(2005-03-24) --The Patriot Ledger
By Dennis Tatz

QUINCY - A married Catholic priest from Duxbury will officiate at an Easter Mass organized by parishioners of the closed Star of the Sea Church in the city's Squantum section.

The 11:30 a.m. service will be held at First Church of Squantum on Bellevue Road.

"It wasn't the church building that made Star of the Sea Church what it was; it was the people," said Sean Patrick Glennon, co-chairman of the Friends of Star of the Sea.

It will be the first time a Catholic Mass will be celebrated in Squantum since Boston Archbishop Sean O'Malley disbanded the Star of the Sea parish in October.

The archbishop last year announced a downsizing that called for the closing of 82 of the archdiocese's 357 parishes.

Glennon said Archbishop O'Malley last week rejected a request from parishioners at the Star of the Sea Church to have an Easter service at the Protestant church.

"It is the archbishop's expectation that all Catholics in the Archdiocese of Boston would celebrate Easter Mass with their Catholic brothers and sisters in Catholic churches," Bishop Richard G. Lennon, wrote to Glennon on behalf of the archbishop.

Glennon said Star of the Sea parishioners missed having Christmas service so they decided to get together for Easter.

"This Easter we feel will be a reunion for us," Glennon said. "We also feel it will be a celebration of our resurrection as a faith community. Ironically, Christmas was a painful time for us. We were still mourning the death of our church."

Glennon said he recently contacted the Rev. Terry McDonough of Duxbury about officiating at the Easter service, through an organization that provides married priests for pastoral needs.

"He is a priest without a parish and we are a parish without a priest," Glennon.

The Rev. McDonough, a former missionary in Indonesia and an Air Force chaplain, said he welcomed the opportunity to celebrate Easter Mass with the Star of the Sea congregation.

"They have been orphaned for six months," said the Rev. McDonough, a psychiatric rehabilitation practitioner at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Bedford. "They need the sacraments and the Mass and I am happy to provide that."

The Rev. McDonough is a certified member of CITI Ministries Inc., also known as Celibacy Is the Issue, a nonprofit lay-based ministry that finds and recruits married priests who provide sacramental and pastoral assistance to those with spiritual needs.

The Rev. McDonough is not charging former parishioners for the Easter Mass - a gesture Glennon said was "remarkable."

There are reportedly more than 30,000 married priest in the United States. Many can be contacted through the organization's web site, www.rentapriest.com, for baptisms, marriages, funerals, anointing of the sick and other pastoral needs, including the celebration of Mass.

Another married priest is scheduled to officiate at an outdoor Easter Mass at Shaw Park in Natick for parishioners of the closed Sacred Heart Church in that community.

Glennon, the organist at Star of the Sea Church for the past five years, said he expects a good turnout Sunday.

To get the word out about the Easter service, E-mails have been sent out, fliers have blanketed the neighborhood and a billboard is being set up at the entrance to Squantum.

Only two parishioners voiced concern about having a married priest officiate at the service, according to Glennon.

"The response we have received from the Squantum community has been outstanding," he said.

Glennon said parishioners are still working to reopen their parish. They have written to Pope John Paul II for help in reversing Archbishop O'Malley's decision.

Dennis Tatz may be reached at dtatz@ledger.com.

Copyright 2005 The Patriot Ledger
Transmitted Tuesday, March 22, 2005