Cardinal Seán has named Pastors for four of our Phase One Collaboratives. They are:
Father Mark Mahoney, to be the Pastor in Beverly (Saint Margaret, Saint Mary Star of the Sea, and Saint John). Father Mahoney will be leaving his current position as Pastor of Saint Rose of Lima Parish in Topsfield to take this new assignment.
Monsignor William Fay, to be the Pastor of the Collaborative in Methuen (Saint Lucy and Saint Monica). Monsignor Fay will be leaving his current position as Pastor of Saint Columbkille in Brighton to take this new assignment.
Father Shawn Allen, to be the Pastor of the Billerica Collaborative (Saint Theresa, Saint Mary, and Saint Andrew). Father Allen is currently the Pastor of Saint Theresa in Billerica.
Father Carlos Flor, to be the Pastor of Saint Mary of the Angels in Roxbury and Saint Thomas Aquinas and Our Lady of Lourdes in Jamaica Plain. Father Flor is currently the Pastor of those three Parishes.
All of these appointments are effective on June 4, 2013.
Personally, I am very grateful to all of these excellent priests for their willingness to take on these assignments. And, I am no less grateful to the excellent priests who will be moving on from these Parishes to other assignments. Generosity of Spirit is at the heart of the priesthood. Our promise of obedience is the core of our love relationship with Jesus.
Please pray for all of these priests – those who are starting in these Collaboratives and those who are moving on to other assignments. Please also pray for Cardinal Seán and for the Clergy Personnel Board as they continue to work toward making these difficult decisions.
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Congratulations to the new pastors and to the OPP for this fine beginning.
I have been a parishioner of St. Lucy’s for many years. Father Burton has been an excellent pastor and, for the life of me, I cannot understand why he is being removed when he has done so much for the people of our parish and, me, personally. So many of our parishioners are upset about his leaving. I can only hope that more Catholics will not leave the church because of these changes. If a priest is doing a wonderful job, why must he leave? If it isn’t broke, don’t break it! I, personally, have a lot of anger towards the people who have made these decisions. I can only hope Jesus isn’t weeping because of it.
I have the same sentiments as Angela Rizzo. I am from St. Mary’s in Billerica and we are going to lose our beloved Father Sullivan. We are not happy about it at all. He also has done a wonderful job. I am pretty sure there is a lot of resentment to this new movement. Why must he leave? Our church is like our second home and we feel comfortable there. Why do we have to go all over the place to 3 different churches? This sounds like a lot of chaos to me. Are we just being primed for when there is only one church in each town/city?
break up the church, they have already broken our hearts St. Mary’s Star of the Sea in Beverly ma has a great pastor in Fr. David Barnes he did a lot of work in this parish and he is loved by everyone this will tear the parish apart say goodbye to a full church and all the money that is needed to keep the churches going.
In reality, the church is a business and the upper management (the cardinal and his staff) are going to make changes where they perceive things could/should be improved. There was not enough time for input from the parish communities involved with the new collaborative system. My impression is that the decision was made prior to the timeline that the archdiocese published. What I do not understand is that if there is a lack of priests than why reassign a priest from a parish to a collaborative. In my opinion the assignment of Monsignor Fay to the St. Lucy/St. Monica collaborative is to show the world that yes, the collaborative system works, because he was involved in the beginning and had the “inside knowledge” of what the archdiocese’s goal of the collaborative concept. A truer test would be to not assign anyone involved with the process and really see how it met the goals of the archdiocese.
My husband Roger and I agree totally with you Michael. We already had our hearts broken in 2004 when St. Alphonsus closed . Now we are having our hearts broken again by Fr. Barnes being removed from St. Mary’s. It took us awhile to decide to become part of St. Mary’s and the main reason was because of Fr. Barnes. We felt totally at home right from the first mass we attended there. Such a tragedy that they are taking him away from us.