Act of Faith: Church Congregants Hold Vigil

Jan. 26, 2009— -- As the sun rises outside St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Church, faithful Catholics have already filled the pews. But instead of gathering in their Sunday best, these congregants are waking up inside their church.

The friendly suburbanites of Scituate, Mass., are engaged in a faith-based occupation to protect their church, a movement they call "vigiling" that began more than four years ago.

"Vigiling is living your faith 24 hours a day, seven days a week," said Mary Ellen Rogers, a lifelong parishioner of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini. "The people that are in this vigil are parishioners who love their church and they love their faith."

In 2004, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston said it would close St. Frances X. Cabrini and a dozen other churches in the area because of financial problems and a shortage of priests. While most churches closed their doors, parishioners from St. Frances X. Cabrini sneaked in and took over. Four other churches from the Boston area archdiocese are also holding vigils.

"This is a revolution. It's a revolution of faith," said Jon Rogers, spokesman for those staging the vigil at the St. Frances X. Cabrini Church. "It's up to us to enact fundamental changes that I believe this church needs to go through."

The archdiocese stripped the church of sacred objects, but 100 St. Frances X. Cabrini congregants operate what they say is a fully-functioning church, complete with rosary groups, Sunday school for their kids and, most provocatively, Sunday communion with wafers blessed by anonymous, sympathetic priests.

Parishioners stay on guard in the church day and night, sleeping there overnight, all in direct defiance of Vatican rules. "This has been my home away from home," one parishioner said.

Similar vigils are going on at four other churches in the Boston Archdiocese, including St. Therese, a church in the working class town of Everett, Mass. Church officials there recently shut off heat and running water. Holdouts have been forced to use porta-potties.

Despite 25-degree temperatures, St. Therese churchgoers are bundling up and staying put, defending the place where they have marked christenings, confirmations and weddings.