While the whole world, especially the Catholic world, focuses on the loss of Pope John Paul and the uncertain future, Boston Catholics continue upon their self-centered childish crusades.
At. St. Anselm’s parish in Sudbury, Mass., one of the parishes where people have been holding sit-ins in protest of the decision to the close their parish because it’s too small or otherwise didn’t meet the needs of a reconfigured archdiocese, the people there decided to refuse the “offer” made by the archbishop to keep their parish open as a mission chapel of a neightboring parish. Instead, they’re going to act like petulant children, holding their breath and stamping their feet until they get what they want.
What these people don’t seem to realize is that it wasn’t “an offer” made by Archbishop O’Malley for them to accept or refuse. It was a leadership decision made in concession to their obstinance. Unfortunately, they spit in his extended hand.
Apparently, they refused because they’re not allowed to have Mass there:
On Sunday, some 400 people came to St. Anselm to celebrate Mass, which was to be the first since it reopened last Thursday. But they were turned away after learning that Bishop Richard Lennon had called the church’s former pastor that morning to notify him that Mass was not allowed under the new arrangement.
That doesn’t make sense. Something’s not right. Why bother calling it a chapel if they can’t celebrate Mass there? I have a call in to the archdiocese to clear that up.
A telling point is that the call went to the former pastor, not the pastor of the parish of which the former St. Anselm’s is now a part. My hunch is that they were told that they could not have a Mass independent of the new parish or the new pastor’s authority. I’ll confirm this if or when I get a call back from the archdiocese.
Nice of them to keep up this nonsense while the rest of us are mourning the Pope.
Update: The Archdiocese has responded. Click on the link for more.
