MASSACHUSETTS
The Guardian (UK)
Harriet Sherwood Religion correspondent
@harrietsherwood
Thursday 19 May 2016
For the past 12 years, the church of St Frances Xavier Cabrini in Scituate, near Boston, has not been empty for a single moment.
Twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, a group of parishioners has maintained a vigil inside the building to prevent its sale by the archdiocese of Boston, to help pay the Catholic church’s enormous bills relating to its long and sordid history of child sexual abuse.
Children have slept in the sacristy, meals have been eaten beneath the stained glass windows, planning meetings have been held in the pews, prayers said and candles lit.
But not for much longer. After the supreme court this week declined to hear an appeal against an earlier court ruling, the parishioners must now vacate the premises, and will hold a final farewell service on 29 May.
Their long battle against the archdiocese of Boston is over. But, far from being exhausted and defeated, the core group of about 100 parishioners who have occupied the church since 2004 are gearing up to start afresh.
“We’re going to stay together, reach out and re-energise thousands of disenfranchised Catholics who no longer trust the church,” Jon Rogers, the group’s spokesman, told the Guardian.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.