BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

December 2, 2017

By Thomas Farragher

The roof leaks. The wiring is shot. The heating system is temperamental. And — I’m not afraid to tell you — there are bodies in the basement.

And yet when the priest and the builder, the latest caretakers of the 142-year-old puddingstone church on Washington Street, close their eyes, decades of decay and dust suddenly disappear.

They see a sparkling jewel. They hear an angelic choir and the tolling of 19th-century bells. They can smell incense — ancient and holy — wafting over a congregation who calls this place their spiritual home.

Simply put, they envision a shining, newly remodeled home for the mother church of Boston Catholicism, a home that had grown careworn, even neglected, and needs just about everything — new roofing, new altar, new systems, new floor, plus polish and paint from entrance to apse.

In…