Sean P. O’Malley, OFM Cap

Archbishop of Boston

2121 Commonwealth Avenue

Boston, MA 02135-3192

Fax 617 782-8358

June 2, 2004

Dear Archbishop Sean:

We, the undersigned parishioners of Sacred Heart Parish of Lexington, are responding to the diocesan request for reactions to church closings. In doing so, we submit a formal appeal regarding the decision to close our parish. Our appeal is based on Canon Law and the intent of the Vatican II Constitution. We further request that while this appeal is pending no further action with respect to closure of Sacred Heart be taken.

This appeal was initiated by concerned parishioners of Sacred Heart. When we asked our pastor about appealing, he declined to participate because he felt his involvement might interfere with his pastoral responsibility to prepare parishioners for the likely closure of Sacred Heart. We consulted with a canon lawyer who also declined to participate in this action because he works for the Archdiocese and because our pastor is not involved. The lawyer did encourage us to familiarize ourselves with Canon Law to avoid any improper course of action.

We reviewed Canon Law, Vatican II Constitution and the Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity which reinforced our understanding that while we are bound to obedience, we are also bound to object if we feel an injustice has occurred. In keeping with this mandate, this appeal was drafted, and edited by parishioners including the lay members of the parish council. Though this appeal letter was prepared without the involvement of our pastor, Father Arnold Colletti, who was reluctant for pastoral reasons to participate in an appeal, we have, as a courtesy, furnished him with a copy of the final text. He has stated that if you require a cover letter from him in order to accept this appeal he is willing to provide one.

Our appeal is based upon the following observations and rationale:

● Canon Law 1645 states that a judgment based on evidence shown to be false or defective should be overturned. We submit that the evidence used to make the decision to close Sacred Heart Parish is false and defective.

● Canon Law 1752 states that the salvation of souls - the supreme law on the Church - is to be kept before one’s eyes. We submit that the decision to close Sacred Heart violates this law because of this parish’s extraordinary effectiveness at providing for the spiritual wellbeing of its parishioners.

● We submit that, in violation of Canon Law and intent of the Vatican II Constitution, the Archdiocese’s decision making process with regard to church closings was inherently and unjustly biased against Sacred Heart.

The following is a review of the facts and events related to the selection of parishes for closure and the decision to close Sacred Heart.

1. The need for church closings was announced as a way of dealing with an overall decline in church attendance, an aging population of priests, financial problems in many parishes and a shift of Catholics from the inner cities to the suburbs.
2. All churches in the Archdiocese of Boston were ranked with regard to total attendance and sacramental index [the sum of all baptisms, funerals and marriages (the last number factored twice)].
3. The process of closing was to be based on the viability of parishes in clusters defined by the Archdiocese.
4. Each cluster was to determine: (i.) which of its churches would be closed if a single church were required to close, and (ii.) which would close if others were also required.
5. Although 357 churches were divided into 83 clusters, Sacred Heart Parish was placed in one of the very few clusters containing only two parishes. Parishioners of Sacred Heart felt that the size of our cluster was unfair; however, we elected to follow the requests of our pastor, who asked us to refrain from raising objections that might interfere with the decision making process regarding church closures.
6. In compliance with the process defined by the Archdiocese, Sacred Heart Parish dutifully provided the only permitted regarding closings within Lexington’s two-parish cluster, namely that, despite Sacred Heart’s viability, if only one parish could remain open, it would have to be the larger one (St. Brigid’s) due to current physical facility constraints.
7. You announced that “At every step of the process, we took great care not to place the burden of reconfiguration on the backs of the poor.”
8. Your office informed Sacred Heart that our church would be one of sixty five to close because of “the small number of worshippers at Sacred Heart and its relatively low sacramental index, as well as its proximity to other parishes [particularly St. Brigid]”.
9. The town assessors valued Sacred Heart’s property at $ 3.7 million. Based on other information recently released, the actual value is expected to be much higher.

The rationale for our appeal to reverse the closure of Sacred Heart is outlined as follows:

Canon Law 1645 provides that a judgment based on evidence shown to be false or defective should be overturned. We assert that the method used by the Archdiocese for determining viability was defective and therefore produced a false measure of the viability of our parish.

