Scituate Parishioners Can Stay Put for Now

Boston Herald
May 23, 2015

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/05/judge_scituate_parishioners_can_stay_put_for_now

LIVING ON A PRAYER: Parishioners of Friends of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Church in Scituate were told last week to leave the closed church by May 29 before a judge yesterday allowed them to stay for now.

Parishioners who last week were ordered to leave a closed Scituate Catholic church, where they’ve been holding vigil, by May 29 have won a temporary reprieve as a Norfolk Superior Court judge scratched that date late yesterday, according to the protesters’ attorney.

Mary Beth Carmody, who is representing the Friends of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Church, said she was notified Judge Edward P. Leibensperger will not determine a new date for the parishioners to leave until he hears a motion to suspend his May 14 decision that Carmody filed Thursday.

“It’s short-term relief, I would call it, for the parishioners,” Carmody said. “They were concerned that this Sunday would be their last Sunday to worship at the church. It looks like this won’t be their last Sunday, though we don’t know how many more Sundays.”

Carmody also filed an appeal of the judge’s decision on Thursday to the state appeals court.

In his May 14 ruling, Leibensperger declared the parishioners were trespassing and had to leave the premises by May 29.

Maryellen Rogers, president of the Friends of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Church, who have been holding vigil there since it was closed in a parish consolidation in 2004, said they had no choice but to appeal.

“We promised as a group that we would exhaust every level of recourse,” Rogers said.

“We don’t want to be in court but Cardinal Sean O’Malley has taken it to this level so we have continued to pursue every available level of recourse.”

A spokesman for the archdiocese declined comment, citing ongoing litigation.