Arc in Lowell; Star of the Sea in Quincy; Our Lady of Lourdes in Revere; and Our Lady of Mount Carmel in East Boston.
Previous appeals to the Vatican to reopen the churches were rejected in early 2010. O’Malley has asked the parishioners who continue their vigils to give up and move on.
“We’re not looking for a confrontation, but at some point, the vigils are going to have to end,” said archdiocese spokesman Terrence C. Donilon. “If the Vatican had come back and said, ‘Reopen those parishes,’ we would have, but they didn’t. They reaffirmed the cardinal’s decision.”
After services yesterday, parishioners said they were willing to face arrest to fight the sale of buildings that carry deep emotional ties: where their parents got married, where children were baptized and, in the case of St. Frances, where parishioners built the church in the late 1950s.
Many parishioners cite the same statistic: half of 25 shuttered churches in similar situations won their appeals with the Vatican and reopened. That includes parishes in Springfield and Allentown, Pa., where churches were kept open as houses of worship, a designation given to buildings still considered holy, but not a full parish staffed by a priest.
“If you were a betting person, you might say, ‘Hmm, maybe this is a shot worth taking,’ ’’ Borre said. “So that’s exactly what we’re doing.’’
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