Evidence:

1. The sacramental index is a defective measure of viability and its use introduced a bias against young parishioners.
2. The reliance on attendance, without regard to physical size of the church, introduced a bias against parishioners worshipping in smaller churches.
3. The clustering process unfairly burdened the Catholic community of Lexington.
4. The judgment appears to be based on arbitrary and capricious criteria or on factors not identified in the public selection process.

These objections are described more fully below.

1. The sacramental index is a flawed measure of viability and its use introduced a bias against young parishioners. The index weighs deaths (funerals) the same as births (baptisms) in determining the viability of a parish. This is illogical, as one can see in a comparison of St. Brigid’s and Sacred Heart parishes. Despite a seating capacityWhile Sacred Heart’s church is smaller (less than half the seating capacity of St. Brigid), one third more baptisms occurred at Sacred Heart. While the number of matrimonies for the two parishes is comparable, St. Brigid’s sacramental index was increased because they buried two and a half times the number of parishioners that Sacred Heart buried. The bias of this index as a measure of viability is that it clearly undervalues young parishioners with children.

Parish Demographics related to viability are more properly measured using either a baptism funeral ratio, (or a real growth number based on funerals subtracted from baptisms) and the observation of attendance data over time to determine viability of a parish. Apparently the October Count is unreliable because the changes in church attendance from week to week are quite variable and many counts are inaccurately conducted.

We submit that the sacramental index is an inappropriate and biased way of measuring viability of a parish. Standard measures of viability of a community consider birth to death ratios a better indicator, which would put Sacred Heart far ahead with a baptism to funeral ratio of 1.6 (42/26) compared to St. Brigid’s of 0.5 (32/60). A ratio of 1.0 is considered self-sustaining; a higher number suggests a growing community; a lower number, a community that is dying out. By this standard measure, Sacred Heart is a rapidly growing community while St. Brigid is declining almost as rapidly.

Another standard way to measure growth is to chart census data over time. Attendance data gathered at weekend masses further supports our contention that Sacred Heart is a viable growing parish. According to Father Colletti, the February 28-29, 2004 attendance at mass was 750, up 23 percent from the October census and the March 6-7, 2004 attendance at mass was 781 up 28 percent from the October attendance figures. Moreover, a large tract of land in our parish is slated for development, promising to add another 380 families to the area.

Additionally, we submit that the omission of First Holy Communions and Confirmations from the measurement of the spiritual needs of our parish is problematic. It may make sense to measure churches with parochial schools in a different manner, but to exclude data regarding the spiritual needs of school age parishioners is intrinsically inequitable. Moreover, as Father Colletti explained in his addendum to the cluster report, much of his ministry to the elderly occurs in nursing homes. When the elderly die, their funerals are not conducted where they have been worshiping, but in their original parish. This makes the weight given to funerals when planning for the future of parishes even more difficult to justify.

If these closings are intended to prepare the Archdiocese for a future made more uncertain by the current shortage of young priests, the use of the sacramental index is particularly flawed. Baptisms, not funerals are the path to vocations. The sacramental index inadvertently overvalues parishes full of the elderly and dying to the detriment of new families in search of a dynamic church in which to raise their children. This biased process allowed 76 churches with fewer baptisms than Sacred Heart to remain open, while closing a church full of families living out their faith. Given the small physical size of our church, our number of baptisms is particularly remarkable. This systematic error in measuring viability failed to appreciate this and will deprive a growing parish of the opportunity to reach its spiritual potential.

Our young parishioners are active Catholics who attract others to the faith. Our youth group is rapidly expanding, from four youth leaders this fall to seventeen currently. They have demonstrated their seriousness about youth ministry by participating in the Catholic Leadership Institute. Their commitment is also demonstrated by their practice of their faith. Many worship at Sacred Heart’s monthly Youth Mass. This Lent, a group of fifteen teens met every Friday at 6:30 in the morning to pray and study scripture. Our young parishioners have cooked meals for the ill in our parish, raised money during the Fast for Hunger, built houses for Habitat for Humanity and worked in the mission we help to support in Honduras.

