O'Malley will keep open two parishes set for closing

Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley, facing intense opposition in multiple communities to his efforts to close more than one-fifth of the parishes in the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, has decided to reverse his decisions to shutter parishes in West Newton and West Plymouth and has met privately with those leading round-the-clock occupations of closed churches in Sudbury and Weymouth.

O'Malley has also asked a lay-led commission to meet with the leaders of the vigils at seven closed parishes, reversing his earlier position that the committee -- which includes prominent Catholic leaders critical of the archdiocese -- would focus only on parishes that had not yet closed and would not reexamine the status of closed parishes.

The dramatic changes by O'Malley are in response to widespread criticism of his handling of a sweeping transformation of the Archdiocese of Boston amid the clergy sexual-abuse crisis.

The archbishop, citing financial woes, a shortage of priests, diminished Mass attendance, and shifting demographics, announced last spring that he would close 83 of the 357 parishes in the sprawling archdiocese. He has closed about 50 thus far, of which seven are occupied by protesters.

St. Bernard Church in West Newton, although technically still open for Sunday Masses, has also been occupied since Oct. 23 by parishioners who feared the archdiocese would try to lock them out and seize the buildings.

"In keeping with my commitment to study the impact of new information on previously announced parish closing decisions, I have modified the reconfiguration plans for Newton and Plymouth," O'Malley said in a statement released to the media yesterday.

O'Malley cited expected population growth in Plymouth in explaining his decision to reverse his plan to close Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha Church.

In Newton, O'Malley offered a more complex approach, described to parish leaders in Newton last night by archdiocesan officials. O'Malley had planned to close two of the seven parishes in Newton; in the statement, he said only that he will now reconsider how to serve those communities over the next year.

He said he will appoint an administrator to oversee St. Bernard, the West Newton parish that was to close, and Corpus Christi, an Auburndale parish that was slated to stay open; and another administrator to oversee both Mary Immaculate of Lourdes, a Newton Upper Falls parish that was slated to close, and St. Philip Neri, a Waban parish, which was to remain open. Each pair of parishes will be given a year to come up with a plan to become one parish.

The archdiocese plans immediately to restore St. Bernard to full operation as a parish. But last night Bishop Walter J. Edyvean met with parish leaders from St. Bernard and Corpus Christi and told parishioners that the pastors of both churches would have to resign. He also said that there is no guarantee which parish will survive after a year, according to participants in the meeting. Parishioners reacted unhappily to the turn of events, saying they do not want to lose their pastors, and St. Bernard parishioners plan to hold vigil at least until they have a chance to meet tomorrow night, according to parishioner Joe Drake.

"This doesn't mean St. Bernard's is home free," said parishioner Robert Ryan. "There's no certainty."

O'Malley's decisions were recommended by the work of a committee of prominent lay Catholics -- led by Sister Janet Eisner, president of Emmanuel College, and Peter Meade, executive vice president of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts -- that is reviewing the parish-closings controversy at the archbishop's request. In an interview yesterday, Meade said the committee had unanimously recommended that the West Plymouth parish, Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, remain open because of rapid population growth in that town and that the committee had been mystified by the archdiocese's intention to close the thriving St. Bernard parish.

"Closing St. Bernard's was inexplicable," Meade said. "As we worked through this, the archbishop was very willing to take a look at it."

Meade said the commission has been meeting with O'Malley weekly and has visited with many parishes slated to close.

"He is the decision maker, and we've been providing information and advice," he said. "We are encouraged. The archbishop is listening."

The Council of Parishes, a coalition of 15 parishes unhappy with the closings process, issued a statement last night welcoming O'Malley's actions, which council cochairman Peter Borre called "belated recognition of the severely flawed way in which the reconfiguration process was managed during the first half of this year."

The council called on O'Malley to allow Christmas Masses at all closed parishes now in vigil and to reconsider other planned parish closings.

O'Malley, who has previously not responded to phone calls, letters, and other entreaties from worshipers at closed parishes, took another step toward resolving the controversy by meeting privately Monday with two leaders of the Sudbury occupation at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston's South End and with five leaders of the Weymouth occupation at the home of a vigil leader.

"The archbishop found their discussion to be both forthright and helpful, and he looks forward to continuing a dialogue concerning these vigils," the archdiocese said in another statement.

The archbishop said he would allow a priest to say Christmas Mass at the Weymouth parish, St. Albert the Great, according to parishioners. St. Albert, like other closed churches occupied by parishioners, has had no sanctioned Masses since it was closed under canon law, so parishioners have been praying at lay-led worship services that technically do not satisfy the church obligation for Catholics to attend Sunday Mass.

O'Malley also agreed, according to the parishioners who met with him, to consider any "new information" that might lead him to reconsider his decision to close particular parishes.

O'Malley had previously granted a two-year delay to St. Mary of the Angels in Roxbury, agreed to rethink the closure of St. Catherine of Siena in Charlestown, and decided to reconsider which of two parishes to close in Stoughton. He also granted short-term reprieves to pastors of several parishes slated to close in cases in which the pastors asked for more time.

But O'Malley faces a daunting challenge of managing the controversial parish closings, which has slowed but has not stopped. Parishioners at a North Shore parish on the Salem-Peabody line, St. Thomas the Apostle, voted Sunday to stage a round-the-clock vigil to prevent the shuttering of their church, slated to close Jan. 9.

The meetings Monday were O'Malley's first with some of the parishioners who have occupied eight parishes in an effort to prevent the archbishop from following through on his plans to close the buildings and sell the property.

In Weymouth yesterday, when parish leader Mary Akoury announced that she and four others had met the night before with the archbishop, there was an audible gasp from the pews. And when she announced that O'Malley had offered to send a priest to say Mass on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, parishioners cheered.

"So we do have something of a Christmas present," said Akoury, smiling. But she added: "He did say don't raise your hopes up too high. At least we can say a dialogue has started, and that's very, very important."

The 90-minute meeting took place at a home in Weymouth, and O'Malley was accompanied by the Rev. Laurence J. Borges, who was the pastor at St. Albert in the 1990s and returned in late October for the 54th anniversary of the church's founding. Borges, now an associate pastor at St. Stephen in Framingham, will celebrate the holiday Masses at St. Albert.

Although parishioners expressed joy at the news that they will celebrate their first Mass since Aug. 29, some expressed disappointment that their most recent pastor, the Rev. Ronald D. Coyne, would not be the celebrant. Many at St. Albert feel that Coyne is being punished for being an outspoken critic during the priest sexual-abuse crisis.

On Monday, O'Malley met for more than an hour with Cynthia Deysher and Jack Ryan from St. Anselm in Sudbury. "The message we delivered is that we want to help solve the problems of the archdiocese and that people like our parishioners . . . are just the sort of people he needs to have working with him, and we want to work with him," Deysher said.

Michael Paulson can be reached at mpaulson@globe.com.Kathy McCabe, Franco Ordonez, and Megan Woolhouse of the Globe Staff contributed to this report.