Since there’s no news to report about the suppressed St. Albert’s parish in Weymouth, Mass., and the near-schismatic Catholics there, yet they need to keep it in the forefront of the news, the Boston Globe‘s Bella English continues her one-woman slant on the news by writing this puff piece in the Living/Arts section.
There’s all kinds of happy talk about coffee and donuts and glad-handing and well-wishing, all kinds of busywork like changing lightbulbs and holding hospitality hours, but one thing is missing: the Eucharist. There’s not a single mention of what these people do on Sunday. Do they go to Mass? Do they hold their own “prayer service” (which consists of God knows what)? You get a hint here: “Still, there are issues: People miss Father Coyne, they miss the consecration—and a few of the prayer books have disappeared. The pastoral council worries about volunteer burnout.” If you blinked you might have missed it between missing Fr. Coyne and the missing prayer books: “Oh yeah, and we miss Jesus, too.”
There’s lots of talk about St. Albert’s having been a “vibrant” parish, but apparently only in the Sixties and Seventies “spirit of Vatican II” way. There’s lots going on there, but the only thing missing is what makes it an actual Catholic parish: the Eucharist as the center, source, and summit of the faith and of parish life.
