HANSON (MA)
Boston Globe

By Jenna Russell
Globe Staff
March 11, 2012

HANSON – Their graceful new church had risen quickly from the ground, and in September 2002, after years of planning and praying, parishioners gathered to celebrate Mass in it for the first time.

It was a bright day, full of joy and hope. But a darkness had descended as the church was being built. As the service began, protesters, gathered across the street from the church’s freshly-hung front doors, shouted angrily into a bullhorn. “Cardinal Law is a disgrace!’’ they cried, their voices not quite drowned out by the ringing church bells.

St. Joseph the Worker, a close-knit Catholic parish in a small town south of Boston, opened its new building – and with it, a new chapter – at a moment when the Catholic Church was mired in deep despair. As the parish marked…