A Mormon Church got its steeple back. The Archdiocese of Boston wants to sell seven churches. Remember to follow Bostonist on Twitter and like us on Facebook.
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Results tagged “archdioceseofboston”
According to the Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, a former pastor allegedly stole $83,147 from the St. John the Baptist Parish in Haverhill and spent $25,000 of it on online pornography. The Rev. Keith LeBlanc was arraigned last week and has a pretrial conference set for December 3. He reoportedly spent $4,000 on adult movies with church monies. LeBlanc resigned from the church in June and was sent to a treatment center. The Archdiocese of Boston refused to comment. All charges alleged until proven under law. [Eagle Tribune], [Globe]
There's been a lot of negative news for people of faith, especially Catholics, in recent years. This week, the hits kept coming. Our pals at Gothamist got the scoop on Rev. Kevin J. Gray, a Connecticut priest accused of taking $1.3 million from the Sacred Heart Church. Among other things, Gray allegedly spent the cash on escorts. He also reportedly claimed to have cancer when he was cancer free. If that wasn't enough, over 100 tombstones were knocked over last weekend at St. Mary’s Parish of Lynn.
Negative news has obviously hurt the Church's bottom line. A slow economy made it worse. The Globe reported that Mass attendance and Catholic school enrollment in the Archdiocese of Boston are both down. Also, one-third of parishes lost money in 2009. On Tuesday a new approach to financing Archdiocese of Boston activities was revealed. Basically, local parishes will have to make contributions to a central archdiocese fund. We'll call it revenue sharing. Not everyone likes it. Must be Yankees fans.
People are still apparently praying, possibly even to an "image" of Jesus Christ at a water park it seems.
The Globe reports that the Archdiocese of Boston is planning to close two churches in the city, Holy Trinity Church in the South End and St. Casimir in Brockton. Just two years ago, the diocese finished shutting down over 60 local parishes, but the archdiocese says these new closures are not part of a larger consolidation movement.
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