All 6 Boston Groups Lose Appeal to Vatican to Reopen Church Buildings at Closed Parishes

By Jay Lindsay
The Republic
May 22, 2012

http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/c1302905becb474a94f230c1e1f7ab2a/MA--Church-Closings/

BOSTON — The Vatican has rejected the appeals of all six groups in the Boston Archdiocese who argued that the church buildings at their closed parishes should be reopened years after the archdiocese shut them down.

The decisions, handed down over the last two months, came after the Vatican granted similar appeals to parishioners from several other closed parishes, including in New York and Pennsylvania.

Those recent wins had Sean Glennon, a parishioner at Mary, Star of the Sea in Quincy, hopeful about their appeal. On Tuesday, he was puzzled why none of the Boston-area parishes prevailed.

"It's just very disconcerting, and it's very disappointing," he said.

In the appeals, parishioners weren't asking the Vatican to reopen the parishes, which include rectories, churches and other buildings. They instead argued that their local diocese hadn't justified its decision to convert the church building from sacred to secular use, a necessary move before sale.

The Vatican has agreed in some cases, ruling churches can't be closed in several dioceses, including in Springfield, Allentown, Pa., and Syracuse, N.Y. In March, the Vatican ordered 13 Cleveland parishes — not just the churches — reopened.

But the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy rejected every Boston appeal, ruling that the Boston Archdiocese had shown sufficiently "grave" reasons why the church buildings must be closed.

The parishioners can appeal the decision to the Vatican high court, the Apostolic Signatura, and at least four of the groups will do so, said Peter Borre of the Council of Parishes, which was formed to protest the church closings and represents five of the Boston parishes.

Borre said it was striking that the successful appeals elsewhere were filed in dioceses run by a bishop, while they were rejected in Boston, an archdiocese run by a higher-ranking cardinal, Sean O'Malley.

Asked if he thought O'Malley's influence was a factor, he said, "You can draw your own conclusions."

But officials at the Boston Archdiocese said the Vatican upheld the decisions because the archdiocese proved that tight finances and a shortage of priests made it impossible to keep the churches open.

"I think what made the difference, in our case, is when we explained our reasons, we did it with a fair amount of documentation," said the Rev. Robert Oliver, a canon law expert at the Boston Archdiocese. "They came back and said, "Yup, you do have grave cause (to close the buildings)."

Besides the Quincy church, the other closed parishes whose appeals were denied include St. Jeanne D'Arc in Lowell, Our Lady of Mount Carmel in East Boston, Our Lady of Lourdes in Revere, St. Frances X. Cabrini in Scituate and St. James the Great in Wellesley.

The six decisions were dated March 20 to May 10.

The Boston Archdiocese began a broad round of parish closings in 2004 that dropped the number of parishes from 357 to 288.

At the time, the archdiocese cited falling attendance, money woes and a priest shortage. But some parishioners said it was selling off vibrant parishes to pay off settlements from the clergy sex abuse scandal, which the archdiocese denies.

Some parishioners began occupying their churches full-time in protest in 2004. Those vigils persist at St. Therese in Everett, which wasn't part of the recent appeals, and in Wellesley and Scituate, the only place where a round-the-clock presence continues.

Other archdioceses, including New Orleans and New York, have called in police to end protests at churches. But O'Malley has so far shown no interest in that kind of confrontation, though the archdiocese hasn't ruled it out and has insisted the protests must end.

After the recent ruling, the church will wait until the final appeals are exhausted before deciding what to do next, said archdiocesan spokesman Terry Donilon.

In the meantime, the cost to maintain and pay taxes on the properties that remain in limbo is $1.5 million to $2 million annually, said the archdiocese's chancellor, John Straub. "It's become quite an expense," he said.

The archdiocese hopes the protesters will join a nearby parish, said Monsignor Robert Deeley, the archdiocese's Vicar General and Moderator of the Curia, second in rank to O'Malley

"Our invitation is that they can continue to celebrate that faith life in another community," he said. "And our experience is that for a majority of people, that in fact has been the case, that they do find new life in a new community."