MASSACHUSETTS
International Business Times
By Aditya Tejas
A Massachusetts judge on Friday ruled that a group of parishioners who had occupied a closed Roman Catholic church for over a decade must end their vigil by next week. St. Frances Xavier Cabrini church in Scituate, Massachusetts, has been the site of a 24-hour vigil ever since the Archdiocese of Boston ordered its closure in 2004.
Massachusetts Superior Court Justice Edward Leibensperger said the church’s parishioners needed to vacate the building by June 5 and abandon their “stubborn refusal to accept the reality of final decisions of the courts,” according to Reuters.
“Defendants may, of course, continue their protest of the decision to close the parish, but they may not do so by an around-the-clock vigil in violation of the property rights established by neutral principles of property law,” Leibensperger said in his ruling, according to the Associated Press.
The parishioners, who demand that the church be either reopened or sold to the group, had filed an appeal in the Massachusetts Appeals Court after their request was denied by the Apostolic Signatura, the Roman Catholic church’s highest authority. The parishioners have said that they are willing to face arrest for trespassing, if necessary.
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