Just like I thought, The Boston Globe published a third followup to the series of articles about a progressive, dissident priest and his parish. The parish is closing as part of a larger effort by the archdiocese to consolidate parishes - this was a necessary step to take given the changing dynamics of the population and the lack of priests in the Boston archdiocese. Yes, the priest scandal did exacerbate and speed up this process but it needed to occur regardless of the scandal because of the above-mentioned factors. There has been understandable anxiety and sadness around church closings among parishoners but almost all of them have handled it in loving and christian fashion and the remaining parishes have welcomed the orphaned parishoners with open arms. A notable exception has been St. Albert’s The Great in Weymouth. Their priest, Fr. Ron Coyne has been a lightening rod for liberal progressive style catholics. He has consistently disagreed with many church positions on issues of morality and recently said in a newspaper interview that he does not believe in the doctrine of Hell. The parishoners of this parish (with Fr. Coyne’s tacit approval) are now sueing the archdiocese of Boston for closing the church. Today’s article focuses on parishoners doing a 24/7 sit-in in the church in an effort to prevent it from closing (sounds like something college students did in the 1960’s to protest things). Of course, the Boston Globe is giving this show of disunity prominent headlines (this paper is notoriously anti-catholic). The parishoners had a statement read that was printed which said: “We will no longer blindly follow the mandate set down by the institution. We now understand that we are the church and we are followers of Christ and not the archdiocese of Boston”. Other statements indicate Fr. Coyne’s approval with this response. In reality, the Archbishop of Boston, Sean O’Malley has been a beacon of hope since his appointment to the city a year or so ago. He quickly settled claims regarding the priest scandal, met with the victims, and has pushed forward in a responsible direction to make the archdiocese healthly and spiritually whole again. He is a wonderfully humble and spirit-filled man who sincerely wants to do what’s best for the people of Christ. This and previously related articles paint him as the boogey man , and engaging in power plays and impulsive acts of retribution on this parish. The truth is that the parish was the most logical one out of five (in the town of Weymouth) to close because of its small size and lack of accompanying school. Fr. Coyne and the parishoners (helped by the Voice of the Faithful ) are seriously misguided and are creating an atmosphere of disunity. It’s sad and tragic that it’s come to this. Stay tuned.
