Three years ago, Salem was one of the first collaboratives under the Disciples in Mission pastoral plan and had Salem’s four parishes included. They quickly determined that four was too many and St. Anne’s was split off, leaving Immaculate Conception (my old parish), St. James, and St. John the Baptist, which was previously a Polish national parish. The pastor of the collaborative was unable to get the finances of the collaborative under control and ended up resigning last year.
Now the temporary administrator and the parish leaders have come up with this new plan to turn St. John the Baptist into a Polish shrine dedicated to St. John Paul II and merge Immaculate Conception and St. James into one parish while keeping the two churches open, which will let them sell off redundant property.
Twenty years ago, when I was living in Salem and later when I was vice-chairman of the parish council, I would hang out with my pastor and we’d talk about the situation. I would always say that they should close St. Joseph's and St. Mary’s (which they did) and St. John the Baptist and then merge St. James and St. Anne, because the fact is that you had six Catholic churches within a 1.5-mile circle and there was no way to justify it.
St. Joseph’s and St. Mary’s were closed in the early 2000s, and I’ll be surprised if they can find the financial basis to create an independent shrine for St. John’s.
Immaculate Conception is actually the second oldest parish in the Archdiocese of Boston, after the cathedral parish, and the church is the second oldest Catholic church in Boston after the St. Augustine chapel in the Catholic cemetery in South Boston. And it’s a bit ironic that originally St. James was mission of Immaculate Conception and now they will be folded in again.
I hope that they can preserve a bit of the history, perhaps by returning the new merged parish to the original name of St. Mary’s. At least something of the historic Catholic community can be salvaged from this.
Image Credit
- Rainbow-and-Immaculate-Conception-Church-01.a833143d4f174b519fc3aef4160b16b1: Own photo
It’s a very sad state of affairs . The financial difficulties are in my opinion the result of pastoral problems. My family attended St. James. Information can be posted on a web sight but that does not substitute for real communication . A one page summary hand out of our pastoral plan was left at the entrance to the church. There was never any meetings to discuss it and rally people around it. My husband and I were in enthusiastic support of being a phase one collaborative . We wanted to see this work. We are now attending St. Adelaide’s in Peabody. We don’t know a soul there but there seems to be a priority in Liturgy that is beautiful and reverential . This was not what was happening in my parish. I am curious to know if other collaboratives are in the same situation as Salem.
This might be the most extreme case, but I do know of other collaboratives that are struggling, mostly with finances.