SCITUATE, Mass. (AP) – For more than 11 years, a core group of about 100 die-hard parishioners of St. Frances X. Cabrini Church kept their beloved parish open by maintaining an around-the-clock vigil in a peaceful protest of a decision by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston to close it.
On Sunday, the parishioners’ efforts came to an end as they vacated the Scituate church many of them have attended for decades. Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear their final appeal, leaving them no choice but to end their fight.
The group held a final service Sunday, a “celebration of faith and transition,” the parishioners said, before leaving the church. Dozens of parishioners gathered in the church’s entryway ahead of the service, many of them embracing.
During the service, a handful of empty pews dotted a sea of churchgoers, many of whom openly cried. About a dozen quilts, some of them depicting each year of the vigil, decorated the church’s walls. At the service’s conclusion, families retrieved the quilts and formed a procession, carrying them down the aisles and through the church’s doors.
The case was heard in civil courts and went all the way to the Vatican, but the parishioners were unsuccessful in persuading church officials to keep St. Frances open.