Dear Archbishop Sean,
My wife and I are writing to urge you to reconsider your
decision to close Sacred Heart Parish in
attended a meeting of at least one hundred parishioners there, and listened
to people of all ages, teenagers, young parents, middle-aged folks, and old
fogies like ourselves, speak about the spiritual strength and communal
values they experience as members of this community, and the pleasure they
take in joining with others in the community to serve "the widows and
children, the prisoners and oppressed, the lame and the blind."
We came to Sacred Heart Parish 27 years ago, newly married
widow and
widower, leaving our home parish to follow a priest friend to what we
observed to be a spiritual garden. There we were educated to join the
priesthood of the ordained as the priesthood of the laity,
and experienced
the richest ten years of our life as Catholics. When the pastor retired,
there were a few dry years, some strife and defections. But the lessons
we
and many others had learned sustained us until a new pastor came, attracted
by what he had heard of our militant Catholicity. He reinforced
everything
we were trying to be. And our most recent ten years with Father Colletti
have been more of the same.
Throughout these years, there has been continual turnover in
parish
membership, as people would move away from the area for one reason ar
another. But new people would come, because of what they had heard, or
because of what they found on their own initiative. Because they were
looking for what they found at Sacred Heart, the turnover was regenerative.
Now, I understand that two hundred of the five or six hundred active
families in the parish live outside its nominal boundaries. But I think
that has been true for many years. The parishioners are and have been for
many years a vibrant and financially sound Christian Community. We have
wonderful and very spiritual liturgies, and have always attracted
outstanding visiting priests. We would love to have you come and
celebrate
with us.
We have an active and effective educational program, with
many
first-communicants every year, vigorous training for Confirmation, baptismal
preparation for parents, a marriage preparation program which has always
attracted couples being married outside our parish, and a compassionate
program for funeral preparation. It all adds up to a vigorous sacramental
life, which attracts increasing numbers of worshipers of all ages.
We are especially thankful to those who have built our youth
program
(though I hate that term), because that, along with the First Communion and
Confirmation programs, are building the Church of the future.
We don't believe that this parish can be closed and its
members
dispersed to neighboring parishes without irretrievable loss to everyone in
the parish, and to everyone whose lives they touch, both through the formal
parish outreach to the poor, in Dorchester and Roxbury and Somerville, in
Haiti and Honduras, in prison in Framingham, and then all those whom their
Christian lives touch in the daily routine of those lives.
As you struggle with the many problems you face as our
Archbishop, we
urge you, please, to come and worship with us, meet with us and feel what
we feel, and what we are as members of this parish.
Then, ask the Holy Spirit to help you, and help us.