Sign of hope at closed parishes

Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley is making a quiet, concerted effort to resolve the long standoff between the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston and parishioners who have occupied six churches to prevent their closure.

The archdiocese will provide priests to celebrate Christmas Mass in at least three of the six churches where parishioners have been on round-the-clock vigils since autumn 2004, church officials and activists said Tuesday. The archdiocese had denied previous requests by parishioners in the churches for priests for Christmas and Easter services.

The archdiocese is also paying heating and other operating expenses at some of the churches, activists said, and O'Malley, in an attempt to resolve the disputes, is in the midst of a new series of meetings with leaders of the vigils.

''We call it a Christmas miracle," said Teresa Barlozzari, a pharmacologist who was among those occupying St. James the Great Church in Wellesley Tuesday. ''We are very pleased, very excited" to have a priest for the holidays.

''We have our church all decorated for Christmas, and we are going to have a traditional 5 p.m. Mass" on Christmas Eve, she said, expressing an upbeat attitude similar to those of parishioners holding vigils in other churches who were contacted Tuesday. ''We will read the midnight Gospel, which describes the Nativity, a pageant of children in costume will [process] to the altar. We did it last year without a priest. This year it is going to be even more wonderful."

O'Malley -- citing a shortage of priests, worshipers, and money -- closed 62 of the archdiocese's 357 parishes between July 2004 and May 2005; 14 more are slated to close in the future, but do not have closing dates.

The six that are occupied by parishioners, as well as seven others, have appealed the closing decisions to the Vatican; the Vatican had said it would decide on the appeals by last May and has offered no explanation for the delay.

''We are pragmatic; we know things are not resolved," said Barlozzari. ''But we are hopeful," she said, at least in part because of improved relations between the people holding vigils and O'Malley, who met with five leaders of the St. James vigil Dec. 7.

Leaders told parishioners after the meeting that ''at this last meeting he actually heard us," Barlozzari said. ''He was interactive, listening, discussing things with some passion."

Archdiocesan spokesman Kevin Shea said Tuesday that O'Malley is ''hopeful that resolutions can be reached in a reasonable and conciliatory manner."

''As we celebrate Christmas, the archbishop prays that all people of the archdiocese will renew their commitment to our shared mission . . . and work together for healing in the church," Shea said.

Cynthia Deysher -- who leads the parish council at St. Anselm,in Sudbury, another of the vigil sites -- said she believes that O'Malley is exerting himself to end the tumultuous, often acrimonious series of church closings and consolidations that followed widespread revelations of sexual abuse of children by priests.

''Reconfiguration has been a long chapter for the Catholic Church," she said, using the term the archdiocese has adopted for the closing process. ''It was not done very carefully, not done very effectively, and it came on top of the sexual-abuse chapter, which is still unfolding. Everyone would like to put a close to the reconfiguration chapter and move forward in a positive way.

''Certainly the archbishop is trying to meet with each parish holding vigils and is working toward some sort of resolution," Deysher said.

Jon Rogers, a leader of the vigil at St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Church in Scituate said a Dec. 3 meeting between the archbishop and parishioners left him confident that O'Malley would cancel the decision to close the parish and ''cautiously optimistic" that O'Malley would decide to open a new parochial school in the town.

''I think he did not realize" the vitality of the parish, Rogers said. ''He said he needed time to review the facts and figures."

Rogers said that the church's request for a priest last Christmas was turned down and that it did not renew the request this year.

All parishes contacted Tuesday said they had grown in members and in the scope of their activities since the beginning of the vigils. St. Anselm has more than 350 member families, up 25 families since the beginning of autumn, activists there said.

''One of the things we emphasized [to O'Malley] is that we are a fully functioning parish right now," Rogers said, ''with services, choir, relief work, and other activities."

The least optimistic of the vigil leaders contacted Tuesday was Gina Scalcione of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in East Boston, who said parishioners there requested a meeting with O'Malley six weeks ago.

''If O'Malley thinks we are going to go away," she said, ''well, he will go away before we do."

Charles A. Radin can be reached at radin@globe.com.