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Closed Lowell Church on Cardinal’s For Sale List
According to a news report by writer Mark Arsenault at the MetroDesk of boston.com, the Archdiocese of Boston through decrees made by Cardinal Sean P. O’Malley is moving to sell six shuttered churches. The decrees made according to canon law remove the sacred standing of the church buildings making them eligible to be sold for non-religious secular use.
From boston.com:
For years, the fate of the closed churches has been the source of a dispute between local Catholic faithful and their archdiocese. Angry Catholics have fought the closings, taking their case to the highest authorities at the Vatican. The Vatican appeals were rejected last year.
O’Malley, who had promised not to sell the buildings until the appeals to Rome were exhausted, is now asking vigil protesters to accept that it is finally time to move on.
“He would ask the faithful to respect his decision, and in areas where there are vigils that there would be a peaceful conclusion,” said the Very Rev. Arthur M. Coyle, the cardinal’s liaison on the long process to prepare the churches for sale.
Included in the “shuttered six” is the Church of St. Jeanne D’Arc in Lowell. Parish supporters and activists have brought thier protests to the highest levels in the Vatican – to no avail. Whether the Council of Parishes will again appeal hasn’t been decided.
Read the full article here at boston.com.
We will continue to follow developments in the ongoing quest to reopen these churches.
Check here for the press release from Cardinal O’Malley and the Archdiocese.
Why anybody would remain in these churches and be repeatedly treated in this shabby manner is beyond me. I’ll never understand why the congregations do not just throw their collective hands up and go start an independent church of their own. See how O’Malley and the Archdiocese feels when their coffers are empty. See if the Vatican will change their tune. Can it happen? I don’t know.
As an outsider looking in, I ask myself where are the Martin Luthers, John Calvins and Ulrich Zwingli of the 21st century?
You are entirely right, the whole archdiocesan system is an outgrowth of Roman civil government – Emperor/ senators Pope/Cardinals Archbishops/Bishops. No such organization, or even a hint of one, is seen in the Scriptural authorizations for the structure of that Church that Jesus Christ is the head of. The Church the Apostles built
by obeying the Holy Spirit in their midst has multiple Bishops/Elders within each congregation and they are all under one head of the Church – Jesus Christ, the one and only High Priest intercessor between man and God. Each congregation has deacons, teachers and preachers chosen from its own members, men who have shown faith and Christian living over a long period of time. Every member is a minister having been ordained when chosen by Jesus and baptized into His death for the remission of sins at which point (Acts 2:38) “they receive the Holy Spirit”.
The Church of Christ is not a real estate conglomerate stealing buildings from the descendants of Mill workers who built those buildings with very hard earned dollars,
Jesus is real, His word is sharper than any two edged sword and in the day that you
Truly seek Him, He will be found of you. We all have to first find Jesus and know what He has said in the recorded revelation, given once for all time, we need to obey Him and to become members of His Church to escape the clutches of the Vatican and their “traditions of men”.
I suppose if you can forgive the pandemic sexual abuse of kids you can forgive just about anything. I do feel sorry for the good priests, but something is seriously wrong with the whole structure.
Demography changes. In North Carolina only 5% of Catholics were born there, many transplants from the Northeast. In Georgia the moved a whole church, stone by stone from Buffalo due to increase Catholic population. Now they got a big Cathedral out in a suburb! Catholics moved, you can’t get angry at the Archdiocese or the Vatican. Blame the higher costs of living.