The young of Sacred Heart have also been active in gathering with other young Catholics. Eighty five of our middle school students participated in the National Evangelization Team this March. Our small parish also sent seventy high school students, the largest number of participants from any parish, to the Archdiocesan Youth Rally in February. As you may recall, their skit, “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” received a standing ovation. These young Catholics enthusiastically recall their conversations with you and were disappointed that they did not create enough of an impression on you that you would save their church. As you can see they take their faith personally. We believe the activity of these young Catholics is one of the main reasons for Sacred Heart’s recent growth and further evidence of the viability of our parish.

2. The reliance on attendance, without regard to physical size of the church, introduced a bias against parishioners worshipping in smaller churches. Although our church utilization ratio (attendance/ capacity) is comparable to St. Brigid’s, it is no surprise that the larger church in the center of town has a higher total attendance. Our size actually offers great advantages. With our smaller church, smaller property, and simpler needs, we are better able to focus on liturgy and service, the core values of our parish. We also believe that there is value in belonging to a smaller community in which people can know and care for each other more readily.

Because of the exorbitant price of land in Lexington, whenever a smaller home is put on the market, the sellers worry that their small home will be replaced with a huge mansion. It is even more disturbing to think of our beautiful, little church as a tear-down. We hope that the emphasis on total attendance, without regard to utilization ratio, is not an indication that mega-churches are becoming the preferred model for worship in the Boston Archdiocese. We do not believe that worship on the grand scale would adequately serve the needs of Boston-area Catholics. Similarly, we do not believe that Sacred Heart’s relatively small physical size is a sound reason to close the church.

Measuring total attendance at Mass, without regard to church size, is a misleading way of judging the health of a parish. It is as unreliable as making medical decisions based on the number of red blood cells without respect to body size. If physicians practicing sports medicine depended on this type of misleading measure, gymnasts, with their relatively lower total number of red cells, would be declared unhealthy when compared to shot putters. And, if the Olympic Committee had financial difficulties, it would be rational to cut all funding for gymnasts, with their ‘dangerously low’ cell counts in favor of the more healthy shot putters. The irrationality of this reliance on raw numbers without adequate points of reference is obvious and professionals would never think of proceeding on such spurious data. Unfortunately, the decision to close Sacred Heart church was based on this type of distortion of data.

We realize that the resident priest-pastor model of organizing parishes is the one most commonly used in New England. We are not so tradition bound that we would be unable to embrace one of the other nontraditional structures approved by canon law when faced with a shortage of priests. We appreciate the value of a caring pastor and do not believe that Sacred Heart would have become what it is today without the spiritual guidance of Father Arnold Colletti and the other pastors who have ministered in our parish. While we recognize the benefits of having a pastor on site, we have always enjoyed the insights and diverse perspectives provided by visiting priests. If we need to share Father Colletti, we suggest that he stay with us until Father Eugene Curtin is ready to retire. At that point, we could reorganize so that Father Colletti would be pastor to both Lexington parishes and both would be allowed to remain intact.

3. The clustering process unfairly burdened the Catholic community of Lexington.

The clustering process arbitrarily required closure of one of Lexington’s two parishes and disproportionately burdened our town by mandating that we close half of our churches. While churches in other areas may not be as valuable on the real estate market as those in Lexington, it is intrinsically unjust to force us to close half the churches in our town, while allowing comparable churches in other less affluent areas to remain open. The small size of our cluster prevented a fair analysis of the relative merits of our church in comparison to others in surrounding communities. This is particularly questionable, because, due to its geographical location and spiritual vigor, Sacred Heart serves parishioners from many of the surrounding communities. It appears the average cluster size was 4.3; no reason was given for the extraordinarily small size of our cluster.

We are aware of only one other cluster which contained only two parishes. This was in Burlington, a fairly affluent suburb contiguous with ours. It is our understanding that the two Burlington parishes refused to cooperate in the process of naming which one should close. In that case, both churches were allowed to remain open. We appear to have been penalized for cooperating with the Archdiocese. When we raised objections, our pastor told us to trust the process and discouraged us from protesting against the size of our cluster, advocating for our parish, or expressing concerns about plans to incorporate our vibrant community into a declining parish, for fear that it would be seen as divisive. We were obedient and were closed.

