Parishioners Occupy Church to prevent it closing

[PoliSciProf]

Parishioners of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Church in the diocese of Boston have occupied their Church to prevent it from being sold.
Story is below:

nytimes.com/2009/01/06/us/06vigil.html?_r=1

Assuming the accuracy of the account, would you have joined them or opposed their actions?

 

[Dale_M]

the article:

The archdiocese has not tried to evict the parishioners or shut off the heat and electricity

That’s very tolerant of the archdiocese.

 

[aggiecatholic05]

i actually read this story this morning and found it interesting.

it seems just like stubborn people to me. the population dropped after katrtina. throw in most of it shifting out of the cities and into the the suburbs(like it is in most places) and the Church’s decesion makes sense. put the churches where the people are.

it seems odd to me that these people who are claiming such devotion feel no need to show obedience to the magesterium in theri decesion.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

I feel sorry for them, but I think it’s important to obey the bishop. The bishop is, after all, the shepherd and we are the flock.

 

[meerkat]

My Church closed a year ago. It has been hard but you eventually get over it like everything else that comes your way

 

[aggiecatholic05]

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090107/ap_on_re_us/new_orleans_catholics;_ylt=AhU19CBOkaKXN0xC4LInxF47Xs8F

the city has dropped the charges.

 

[Dale_M]

Just to clarify, this thread concerns Boston churches.

The thread about New Orleans churches is here:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=299265

 

[aggiecatholic05]

my mistake got them mixed up

 

[Mrs_Mac]

I voted No.

I just wanted to add that this story about a hundred holdouts who have been keeping a vigil for four years in a Boston Catholic Church was front page news in the NYT and got more space than the recession, the appointment of Panetta to CIA, the bombing of Gaza and the Madoff scandal. Even though there wasn’t anything in the article that was technically news.

I take anything that paper writes about the Catholic Church with a grain of salt. They never miss any opportunity to disparage the Church and its bishops.

I agree with the Cardinal. Other vibrant parishes in the area would benefit greatly from the faith and zeal of these Catholics. They would be welcomed with open arms.

 

[m134e5]

I was sympathetic to the parishioners of this closed parish until the following two paragraphs (about halfway through the second page of the article) raised some suspicions:

“You would think because there are fewer and fewer priests that the various archdioceses would welcome a new configuration,” Mrs. O’Brien said. “Let the lay people do everything but the sacramental.”

Since St. Frances has no priest, parishioners lead services that include everything but consecration of the host. On the Sunday before Christmas, about 50 parishioners attended a service conducted entirely by women, including two who distributed communion. The hosts had been consecrated elsewhere by a priest described by Mr. Rogers’s wife, Maryellen, as “sympathetic.”

Then, I read these two paragraphs- the last two paragraphs of the article- and I decided I could not sympathize with the parishioners. The Cardinal of Boston is doing all he can to help the archdiocese heal after a very bitter scandal. It’s not going to happen overnight, and sadly it has driven many away from the Church.

Some parishioners have grown so disenchanted with the Catholic Church hierarchy and so fond of the vigil routine that they cannot imagine returning to the old way.

“I cannot go back to the priest and the vestments and that, I always felt, prince-of-the-church approach,” said Mary Dean, 61, who keeps vigil at St. Frances at least four hours a week. “I’ll always be a Catholic, but I may not be able to worship in the mainstream Catholic Church.”

I think it is ironic how many people say things like “I’ll always be catholic, but…”, or “I love being Catholic, but…”- yet they ignore a very major part of being a Catholic- obedience to the Church! it is scandalous that they are bringing children and teenagers into their disobedience. The archdiocese of Boston has been very tolerant of them- thankfully (or it looks like they would probably leave the Church altogether). Let’s hope they straighten up soon- the cardinal has every right to have them evicted. If the archdiocese didn’t need the money they would get from selling the land, they wouldn’t have tried to sell the church property in the first place.