No Closure: Catholic Practice and Boston's Parish Shutdowns

Abstract

No Closure: Catholic Practice and Bostons Parish Shutdowns. John C. Seitz. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011. 248 pages + notes. $42.00 (hardcover).John C. Seitz has written a thoughtful study of Roman Catholic attitudes and practices as demonstrated in the recent crisis of Boston parish consolidations and church closings. A theologian at Fordham University, Seitz offers an illuminating account of those people in the Archdiocese of Boston who chose to resist the hierarchy's systematic closing of many parish communities early in the twenty-first century. He focuses on only a minority of Catholics and a few of the shuttered parish communities, particularly one in Boston and one in the suburbs, but he explores larger concerns through his extensive fieldwork and intense interaction with the "resisters". Although Seitz makes use of historical studies of Catholic Boston, this book is clearly a descriptive work based on his study of contemporary Boston Catholic culture. He acknowledges his debt to members of Harvard's Ethnography of Religion Workshop and frequently cites anthropological studies. Seitz also elucidates the dilemmas he encountered in being both an academic pursuing a systematic study and (in the pursuit of his work) being personally involved in the actions he describes.The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston in 2004 commenced a process to close down or "suppress" nearly one hundred parishes out of a total of 357 then extant. Coming so soon after the eruption of the spectacularly tragic revelations of clerical abuse within the archdiocese and the nation in 2002, there was little likelihood that the news of parish closings would be conflict-free. Most Catholics in the region either stopped attending or donating, or else accepted the closures and moved on to new parish communities. Seitz found himself attracted to a study of those who neither opted to leave the Catholic church nor accept the dictate to affiliate with another parish. He began his fieldwork in the second half of 2004 and truly immersed himself in the efforts made by Catholics, especially in the parishes of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in East Boston and St. Albert the Great in East Weymouth, to stop the closures.Seitz observed the resisters in action as they occupied church buildings and maintained vigils to enforce their vision. The people he met were attached to these parish communities and church buildings and refused to move on or allow either physical or emotional closure. While he emphasizes that the study is not comprehensive nor about a majority of Roman Catholics, Seitz argues successfully that it is crucial to understand what these occupiers were about. His concerns are theological as he tries to answer questions about a moment in Boston Catholic history. His concern is twofold: he wants to find out why some people resisted the closures and what the resistance tells us about modern Catholicism (pp. …