Baptism by fire

It was a warm night in early June, and even the air conditioning at St. Albert the Great in Weymouth didn't seem to cool things down much. One by one, for more than two hours, angry and tearful parishioners took to the microphone to air their feelings about the pending closing of their church.

Kathleen Heck, sitting down front, had come from the chancery to answer questions. As the liaison between the Archdiocese of Boston and the closing parishes, she was there to explain the process. Her job, she has said, is to create "a reassuring environment for the parish transition."

But from the start it was clear that Heck's agenda was at odds with that of the parishioners. While they wanted to talk about remaining open, she talked about closing. When they asked about getting their pleas to the archbishop, she spoke of finding new homes for the religious education classes. When one man said that parishioners -- and not the archdiocese -- owned the church they had helped build in the 1950s, Heck replied: "If that's the case, I own part of Brigham and Women's Hospital, part of Mass. General." Her comment was met with boos.

At one point, she noted that she is the first person "not to wear a collar" -- in other words, the first layperson -- to hold her job. When it was his turn to speak, James Murphy, a state representative from Weymouth and former altar boy at St. Albert's, was blunt. "I think it's an absolute travesty that parishioners are forced to come to a forum like this and defend ourselves," he said. He then suggested that Heck was "a sacrificial lamb." Looking at her from the lectern, he added: "That may be the reason why you're the first nonpriest to hold this position."

Heck got up, and, saying she was offended, walked out of the church.

Parishioners later said they were surprised that an official from the archdiocese -- supposedly there to ease their pain -- would leave in a huff because her feelings had been hurt. "It was totally unprofessional," said Lou Rizzo, cochairman of the pastoral council at St. Albert's. "We as a congregation had hoped we'd get a little more compassion from her. But it was strictly her agenda to come in here and tell us how to close. That still doesn't excuse the way she left the building."

Heck may have the worst job in Boston. Her title is special assistant to the moderator of the curia and vicar general, Bishop Richard Lennon. But some have taken to calling her "the commissioner of closings." Others have likened her role to that of the despised tax collector of biblical times. Heck has won both praise and enmity for the way she has handled the job, which involves the closing of 83 of the 357 parishes in the archdiocese.

She faithfully carries the archdiocese's closing process to the people, many of whom dislike both the message and the messenger. Some resent the fact that Heck is the barrier between them and those with real power: Bishop Lennon and Archbishop Sean O'Malley. Some are angry that her tiny parish somehow survived. Some simply don't like her style.

"A lamb I am not, neither sacrificial nor otherwise," she said in an e-mail to a Globe reporter after the St. Albert's meeting. She exchanged a few e-mails with the reporter but has declined requests for an interview. "The primary underlying reason for this is that this is really about the people, not about me," she wrote yesterday in a separate e-mail. "My abiding respect for and interest in these people is what brought me here, and what makes every day worthwhile."

The road to closure

Heck, 50, was appointed by the archdiocese last January to help with the transition of closing parishes. The closings come in the wake of the priest sexual abuse scandal and an $85 million settlement between victims and the archdiocese, which O'Malley says is facing a $10 million annual deficit. In May the archdiocese sent letters to the parishes it was closing.

Lennon, who has been in charge of the closing process, hired Heck, an attorney and mother of four, based on her "extensive background working in parishes, with ethnic communities and on the Archdiocesan Pastoral Council," she said in an e-mail. Her responsibilities include coordinating activities associated with the closing of a church in a community and the settling of parishioners into another "welcoming" church. She says she played no role in choosing which churches to close.

The last point remains a sore subject among some Catholics whose churches have been chosen to close. They note that Heck's parish, St. Philip Neri in Newton, was somehow saved from the chopping block when many -- including St. Philip Neri parishioners themselves -- were certain it would close.

One measure of a church's viability is its sacramental index: Mass attendance, baptisms, first communions, confirmations, marriages, and funerals.

According to a spreadsheet run by a parishioner at St. Florence in Wakefield using archdiocesan numbers, St. Philip Neri ranks No. 356 among the 357 parishes in the archdiocese in terms of the sacramental index. (The archdiocese itself has not ranked the parishes.) "It should be embarrassing," said Scott Hanley, a parishioner at St. Florence, which has been selected to close. "We're a heck of a lot healthier than they are."

In a column published in the Newton Tab, a parishioner at St. Bernard's, which is also set to close, questioned why his church was picked instead of what he feels was the more obvious choice, St. Philip Neri. At no level of decision-making, said John Mahoney, was St. Bernard's selected to close. Conversely, at the first vote taken by the Newton cluster of seven churches, St. Philip Neri was selected unanimously, even by its own delegates, he added.

