SPRINGFIELD (MA)
The Republican
March 8, 2019
By Anne-Gerard Flynn
Holy Name Church will have Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday, March 11, as part of Bishop Mitchell Rozanski’s Diocesan Day of Prayer for Healing and Reconciliation.
In a Jan. 15 letter to parishes in the Springfield Roman Catholic diocese that covers all four counties of Western Massachusetts, Rozanski asked all churches to remain open on the first Monday in Lent as part of diocesan-wide efforts addressing the clergy sexual abuse crisis through “prayer and dialogue.”
Reminders have run in some parish bulletins and on websites, like that of Holy Name, and the diocese has explained the all-day hours, usually reserved only for observances in most parishes like Good Friday, as enabling “parishioners to come to offer private prayers for victims of clergy abuse, their families and loved ones.”
The healing day is part of other recent efforts the diocesan has undertaken in the wake of national and global events that have highlighted how the Church’s decades old abuse crisis continues to deepen and evolve and have ignited concerns in dioceses that did take early steps to address the issue.
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