Thursday, 4:30 PM
SJC rules that Archdiocese can sell Wellesley church
By Globe Staff
The Supreme Judicial Court today sided with the Boston Archdiocese and ruled it was entitled to sell the property and other parish assets of St. James the Great Church in Wellesley after it was closed.
Attorneys for parishioners of St. James had asked the SJC to allow a jury to decide whether the Archdiocese was entitled to keep the property and other parish assets following Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley's decision to close the church. The parishioners who sued the archbishop include members of the family of James Maffei, in whose memory they gave money and sold land to the archdiocese below cost, contributions that enabled the archdiocese to construct the church.
They argued that the priest who encouraged them in those church-building efforts promised the church would continue on the site in perpetuity. That constituted a trust arrangement, the Maffeis argued, and O'Malley therefore did not have the right to claim the closed church's assets for the archdiocese or disperse those assets to other parishes.
The case was thrown out by a Suffolk Superior Court judge in March 2006. The proceedings were closely watched by dissident parishioners from other churches the archdiocese is closing, many of who have pending suits arguing that they, not the archdiocese, own the assets of their parishes.
In today’s ruling, the SJC upheld the Suffolk Superior Court.
