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Faithful Fear Christmas May Be Last for Church

By Brian Dowling
Boston Herald
December 24, 2015

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_coverage/2015/12/faithful_fear_christmas_may_be_last_for_church

HOLY NIGHT: Pat McCarthy, above, prepares St. Frances X. Cabrini Church in Scituate for what could be the last Christmas Eve service there.

It’s an unwelcome thought for members of St. Frances X. Cabrini Church that tonight’s Christmas Eve service could be their last at the Scituate parish.

“The reality of the day is it’s possible,” said Maryellen Rogers, a spokeswoman for the parishioners, who are counting on an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to keep them in their beloved house of worship.

Tomorrow will be the parishioners’ 12th defiant Christmas in the church. The archdiocese and civil courts see them as trespassers, while those who have held vigil in the church since October 2004 say they are standing up for the church that their families built and cared for.

Rogers said her hope has helped her stay strong over the years.

“It would be so much easier to walk away,” she said. “We have given up a big part of our lives, but sometimes you have to do the right thing. … There’s only so much you can take until you stand up and say enough.”

Rogers and others spent hours yesterday replacing Advent’s purple decorations with reds and whites of Christmas. The parish’s Christmas Eve celebration is at 5 p.m.

“I know that we will stay together as a faith community,” Rogers said. “If need be we will go on with or without the archdiocese.”

In May, a Norfolk County Superior Court judge sided with the archdiocese’s request to evict the parishioners from the church. The Appeals Court agreed with the lower court, ruling in October that the parishioners are trespassers, and the state Supreme Judicial Court declined to hear the case.

Lawyers for both sides agreed Monday to give the parishioners until March 3 to file a petition for the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their case in exchange for a promise from the parishioners to leave if the justices pass on hearing the case or rule for the archdiocese.

Mary Beth Carmody, lawyer for the parishioners, said the court could take months to make any decision.

The parishioners see the closure of the parish as another blow from the archdiocese’s sexual abuse scandal that involved a number of churches in the Scituate area including St. Frances X. Cabrini.

“We should have lost our minds,” Rogers said. “But we still came to church and put our money in the collection plate, and we just kept going along with our day-to-day business. We really should have demanded change way back then.”

The archdiocese has urged the holdouts to leave their church and join other parishes.

 

 

 

 

 




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