Archdiocese names insider to replace outspoken pastor

The Archdiocese of Boston, just days after ousting an outspoken critic of the Catholic hierarchy from the pastorate of one of the most vibrant churches in the region, has appointed the Rev. Christopher J. Coyne, a chancery insider and former spokesman for Cardinal Bernard F. Law and Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley, to take his place.

Parishioners at Our Lady Help of Christians in Newton, already furious over the forced resignation of their longtime pastor, the Rev. Walter H. Cuenin, said they were troubled by the choice because Coyne had been the voice of the church administration during the clergy sexual abuse crisis and the start of the parish closings process.

Cuenin, who had served two consecutive six-year terms as pastor of Our Lady's, announced last weekend that he was resigning after the archdiocese accused him of financial improprieties. The archdiocese said yesterday that Cuenin must now reimburse the church $75,000 to $80,000 for improper financial practices.

But parish leaders, including members of the parish and finance councils, said the archdiocese was selectively enforcing little-known policies. They said those lay-led boards had repeatedly approved the payments, including a $500 monthly payment from the parish for the performance of baptisms, weddings, and funerals, and the parish-financed lease of a Honda Accord that was shared with visiting priests. They also said they believed the arrangements to be fully in compliance with archdiocesan regulations and similar to arrangements at other parishes.

Last night, about 300 parishioners angered over Cuenin's ouster gathered on the front lawn of Our Lady's in the pouring rain, with candles flickering beneath umbrellas and then filed into the church basement where they planned to hold a vigil overnight. When parishioner Margaret Roylance called for ''the immediate reinstatement of Father Walter Cuenin," other members of the parish responded with raucous applause, tears, and foot stomping.

Parish leaders said they believe that Cuenin was targeted for ouster because he was a prominent leader of local priests who helped organize a letter calling for Law to resign, who reached out to gays and lesbians, and who frequently suggested that the church should at least discuss the possibility of ordaining married men and giving greater roles to women. The archdiocese denied that Cuenin was targeted for any reason other than financial improprieties.

Last night in Dedham, Cuenin, after giving a previously scheduled speech on the role of the laity, declined to criticize the archdiocese. But he said that church officials had raised no objections about his compensation during several previous audits of the parish.

''I feel sad to leave Newton," Cuenin said. ''I understand the people's sorrow and loss, but I hope they welcome their new pastor."

During his tenure, Cuenin had been summoned to the chancery on several occasions to explain remarks he made in homilies or, once, in a statement to the Legislature opposing a bill that he believed would bar certain benefits for same-sex couples by defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. And for 10 months, from December 2002 to September 2003, the archdiocese banned archdiocesan gatherings at Our Lady's after Cuenin was quoted in The New Yorker magazine questioning church teachings on gays and women.

Cuenin briefly attempted to lower his public profile, but earlier this month, in his parish bulletin, he suggested he was sympathetic to gay couples who were married, writing, ''It doesn't appear that anyone's marriage has been threatened or compromised by the 1,800 gay marriages that have already taken place in the past year."

Cuenin was a frequent target of the most conservative elements of the church locally, who wrote on blogs and in e-mails of their views that he was a heretic who should be ousted from the priesthood. One of the blogs used the headline ''this is fun" on a link to a newspaper story about Cuenin's resignation.

''This is a witch-hunt, not more, not less," said Gisela Morales-Barreto of Newton, a parishioner at Our Lady's for 20 years. ''They were trying to find something against him, and it took them all this time to make it happen. This is their way to punish him and punish us for how outspoken he has been. And now the one thing we have feared all along is happening -- that if Walter will leave us, they will send someone from the other extreme to put the brakes on what this community is all about. Chris Coyne is in the opposite end of what Walter is all about."

Coyne, in a brief telephone interview yesterday, said he understood the concerns of parishioners. ''I think the most important thing, given the present situation, is just to try and listen to people and also to be available to people," he said. ''Over time, I hope to work with them, to continue to build the good faith life and community that is already present at Our Lady's."

Coyne, 47, currently teaches liturgical theology at St. John's Seminary in Brighton and assists at parishes in Medfield and Holliston. He said that he spent time at Our Lady's over the course of three years in seminary, when he conducted a parish census, and that the Our Lady's parish choir sang at his first Mass, in his hometown of Woburn, in 1986.

''I have a great affection for Our Lady's and already know it somewhat, and I hope to be able to return to the people of Our Lady's some of the support and kindness and Christian love that they showed me when I was a student," Coyne said. His appointment is effective today.

O'Malley's current spokesman, Terrence C. Donilon, defended Coyne's selection, saying: ''Father Coyne is an immensely talented, devoted, and caring priest. The archbishop holds Father Coyne in the highest regard and knows he will do a superb job as pastor."

Our Lady's is one of the largest parishes in the archdiocese, with average weekend Mass attendance of 1,895 people and 201 baptisms, 118 funerals, and 92 weddings a year.

Late yesterday, the archdiocese issued a three-paragraph statement saying Cuenin's resignation was requested because of financial practices that ''do not comport with archdiocesan policy, canon law, or archdiocesan statutes."

The archdiocese said those practices included ''Mass stipends taken at a rate in excess of that permitted by canon law and archdiocesan statutes; automobile expenses funded by the parish in excess of archdiocesan policies for expense reimbursement, which are updated regularly and circulated to all clergy; and compensation taken from both the parish and the archdiocese for the same time period time during a sabbatical."

The archdiocese did not disclose the current level of permissible reimbursement for Mass or for vehicle costs.

The lay leadership of the Newton parish -- members of the parish and finance councils-- used unusually strong language to defend the former pastor. The parish council, in a statement issued before the archdiocese spoke, said ''the allegations of financial impropriety are ridiculous on their face."

''Father Cuenin has been one of the leading voices of protest and inquiry throughout the scandal of clerical sexual abuse," the statement said. ''We do not consider it a coincidence that the archdiocese has now created a way to force Father Cuenin out of his pastorship, and we find it deceitful, cowardly, and immoral to pretend that parish finances have anything to do with his departure."

In a separate statement, the parish finance council said the stipend in question predated Cuenin's arrival at the parish, and was a practice ''that the finance council knew about and fully supported." The council said the leased automobile was the idea of the finance council, which thought both practices complied with archdiocesan policy.

The chairman of the board of the Boston Priests Forum, the Rev. Thomas A. Mahoney, said he cannot understand what the archdiocese is doing.

''I see this as a very focused application of a diocesan policy that for the 12 years of Father Cuenin's stewardship was approved by previous audits, and the violations themselves are of a nature that no reasonable person could consider as greedy, secret, or malfeasance of any kind," Mahoney said. ''There were many opportunities along the way to ask him to correct those policies, and that was never done, so I don't understand why that would be applied so harshly at this moment."

Raja Mishra of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Michael Paulson can be reached at mpaulson@globe.com.