A disconsolate Veronica Tutunjian crystallized the grim mood in the foyer of St. Francis Xavier Cabrini Church in Scituate yesterday afternoon.

“I thought this was supposed to be a year of mercy,” she said, joining five stalwart friends and parishioners who were part of an insurgent effort to hold on to the doomed church they love. “Where’s the mercy?”

Sadly, for those ladies who formed a barricade of faith for nearly a dozen years, the U.S. Supreme Court doesn’t place any extra weight on Pope Francis’ worldwide call for mercy in 2016.

Yesterday, the high court passed on taking up a last-ditch attempt by the St. Francis Cabrini rebels intent on holding on to their beloved church.

In doing so, the court cleared the way for Cardinal Sean O’Malley and the archdiocese to evict the faithful squatters and take control of the church and its adjacent property, which happens to sit on ultra-prime South Shore real estate.

Nancy Fay was the seventh child to be baptized at a brand new St. Francis Cabrini Church more than a half a century ago. Yesterday she joined Nancy Shilts, Margaret O’Brien, Mary Fernandes and Patricia McCarthy in the foyer of St. Francis Cabrini to say that the cardinal may have lost a golden opportunity to restore this community of faith.

“It’s been more than 11 years since we decided to hold on to our church,” Fay said, “and what’s interesting is that now we have given O’Malley an out. He could have taken the chance to reassess everything.

“A dozen years ago, closing this church was part and parcel of a financial crisis that had a lot to do with paying for the sexual abuse crisis,” Fay said. “Well, we’ve paid just about everybody off for those sins. And in the meantime, for the last 11 years, this community of faith who has loved this church, and refused to let it go, has been living the way the church has asked us to.”

Indeed they have, even though priests have been forbidden to say Mass there. Funeral directors who’ve wheeled parishioners’ caskets down the aisle at St. Francis Cabrini have been excoriated by the archdiocese.

As these gracious ladies sat guard yesterday, they knew what the real deal was. It wasn’t about the Supreme Court, but rather those million-dollar homes that ring the edge of the St. Francis Cabrini parking lot.

“Our lives are in this church,” said Patricia McCarthy, “our faith is here. But now, the truth is the archdiocese says the land is more valuable and we have to go. I love my faith, but not my religion.”