February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
On Aug. 29, St. Albert’s was ordered closed by the Archdiocese of Boston as part of a sweeping consolidation deemed necessary by Archbishop Sean O’Malley because of declining church attendance, a shortage of priests, decrepit buildings and financial indebtedness.
Eighty-three of the archdiocese’s 357 churches have been ordered closed. Most of those have already been closed or are expected to be in the next five months. But in eight of the churches ordered closed, parishioners have taken matters into their own hands and are refusing to leave.
At St. Albert’s, parishioners have maintained 24-hour vigils since Aug. 29, and similar around-the-clock sit-ins are now taking place at seven other parishes in the archdiocese. At St. Anselm Church in Sudbury, parishioners celebrated Thanksgiving inside the occupied church, while at Infant Jesus-St. Lawrence in Brookline, 75 church members held morning prayers and collected turkeys and food for a social service agency.
At St. Albert’s, more than 250 people came to the Thanksgiving prayer service, and parishioners are gearing up for even greater numbers at upcoming Christmas festivities.
Despite the perseverance and determination of the faithful, the protest vigils are evidently having little effect on the plans of church officials to close the churches for good. Two weeks ago, an official of a real-estate company assigned to manage the closed St. Albert’s property went to the church unannounced, accompanied by two Weymouth police officers.
Jim Riley, one of St. Albert’s vigil coordinators, said that real-estate values are at the core of the reconfiguration plans, with church officials trying to make a big profit by selling prized properties like St. Albert’s.
“There may be valid reasons for closing some of the churches, but there isn’t any for this one,” he said. “It just doesn’t meet any of the criteria they’ve put forth.”
Parishioners at the other seven occupied churches have been publicly expressing similarly cynical feelings about the process. At Our Lady of Mount Carmel in East Boston, some predominantly Italian-American congregants took their protest to Rome earlier this month by participating via satellite in a popular TV talk show in Italy. Some of the protestors, speaking in their native Italian, pleaded with church officials in Rome to intervene on behalf of their church, which was closed by the archdiocese in October.
Archbishop O”Malley, who has come under fire from many parishioners and even some priests for overseeing the closings, has recently convened a committee of prominent Boston businessmen and concerned citizens to review the reconfiguration process. Nevertheless, he has repeatedly expressed a determination to proceed with the closing plans, emphasizing that 130 of Boston’s pastors are over 70 years ol, that one-third of the parishes are in debt, and that city parishes are in need of about $100 million in repairs.