"Kathleen Heck, the top lay official appointed to oversee church closings, is a parishioner of St. Philip Neri, one of the smaller parishes in Newton which mysteriously remained open," wrote Mahoney, a former parish council member of St. Bernard's. The process, he added, is "tainted by conflict of interest in allowing Ms. Heck to play such a significant role in the church closings." Mahoney said when he and others met with Lennon in July and raised that concern, Lennon angrily replied: "We're not going down that road."

"Clearly," Mahoney wrote, "we had struck a nerve."

The archdiocese did not respond to repeated requests from the Globe to discuss Heck and St. Philip Neri.

Heck herself professed to be stunned that her church was saved from closure, according to two parishioners from St. William's in Dorchester, who spoke with her in mid-August. "She said that she discovered her church was not closing when she was helping with the mailings of the decrees," said Mary Hogan. The decree is the official notification from the archdiocese that a church is to be closed. "She indicated that she was mystified, amazed, stunned that her church was not going to be closed. She assured us that she had nothing to do with the closing decision."

Added Kathryn Maillett, who accompanied Hogan to the chancery: "She brought the subject up. It looked like an excuse to say, 'My hands are clean.' "

The two women said Heck explained that her church is home to a Korean Mass, which draws emigres from Boston. Hogan and Maillett noted that their own church, which closed Aug. 31, was home to a large Vietnamese population. "They're absolutely devastated that we closed," said Hogan.

But the former pastor at St. William's, the Rev. Christopher Hickey, said Heck served as a "terrific resource" for him as his parish was in the throes of closing. "Kathleen became the one you could get to when you couldn't get to the bishop," he said. "She became a wonderful intermediary who could both speak for Bishop Lennon and for the [closing] process with honesty and integrity. Together we were strategizing about how best to go forward in the process. She put a nice face to a difficult spot for me."

Hogan, however, notes that Hickey, who had been at St. William's for less than a year, strongly supported closing the church, saying it would serve as a fine example for other churches to follow. Hickey was then reassigned to St. Mary's in Hanover, whose pastor was retiring.

Another pastor whose church is merging with two others wonders why Heck never contacted him. "It puzzles me enormously that she's doing all this work but has yet to meet with the people of St. Catherine's," said the Rev. Robert Bowers, of St. Catherine of Siena in Charlestown. "She has been working with the other two parishes here but never contacted me."

But Heck did visit St. Pius X in Milton, where she drove around for three hours with three parishioners. They showed her other parishes with smaller parking lots and poor accessibility that were remaining open. "She was very nice, but she didn't give us any hope. She never wavered from her position, which is to get you to transition to another church. I told her we're not there yet, we're not giving up," said Marie Gates, who has belonged to St. Pius X for 50 years.

Marjorie Begin, another parishioner at the church, said she was impressed with Heck's accessibility and listening skills. "I think they put her on this team because they needed a soft touch, and the men are so uncommunicative," Begin said. "People talk to her because she's the only person from the archdiocese who returns phone calls. But once you talk to Kathleen Heck you're going down that road to closure."

Big plans, harsh reality

At Saint Mary's College, a Catholic girls' school in Notre Dame, Ind., Kathleen McCarthy majored in humanistic studies, then earned a law degree at George Washington University. Her husband, William Heck, spent 17 years as general manager of the Copley Plaza hotel; he now has his own hospitality industry strategic marketing firm. The couple has been active in church and civic matters; she chaired the renovation committee for the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and raised money for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. She is also a canon lawyer, lector, and religious education teacher. William Heck is a trustee of Forest Hills Cemetery and Old Sturbridge Village. Last year he ran unsuccessfully for alderman in Newton on a platform of limiting taxes to Proposition 2 guidelines and freezing expenditures. The Hecks are registered Republicans.

Richard Rowland, a Eucharistic minister at St. Bernard's in Newton, has followed Kathleen Heck's role in the closing process. "She's protecting her church, but she wants to close others. The politics are just dripping from this," he said. "She's supposed to be an outreach person, but she's not reaching out to get the facts, just to enforce the edict."

That certainly isn't the way Heck sees her role. In February, she told the archdiocesan newspaper, The Pilot, that she felt called to serve the church in the reconfiguration process. "I think it will be a huge challenge, but one of the most important things I've ever done and certainly the most worthwhile because I share [Bishop Lennon's] view and Archbishop Sean O'Malley's view that we will be able to grow a better Church for Boston from a stronger foundation," she said. "Some part of everything I've done was in some way getting me ready for this job."

