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	SJC Won't Intervene in Church Closing First Amendment Cited in Wellesley Parish Case By Jonathan Saltzman Boston Globe May 26, 2007 http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/05/26/sjc_wont_intervene_in_church_closing/ In a major blow to parishioners fighting church closings, the Supreme Judicial Court has refused to block the Archdiocese of Boston from shuttering a Wellesley parish, unanimously ruling yesterday that the First Amendment bars the court from intervening in internal church disputes. "As a matter of constitutional law, such disputes are beyond our authority," Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall wrote. The high court ruled in a lawsuit filed by a family that agreed in 1946 to provide 8 acres in Wellesley to the archdiocese to build St. James the Great Church. The family contended that archdiocesan officials had made an oral commitment that the site would always remain a church. But the archdiocese decided to close the parish in 2004 when it shuttered scores of churches, triggering the lawsuit. The case was the fourth legal challenge of a parish closing to be dismissed by a Superior Court judge, but the first to reach the high court. "It is not good news," said Peter Borre, cochairman of the Council of Parishes, which represents parishes that have resisted closings and advocates on other issues facing the Catholic Church. "We are disappointed but not surprised. The Council of Parishes under stands the reluctance of a civil court to get into the internal matters of a religious denomination." The group is helping St. James and at least eight other parishes appeal planned closings to the Apostolic Signatura, a tribunal in the Vatican that now appears to be their last hope. The other parishes are raising different issues than St. James to challenge the closings. Archdiocese spokesman Terrence C. Donilon praised the ruling and said he hoped that it would spur an end to vigils at five parishes, including St. James, where parishioners have occupied churches around the clock to protest scheduled closings, in some cases for more than two years. "The real message here is that we need the folks at St. James and all the parishes in the vigils to help us now," Donilon said. "We're at a point right now where the church has begun the process of rebuilding, and we need them." Donilon said that Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley has promised to let all legal and canonical challenges run their course before selling the church properties and using the assets. Between July 2004 and December 2006, the archdiocese closed 59 parishes outright, merged 16 parishes into eight, and created five new parishes, for a net decrease of 62 parishes, Donilon said yesterday. The archdiocese, still recovering from the clergy sexual abuse scandal, has said that a shortage of priests, worshipers, and money made the closings necessary. The Council of Parishes, which filed a brief siding with the Wellesley parishioners suing the archdiocese, had also hoped that the SJC would agree that parishioners, not the archdiocese, own the assets of parishes. But the court sidestepped that question. Boston real estate lawyer Samuel B. Moskowitz, who was not involved in the case, said the court never had to address the broader question of whether the parishioners or archdiocese own parish assets. "The court is basically saying, 'What was going on here was something between the church and the parishioners, and we are not going to involve ourselves in that relationship,' " he said. Paul S. Hughes, the lawyer who represented the St. James parishioners, said he disagreed with the decision but declined further comment. Yesterday's ruling stemmed from a meeting in Catherine R. Maffei's home on Dec. 19, 1946, with the Rev. Robert H. Lord of St. Paul's Parish in Wellesley. Seated at her dining room table, she and her husband, Waldo, along with Waldo's five siblings and their spouses, signed over 8 acres to the archdiocese. They did so gladly, Catherine Maffei later said, because the land along Route 9 would be home to a new church named St. James the Great, in honor of Waldo's father, James Maffei. And, she said, Lord promised that the archdiocese would keep St. James the Great open forever, although that was never put in writing. Waldo and his sister donated their shares in the property, and Waldo's four brothers each received $3,000 for their shares. The church was built in 1958. Catherine and Waldo Maffei worshiped there every Sunday and donated a stone altar. She became president of the St. James Women's Guild. He sent a snowplow to clear the driveway in winter; when he died in 2003, he was eulogized in the church. On Oct. 31, 2004, the day before Catherine Maffei's 88th birthday, the archdiocese closed the church, another casualty of dwindling attendance in the shrinking network of Catholic parishes. Maffei and her daughter, Maureen Maffei, sued to get back their family's land, which was assessed at $1.44 million when they filed the suit in June 2005. The other plaintiff was Eileen Hanafin, another parishioner who donated $35,000 to refurbish the church in a 2002 fund-raising drive and who alleged that the archdiocese knew then of the possible closing and did not tell her. Superior Court Judge Herman J. Smith Jr. dismissed the suit in March 2006 on the same grounds that the SJC cited yesterday in upholding his ruling. Besides saying that the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of religion barred them from getting involved, the justices pointed out that the Maffei siblings and the archdiocese did not enter into a purchase and sales agreement, but merely executed a deed that makes no mention of the promise to keep the property a church in perpetuity. Catherine Maffei argued that the archdiocese had a legal obligation to keep its promise, based on shared religious beliefs. The high court disagreed, saying the notion that a clergy member had a fiduciary duty to a parishioner solely because of their shared faith was "impossible as a matter of law."
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