Church offers guidance on closings

WESTON -- In a somber five-hour meeting with priests who work at parishes he has ordered closed, Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley yesterday said he did not retaliate against outspoken mavericks or single out churches with high real estate values and appealed to priests to help the archdiocese close churches with minimal division.

At the meeting, church officials distributed a 168-page manual offering guidelines for priests about how to lay off workers, what to do with sacred objects, how to conduct closing Masses, and what to say to the news media.

"Never would I ask this of you if I were not certain that it was necessary," O'Malley wrote in an opening letter in the manual. "I am sorry for you and your parish that what has been such an important part of your lives can no longer continue."

O'Malley declined to speak to reporters, who were kept away from St. Julia Church by Weston police. But his spokesman, the Rev. Christopher J. Coyne, described the meeting as positive, saying "many of the priests were angry but respectful, and many said things they felt it was important for the archbishop to hear."

The meeting was described similarly by several priests in attendance.

"You could see the priests who were hurting," said the Rev. Robert E. Casey, administrator of St. Augustine Church in South Boston, which will close, "but [O'Malley] did his very best, and he asked for prayers for himself."

O'Malley opened the meeting with prayer and then remarks in which he brought up, without being asked, the question of whether he had chosen to close particular parishes because their pastors had called for Cardinal Bernard F. Law to resign amid the clergy sex abuse scandal or were otherwise outspoken.

"He brought it up at the very beginning -- he said that their choices had nothing to do with letters that people have signed or not signed, or statements that people have made," said the Rev. Austin H. Fleming, pastor of Our Lady Help of Christians in Concord, which is being closed. "He said if a bishop wants to remove a pastor, there are much easier ways to do it than by closing a parish."

The closings list includes nine of the 31 parishes headed by priests who called for Law to resign, eight of 46 parishes that are home to a chapter of the lay organization Voice of the Faithful, and one of the nine parishes headed by a leader of the Boston Priests Forum, formed by priests concerned about the crisis.

Critics have increasingly questioned the rationale behind closing five parishes with outspoken pastors: St. Catherine of Siena in Charlestown, Our Lady Help of Christians in Concord, St. Susanna in Dedham, St. Bernard in Newton, and St. Albert the Great in Weymouth.

"We question, in particular, those five, considering those communities seem to be vibrant," said Suzanne Morse, a spokeswoman for Voice of the Faithful. "They seem not to fit the criteria."

One of the pastors of those churches, the Rev. Stephen S. Josoma of St. Susanna Church in Dedham, said that at yesterday's meeting he invited O'Malley to visit his church and that the archbishop said he would do so.

"If he comes out, he might realize we are an alive and vibrant parish that doesn't meet his criteria for closing," Josoma said.

Church officials also said that real estate values did not play a role in deciding which churches to close. Some churches selected for closure are in affluent suburbs and are expected to fetch substantial sums of money, and some have substantial amounts of money in the bank. The Concord church, for example, has approximately $800,000 in the bank and just last year opened a $1.3 million parish center.

Multiple parishes plan to appeal the closings and an appeals process was laid out at the meeting by O'Malley's canonical affairs director. Once O'Malley issues a formal decree closing a parish, parishioners or priests have 10 days to file an appeal; then O'Malley has 30 days to respond. His decision can be appealed to the Vatican, but the parish closing process proceeds while the appeal is considered, and few appeals have succeeded.

Technically, the archdiocese will close 70 parishes, but in five cases two closing parishes will be replaced by one new parish, so there will be a net reduction of 65 parishes in the archdiocese. O'Malley is expected to announce eight to 11 closings in Lawrence and Lowell next month, and is also still deciding whether to close a church in Wayland.

O'Malley has also asked two clusters of parishes to come up with a plan to survive with two fewer pastors than parishes -- a request that could drive more parish closings, or could lead to parishes sharing a priest. Those clusters are in the Nashoba Valley towns of Ayer, Groton, Pepperell, Shirley, and Townsend, and in the archdiocese's Seacoast cluster of Amesbury, Georgetown, Merrimac, Newburyport, Rowley, Salisbury, and West Newbury.

Many goods are to be transferred to remaining parishes, but "non-sacred religious items that have no further use anywhere else should be destroyed and disposed in a way that does not cause wonderment to those who might find these items," according to the manual. "Shortly after the doors are closed, Archbishop Sean will deconsecrate the Church so that we can sell it," the manual says. "Sacred items will be removed from the Church and the Archbishop will issue a decree that relegates the Church to profane use. After this is done the Church may be sold for any use except one that would be deemed sordid."

Mac Daniel contributed to this report. Michael Paulson can be reached at mpaulson@globe.com. The Globe's ongoing coverage of parish closings can be seen at www.boston.com/parishes.