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	Judge Allows Holyoke Parishioners to Keep Praying in Church By Natalie Tolomeo CBS 3 October 29, 2011 http://www.cbs3springfield.com/story/15902734/judge-allows-holyoke-parishioners-to-keep-praying-in-church Parishioners of a Holyoke Catholic church and the Springfield diocese will be back in court. A Hampden County Superior Court judge denied the bishop's preliminary injunction where he tried to force parishioners out of the closed church. Earlier this month, the bishop filed court papers to kick out all parishioners praying inside the Mater Dolorosa Church in Holyoke all hours of the day and night since June. Friday, Associate Justice Jeffrey Kinder informed both parties that he is allowing those parishioners to keep holding their prayer vigils. "Prayer is not about demanding from God a fixed decision. Prayer is about accepting the reality we live in with God's grace peacefully. Nothing about this has been done in that context," says Mark Dupont, spokesman for the Springfield diocese. The bishop closed the church for numerous reasons, but the diocese's biggest concern was, and still is, the safety of the steeple. Church officials say it poses imminent danger; however, Kinder wasn't persuaded. "Clearly we were disappointed with the decision in the preliminary injunction but let's not get ahead of ourselves. This is not a victory for anyone," Dupont says. But life-long parishioner, Victor Anop, doesn't agree. "This is a victory. You can't spin anything anyway to say that this wasn't a huge victory for the people of the hard-working Mater Dolorosa parish," says Anop, who has been an attorney for 30 years. In court earlier this month, both parties presented very different engineering reports on the structural safety of the steeple. "I cannot conclude that condition of the steeple presents an emergency such that immediate court intervention is necessary... The Bishop's Motion for Preliminary Injunction is denied," Kinder said in his written decision that the diocese and Anop received Friday. "The judge has said there will have to be a trial and we will seek a speedy trial in this matter," says Dupont. "When you lose, you lose. When you win, you win. We want to keep our church open and we want to negotiate," Anop says. Dupont says the diocese will also negotiate if parishioners stop their vigil inside the church. Friends of Mater Dolorosa have an appeal in the Vatican to overturn the bishop's decision to shut down the parish. In Hampden County, parishioners have filed a lawsuit against the diocese because they want to know where hundreds of thousands of dollars for the parish has been spent.
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