Vatican questions Boston over assets

National Catholic Reporter, August 26, 2005

While it said it supports the principles and procedures behind the Boston archdiocesan plan to reduce the number of parishes, the Vatican has questioned the disposition of assets of seven of the 15 closed parishes that filed appeals to the Congregation for Clergy.

Several archdiocesan officials interviewed Aug. 10 by The Pilot, the archdiocesan newspaper, said that the appeals are still under review but the Vatican has indicated a different interpretation of an aspect of canon law regarding use of the assets from the seven closed parishes.

"In the last three months, we have encouraged the Holy See to respond to the recourses in Rome to bring some closure to those communities," Boston Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley said.

Clergy congregation officials "are supporting our procedures to close the parishes and they've said we've done the consultations correctly. They are not talking about reopening parishes," he added.

"However, they had other concerns about particular canons that were invoked in the process that we used here," he said. The vast majority of parish closings have been implemented through a process known in canon law as "suppression." In suppression, which is governed by 123, a parish is legally dissolved and the assets and the liabilities of the revert to the archdiocese.

From the early stages of the closing process, called reconfiguration, the archdiocese has said that a primary use of the assets of closed parishes will be to create a fund for parishes that are unable to be self-sustaining, including many that serve the inner city or immigrant communities.

The suppression canon was invoked "to prevent adding goods to parishes that already had sufficient capital and goods for their ministry" and to prevent saddling poor parishes with the debt and liabilities of their neighboring parishes that have been closed, the archbishop said.

Included in most decrees of suppression was a paragraph assigning the closing parish's territory to a neighboring parish. By doing so, the Vatican said, the archdiocese inadvertently invoked Canon 122, which deals with the division of parishes.

According to Canon 122, a closed parish's property and bank accounts--along with its liabilities--must be transferred to the parish or parishes asked to receive the parishioners from the closed parish.

When the decree of suppression of a parish tells the people to which parish they are to go, the clergy congregation's view is that the assets of that parish should follow the parishioners and not go to the archdiocese, said Fr. J. Bryan Hehir, president of Boston Catholic Charities and an adviser to the archbishop in the reconfiguration.

To solve the problem the clergy congregation suggested contacting the pastors of the receiving parishes and seeking their cooperation to cede the goods of the closed parishes to the archdiocese, Archbishop O'Malley said.

Of the 62 parishes that have closed so far, 15 filed appeals against the closings with the clergy congregation. Eight of the 15 parishes with pending appeals are not affected by the clergy congregation's interpretation because in some cases the decrees did not specify how the parish's territory should be allocated and in the other cases they were ethnic national parishes that have no defined territory.

The seven closed parishes affected by the Vatican decision are: Our Lady of Lourdes in Revere; Star of the Sea in Squantum; St. Francis Xavier Cabrini in Scituate; Infant Jesus-St. Lawrence in Brookline; St. James the Great in Wellesley; Sacred Heart in Natick; and Our Lady of Mercy in Belmont.

Over the past several weeks, Fr. Mark O'Connell, assistant to the moderator of the curia for canonical affairs, has met with the pastors and finance councils of each parish that received territory from one of the affected parishes to explain the Vatican's interpretation and ask parishes for their cooperation in surrendering the properties.