MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe
By Jeremy C. Fox | GLOBE CORRESPONDENT AUGUST 02, 2014
Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley has asked the last Massachusetts congregation holding a vigil in an officially closed Catholic church to accept a Vatican court’s ruling that the Boston Archdiocese may sell or re-use the building, effectively ending the occupation.
In a letter dated July 29, O’Malley asked parishioners at St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Church in Scituate to comply with the June denial by the Apostolic Signatura, the church’s highest court, of their final appeal seeking to block the sale, rental, or repurposing of the building.
“Your participation in the appeals process presumed that you would accept the final decision, even if it were not favorable to your desired outcome,” O’Malley wrote. “Now we are simply asking for demonstration of your good faith.”
But a leader of the defiant congregants who formed the nonprofit Friends of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini said Friday that they remained steadfast, and he invited the cardinal to come to Scituate, or any place of his choosing, to sit down with them and find a solution.
“Our whole philosophy’s been the same from the very beginning: It’s either open us back up as a fully functioning parish or sell us the church and set us free,” said Jon Rogers, 55.
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