Their Fight Lost, Members of Closed Scituate Church Start Their Own

By Bella English
Boston Globe
October 28, 2016

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/regionals/south/2016/10/28/their-fight-lost-members-closed-scituate-church-start-their-own/2Hi7R6kuifZr6cHkszfxSL/story.html

Jon and Maryellen Rogers spoke to reporters in October 2015 regarding the court battle between parishioners of St. Frances X. Cabrini church in Scituate and the Archbishop of Boston.

It has been 12 years -- and 5 days, to be exact -- since St. Frances X. Cabrini church in Scituate was declared closed by the Archdiocese of Boston, as part of a sweeping reconfiguration process necessitated by dwindling attendance and collections, a shortage of priests, and a multimillion-dollar settlement with victims of the priest sexual abuse scandal.

But until last Memorial Day, a group of parishioners refused to leave the premises, staging a 24/7 vigil that finally ended when the Supreme Court declined to hear the case between them and the archdiocese. On May 30, the day after a Mass that drew nearly 500, the Friends of St. Frances vacated the church property near the ocean -- 30 acres appraised by the town of Scituate at $4.2 million.

It didn’t take long for the Friends, led by Maryellen and Jon Rogers, to establish a new church, which is meeting at the Satuit Lodge of Freemasons in Scituate, while they plan a capital campaign for their own church building.

Here’s how Maryellen Rogers describes it: “We are an ecumenical Catholic church, we are still valid practicing Catholics, part of the universal Catholic Church, not the Roman Catholic Church. So if you join our church community, you would see a welcoming Catholic experience but you would not be supporting the Roman Catholic Church or the Archdiocese of Boston.”