4. The judgment appears to be based on arbitrary and capricious criteria or on factors not identified in the public selection process. From the media, one gets the impression that those parishes in which parishioners voiced objection to the process were allowed to remain open. It is difficult to know what really happened from our vantage point, but 44 churches with attendance lower than ours remain open, 66 with sacramental indexes lower than ours remain open, and, even more troubling, 35 churches with both lower than ours remain open. (There was no attendance number specified for six additional churches with lower sacramental indexes than Sacred Heart, which could raise the number to 41.)

It was also puzzling, given the stated reasons for the closures, to hear that the average income of families in closed parishes equaled the income in parishes allowed to remain open. How can that be, if the movement of Catholics from the inner cities to the suburbs and the poor financial situation of parishes were among the primary reasons for closing churches? The balance of incomes was even more surprising given the bias in favor of geographically isolated “small towns” which include Weston, Dover, Lincoln and Sherborn all of which have very high average incomes.

It seems that the only way to achieve the balance of average incomes was to circumvent the expressed reasons for church closings by instituting a biased clustering process. The clustering process allowed the Boston Archdiocese to avoid facing the actual reality that the poor, who disproportionately populate our urban neighborhoods, generally do not belong to the Catholic Church. The Chicago and Detroit Dioceses faced the truth of the situation and consequently, disproportionately closed churches in poor areas. It seems that those dioceses understood that even when the truth is uncomfortable, it must be faced.

While the Boston Archdiocese’s attempt at social engineering or image management may be laudable for some reasons and prudent for others, it is still unjust and should not be permitted. We share your concern for the financially disadvantaged and understand your motivation to “avoid putting the burden for reconfiguration on the backs of the poor.” As our parish has demonstrated through donations of service and capital, at local, state, federal and international levels, we are committed to providing for the disadvantaged. Despite our commitment to serving the poor, we are opposed to the sacrifice of our church and community in a misguided attempt to offer up our source of spiritual sustenance to prevent declining parishes from closing. In addition to considering those in financial need, we must attend to our own spiritual wellbeing and that of our families. For this, we need Sacred Heart.

Since other parishes that scored considerably worse than Sacred Heart were not chosen for closure, the selection process was not in accordance with the evidence and is therefore defective. Either the stated criteria were applied erroneously or not applied in an even and consistent manner, or other factors were weighed by the Archdiocese that were not in the publicly stated criteria and measurements.

.

Additionally, the closure of Sacred Heart is inconsistent with Canon Law 1752 which declares that the mandate of the church is the “salvation of all souls, especially those of the household of faith” (Gal 6:10), “laying aside all malice and all deceit and pretense and envy and all slander” (1 Peter 2:1).

Anomie is the great spiritual challenge for Catholics and potential Catholics in contemporary society. While material poverty is a great burden, a spiritually impoverished society is at even greater risk. Unfortunately, secularism and the personal disorientation, anxiety and social isolation associated with this approach to life are rampant in the Boston area. We assert that only by promoting churches like Sacred Heart, with its close sense of community based on a commitment to worship and service, will you be able to provide for the needs of the souls committed to your care.

If you have any doubts about the important role of Sacred Heart in the salvation of our souls, we suggest you interview the visiting priests that minister to our church, speak to the parishioners of Sacred Heart, or, better yet, celebrate the Eucharist with us. We are confident that you would appreciate that even in the midst of the devastating news that our church is slated for closure, Sacred Heart remains one of the stronger faith communities in the Boston Archdiocese. We have attached letters from parishioners and ask that you consider any other letters you receive from parishioners further evidence of the importance of Sacred Heart to our spiritual wellbeing. We ask that you seriously consider the spiritual effects the closure of our parish will have on each person that has written to you. We fear that many of our parishioners will not be able to find the necessary spiritual sustenance in a much larger, less vital church.

If we had been unfaithful, or created a great financial burden for the Archdiocese, or our church was relatively empty, or Catholics were moving out of our geographic area, this decision, though painful, might be understandable. As Father Arnold Colletti’s addendum to the cluster report indicates, ours is a viable church. Based on all reasonable measures, the elimination of our parish seems unjustifiable. A flawed process seems to have obscured the ultimate goal, the salvation of our souls.

