Parishioners at St. Albert's go to court
An attorney for St. Albert the Great parishioners asked a judge yesterday to stop the Archdiocese of Boston from seizing and selling off the church's assets, citing "irreparable harm" to the parish, which was closed Sept. 1 by the archdiocese.
More than 150 parishioners crowded into a courtroom in Suffolk Superior Court, standing in the back and along
the sides, with the overflow sent to the balcony. The parishioners had rented three buses to take them from their embattled Weymouth parish to the courthouse for the first round in a legal battle that pits them against their archdiocese.
The parish has filed a lawsuit against the archdiocese, saying the church belongs to them, not to the hierarchy. Despite the closing, parishioners have refused to leave the church, maintaining what they call "an eternal prayer vigil" since the final Mass was said Aug. 29.
Attorney Mary Ames, representing St. Albert's parishioners, asked Judge Thomas E. Connolly to issue a preliminary injunction stopping the archdiocese from selling off any of the property or assets of the parish. "Should they be liquidated . . . the loss and harm could never be remedied," she said. "These are precious keepsakes more valuable than money to these plaintiffs and irreplaceable in nature." She mentioned the dozens of stained-glass windows of the saints, paid for by parishioners four years ago.
Ames argued that the archdiocese merely acts as a trustee for its parishes, and that the churches and their assets belong to the parishioners. Discussing the recent round of suppressions, or church closings, she told Connolly that they are a "means by which the archdiocese takes money and assets and converts it to its own." In August, she said, the archdiocese came in, unannounced, and seized $200,000 worth of assets from St. Albert's, including checking, money market, and other accounts.
Wilson Rogers Jr., an attorney for the archdiocese, argued that the closing and subsequent transfer of property to the archdiocese is an internal church matter over which the court should have no jurisdiction.
"What we have here is an issue involving property of a former parish," he said. "The parish has been suppressed. The Archbishop of Boston has legal title to this property."
He said Ames was correct that the real estate, bank account, and property belong to the Weymouth church. "But under church law, this church no longer exists." He cited a case involving a Scituate parish in which the Supreme Judicial Court ruled that it had no jurisdiction because the Catholic Church is a "hierarchal church and the people are asserting their claims as members of the church."
Parishioners held their emotions in check during the court hearing but expressed anger afterward.
"We are not closed," said Sandi Jones, who has belonged to the parish for 28 years. "We still exist, and we will be there as long as it takes." She confronted the Rev. Christopher J. Coyne, the spokesman for the archdiocese, and asked whether he had ever been to St. Albert's. Coyne replied, before quickly walking away, that he had been to other churches in Weymouth.
Later, Coyne said the archdiocese hopes to resolve the impasse with St. Albert's "somewhere outside of court. . . . It's not good for Christians to be opposing each other in court," he said. Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley, who recently returned from Rome, plans to meet tomorrow with auxiliary bishops to discuss the matter, Coyne added. "At this point, patience, kindness, and charity is our approach. But we don't think waiting it out is the way. . . . We're going to have to find creative ways of dealing with this that would never involve eviction."
Connolly said he would issue a decision in the case later, and thanked parishioners for attending the session. "It is obvious to me the heartache people have because of the loss, or possible loss of something so important and so intrinsic to your life," he said.
Some parishioners expressed concern after the hearing that Connolly is a former seminarian and is the same judge who criticized a ruling by a colleague that made public church documents relating to its handling of pedophile priests. The release of such documents was the catalyst for the priest sexual abuse crisis. 