But probably nothing prepared her for the reality of it: angry parishioners yelling at her; thousands of e-mails and telephone calls from irate and grieving people; and, most of all, the around-the-clock occupation of eight "closed" churches by parishioners who have refused to leave, with the threat of more to follow. Two churches are challenging the closings in court, and others have appealed to Rome.

Before all the fallout, Heck had big plans: There would be manuals for the closing and welcoming parishes to follow and teams from closing parishes to ease the transition. Sacred objects would find suitable homes. She would personally visit every closing and welcoming parish. Some of those things have been accomplished; others have not.

In an e-mail to the Globe, Heck said she meets daily with Lennon. "I have spoken to large groups and small groups. I have sat down with VOTF [Voice of the Faithful] and folks from Opus Dei. I have been interviewed, taped, filmed and accompanied." She said she works with 14 archdiocesan departments "in an effort to take very good care of the parish transition." She concluded: "I am a woman who cares deeply about her faith, her church and the good people of the parishes of the archdiocese."

But some aren't impressed with Heck's interpersonal skills. When Hogan and Maillett saw her at the chancery, they felt she wasn't a good listener. "I think what was most stunning to us was the degree of self-absorption," said Hogan. "She told us all about how she was greeted and treated, and how she was able to persuade people of the superiority of her vision and the goodness of her heart. I saw nothing in her affect or personality or conversation that would lead you to believe that she's skilled at this sort of thing."

In July, Heck visited Sacred Heart in Lexington, which is scheduled to close after the new year. Donna Maria Bosco, who has belonged to the parish for 28 years, was in the audience. "It was just stock, corporate, slick answers," Bosco said. "She really annoyed me because she would answer a question without answering it. She's pandering and patronizing, and I just felt she was a corporate shill."

Bosco said Heck answered her question about the "welcoming parishes" that would host Sacred Heart parishioners by "going on and on about her nephew who became a priest. She took every opportunity to tell the story she wanted to tell." Heck further alienated the packed house when she noted that she had visited the church the week before and found it wasn't crowded, Bosco said.

"We were saying what a vibrant parish we had, and then she made that comment. People weren't happy at all. It was in the middle of summer, a lot of us were on vacation, and we had made a real effort to get people to that meeting," Bosco said. "For the next two days, I felt toxified. I felt I had exposed myself to Kryptonite. This is what the archdiocese does: It sends someone who has no power and no answers but is only there to do a certain task."

Hogan and Maillett of St. William's felt Heck's sharp tongue, too, when she criticized Voice of the Faithful, the lay group seeking to give more power to parishioners. "She mentioned several people by name and said they were misrepresenting and attacking her," said Hogan, who is not a Voice member. "It was totally inappropriate . . . the degree of anger and hostility exuding from her. I knew one of the men, and he has a very good reputation."

Ed Wade, a member of St. Peter's in Gloucester, which is set to close, has met with Heck. His impression is that she has not gotten the support she needs from individual priests, including regional vicars and bishops. "I think she's having trouble getting her arms around the situation," said Wade, who is a Voice member. "Frankly, for her to be on top of nearly 360 parishes is an impossible task. I think she's wrong, but she's doing the job with a full-court press. I don't think you can fault her for that. She has assumed the mission with a degree of intensity I admire."

Parishioners at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in East Boston felt that intensity after they began a round-the-clock vigil when the church closed Oct. 12. The following night, Heck showed up with a priest and a nun. "She said, 'What do you people think you're accomplishing here? This church is closed,"' said Gina Scalcione. "I told her she had no business being here, and she said she did." According to parishioners, Heck worked the crowd, telling people the church was closed and they should leave. "She acted as if she didn't think we were very intelligent. We're not stupid here, just because some people only speak Italian or broken English," said Scalcione. The church was founded and built by Italian immigrants.

"Her mission was to get people out of here and to close the church that night," said Ann DiFeo. Heck's actions drove DiFeo's daughter, Felicia, to tears.

"She said this was not a church, it was just bricks and mortar," said Felicia DiFeo, 27. "I was born here. This is a church, and it's always going to be a church in my eyes." When Heck repeated something similar to parishioner Carolena Lyons, Lyons replied: "This is not just concrete, bricks, and mortar. This church was built on blood, sweat, and tears."

Heck left the church that night, unable to persuade parishioners to do the same.