In conclusion, we respectfully submit that the process used to close Sacred Heart was unjust and not in accordance with Canon Law, Vatican II Constitution, and the Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, and the stated criteria and decision making process as outlined by the Archdiocese. Based on Vatican II Constitutional prohibitions against bias and Canon Law requirements that judgments be made only on truthful characterizations of the facts, this decision should be overturned.

We hope that after reviewing all of this material you will decide to allow Sacred Heart to remain open. We look forward to learning your thoughts on these points, at your earliest convenience. We would be pleased to meet with you or any Archdiocesan representatives.

Sincerely,

Lay Representatives of Sacred Heart Parish Council

and Assistants to Parish Council

Past Lay Representatives to Sacred Heart Parish Council

Addenda:

Addendum 1: Additional Objection to Decision Based on Canon Law 383

Additionally, we claim that the decision to close Sacred Heart fails to meet the standards of Canon Law 383 which states that a diocesan bishop is required to be concerned for all of Christ’s faithful entrusted to his care, whatever their age, condition or nationality.

A concerned response to our needs would not have invoked an evaluation process that forced us to reach the conclusion that we must close our church, because it is not large enough to contain the other church in town. Additionally, we believe that the issue of erroneous measurement of pastoral health and needs which was biased with respect to age and economic condition has been demonstrated in sections 1 and 3 of our argument regarding Canon Law 1645. Similarly, the issue regarding concern for the health of the souls of Christ’s faithful is developed in the section addressing Canon Law 1752. The essence of this argument is that it is not justifiable to close a flourishing parish, just because a flawed system of measurement contends that it is not viable.

Addendum 2: Additional Objection to Decision Based on Canon Law 526

Our cluster was charged with the task of deciding which of its churches should close. There are many other options to parish reorganization which would be far preferable and enable us to preserve our thriving faith community. We assert that a process that is truly concerned about the needs of parishioners would ask more open-ended questions and raise the other options to church closure which are allowed by canon law, which include grouping of two or more parishes pastured by a team of priests, appointing of someone other than a priest to participate in the exercise of pastoral care of a parish and administering several neighboring parishes by a single pastor.

References:

1. Code of Canon Law, 1983
2. Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, Pope Paul VI, November 18, 1965
3. Ministries in Action Report of the Commission on Parish Demographics of the Anglican Church, October 2003
4. Parish Pastoral Statistics, Archdiocese of Boston Internet Site, May 30, 2004
5. Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Vatican II, 1965
6. “Catholic Parish Organization, Structure and Parish Outcomes,” Zech and Gautier, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 43:1 (2004) 141-150
7. “In Cuts, Archdiocese Is Seen As Sharing Burden”, Boston Globe, May 27, 2004
8. “Parish Properties Seen Worth $400m”, Boston Globe, May 27, 2004
9. “Sacred Heart Church Closing”, Lexington Minuteman, May 27, 2004
10. “Sixty-Five Parishes To Be Closed”, Boston Globe, May 26, 2004

List of Attachments and Supporting Evidence:

1. Addendum To Original Cluster Report ( to be obtained directly from Father Arnold Colletti)
2. Expert Testimony Regarding Statistical Errors (to be sent separately)
3. Contact Information Regarding Visiting Priests (included with appeal)
4. xx Letters From Parishioners And Others Supporting Sacred Heart Parish (to be added to any letters sent directly to the Boston Archdiocese regarding Sacred Heart Parish) (included with appeal)

Attachment 3: Contact Information Regarding Visiting Priests

Fr. John Baldovin, S.J.
Weston Jesuit School of Theology
3 Phillips Place
Cambridge, MA 02138
617.492.1960
jbaldovin@wjst.edu



Fr. John O'Brien, C.P.
Calvary Retreat Center
59 South Street / P.O. Box 219
Shrewsbury, MA 01545-0219
Tel:508-842-8821
jobrien@cpprov.org



Fr. James O'Donohoe, S.J.
10 Pelham Rd
Lexington, MA  02421
(781) 861-6178