Christian Science Monitor: An 11-Year Vigil to Redefine Church
After being shut down in 2004, the church of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, in Scituate, MA, has had consistent supporters fighting to keep it open for the past 11 years, holding vigils everyday. However, Massachusetts Supreme Court has weighed in and ruled that the parishioners are trespassing by occupying the church.
Lifelong supporters of the church say that it is not just a building but rather a community. Nancy T. Ammerman, a professor of sociology of religion at Boston University’s School of Theology, talks with Christian Science Monitor about the situation. She says parishioners across the country have begun running their own churches, holding services led by lay ministers, and relying on visiting priests to consecrate the elements of the Eucharistic sacrament, or the Mass. Ammerman says, “That way of operating [without a resident pastor] as a parish is more akin to a Protestant congregation.”
Though some people have begun packing up and taking home personal items, the supports say they will keep up their fight as long as they can. At least one person has held a vigil at the church everyday since its close in October 2004, and will continue to do so as long as they can.
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