MASSACHUSETTS
Reuters
SCITUATE, MASS. | BY SCOTT MALONE
Parishioners who have occupied their Massachusetts church for 11 years to prevent the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston from closing it vowed on Thursday to continue their vigil despite a ruling by the state’s top court that they are trespassing.
A group of parishioners of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Church in Scituate said they would keep up their 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week vigil, the last and longest-running of a half dozen mounted by Boston-area parishes targeted for closure early in the Church’s sexual abuse crisis.
“We’re disappointed,” said Jon Rogers, a leader of the vigil, in response to Wednesday’s decision by Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court that the group has no legal standing to remain in the brick building constructed in the 1960s.
“There’s a lot of anger in this room,” he said, standing in front of a stained-glass window in the church with about a dozen fellow parishioners, most in their 60s and 70s. “There’s still a lot of commitment here.”
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