By Bill Forry
Managing Editor

Burdened with a leaking roof and a mounting repair bill that is in the millions of dollars, Dorchester's oldest existing Catholic church, St. Peter's on Bowdoin Street, may soon be forced to sell property or abandon its historic worship space. Parishioners will learn more about the full range of potential impacts at a meeting that will be held at the parish's school hall on May 23.

A team of officials from the Archdiocese of Boston - led by Bishop John Boles - are expected to outline the full scope of the parish's challenges during the 7 p.m. meeting, according to Fr. Dan Finn, acting pastor of St. Peter's.

The deteriorating condition of the church's slate roof is the most pressing repair problem facing the distinctive, 134 year-old Gothic church building. However, damage caused by leaks in the roof threaten the historic interior, and concerns over the long-term maintenance of the aging edifice are growing.

And with fewer attendees at weekend Mass, and a parish school dependent on outside aide from the Archdiocese, a series of tough decisions about the parish's mission and long-term survival are overdue, according to Finn.

"When the reconfiguration process was ongoing - when they were deciding about Dorchester's parishes - the recommendation for St. Peter's was that it would continue to remain a parish, but with the need for downsizing," Fr. Finn explained this week. "The (May 23) meeting is, basically, trying to arrive at a decision on how to implement that recommendation."

Once Dorchester's largest parish, boasting as many as 20,000 parishioners, St. Peter's five-building campus along Bowdoin Street remains intact despite a precipitous drop in Mass attendance. Last year, the parish saw further erosion in its membership when regular Vietnamese Masses ended as part of an Archdiocsean reconfiguration process.

"Basically there are five buildings here and they are the same five buildings we had when there were 20,000 parishioners. It's only common sense," Finn said.

Finn described the May 23rd meeting as a "conversation" between parishioners and church officials aimed at "giving accurate and good information towards making a decision that would sustain the mission of the church over time here."

Some longtime members of the parish are anxious about the May 23 meeting and what it may mean for the future of St. Peter's. Mary Boze, whose grandparents settled in the parish more than 100 years ago, said anxiety in the pews is centered on the possible shut-down of the church building itself. Boze said speculation that church services would be moved into a parish-owned building across the street from the historic church has been greeted with alarm.

"What I think will happen is they will offer us worship space in the Harbor School across the street. And that is incomprehensible to me and other parishioners because (the church) is so beautiful," Boze said. "We think that given enough time, for us to get grants and raise money from donations, etc., we can fix this church. It's always been a church for immigrants and poor people and they need a beautiful church too."

Finn said that space in one of two parish-controlled school buildings, which is now leased to a Boston Public pilot school, will become available again when the school's lease ends next year. The Harbor School is scheduled to merge with the O'Hearn School on the site of the present Cleveland School in Fields Corner next year.

"The commitment is to keep the parish going and, whatever we do, the money would remain here. Only if a parish were suprressed would it go into a central fund.

Whatever rent or lease or sale were to happen, it would remain here," Finn said this week.

John J. Fahey, a parishioner who is writing a book about the parish, is planning a May 27 event to raise money and awareness about the church's history and current plight.

"We need to present our case before the Archdiocese to give us an opportunity to save the church," Fahey said this week. "The Archdiocese has said we don't know what's going to happen. But, the Archdiocese is also sitting on a lot of real estate there, between the schools, the convent, and rectory. There are several pieces that we could liquidate to fix the church and keep it. It's a masterpiece and it cannot be taken away."

Both Fahey and Finn said that they expect the Archdiocesan team to present several options to the parish community, including the sale of one or more buildings to finance needed repairs.

"We're just waiting to know what they say," said Fahey.

Boze said that the difficulty of managing a needy urban parish was further complicated in 2004, when the Archdiocese consolidated the neighborhood's Vietnamese community into one central parish, Fields Corner's Saint Ambrose. In doing so, Boze and others say, St. Peter's lost its most energetic and sizeable population. The parish remains a home to a healthy Cape Verdean population, served in Portuguese by Fr. Christopher Gomes, who was assigned to the church last year.

"The Vietnamese were the life blood of the church. It was their parish for 25 years and they would like to come back," said Fahey, who added that Vietnamese parishioners had also volunteered time and labor to keep the church in good repair through the years.

Fahey said a May 27 evening event (6-10:30 p.m.) at Ronan Hall in St. Peter's School will strike a Memorial Day theme honoring veterans, but also serve the purpose of rallying support for the parish.

"We just need a chance."

Fr. Finn said that the calculus on how the church community can move forward without sacrificing something that is dear to all parishioners is complicated.

"We're not talking about a few bake sales here," Finn said. "We're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars, in terms of the magintude of work that needs to be on the table. And then, what about other future needs that might come up and the actual mission of the church in the community."