By Jim O'Sullivan
Special to the Reporter

A task force of professionals and parishioners will examine the physical and financial well-being of Saint Peter Parish over the summer, then report to the full community in the fall with recommendations about how to move forward with the impoverished parish.

The Bowdoin Street parish operates with disappearing, heavy subsidies from the Archdiocese of Boston and a school building lease with the City of Boston. The five-building campus, due millions in repairs and with a decaying church roof, is home to a low-income congregation that relies heavily on the parish's social services.

Worried parishioners said they would band together to help prop up the parish's bleak fiscal outlook.

"We do a couple fundraisers, we'll be able to make money," said Pat Moran, who said she was a 60-year parishioner. "The Lord is up there. He'll take care of us."

Reassuring that the Archdiocese would preserve "the presence of the parish" in one of the city's poorest sections, Bishop John Boles and pastor-administrator Rev. Daniel Finn told more than 200 people Tuesday night that the task force must take stock of the parish's assets and devise plans to capitalize on them while preserving its core mission.

Finn said Tuesday's meeting was "a preliminary meeting, the first step in the process toward a decision. But it's a decision that needs to be worked on seriously and as soon as possible."

Finn, also the pastor at Saint Mark Parish, said the task force would likely number less than a dozen, and be made up of "professional people" with expertise in engineering, real estate, and business. He asked for past parishioners or friends of the parish to lend expertise.

An Archdiocese-commissioned study three years ago found more than $3 million in needed repairs. According to a Fiscal Year 2006 summary distributed Tuesday, the parish's operating costs, including employee benefits, utilities, and insurance, ran $356,665. Only $105,550 of that were generated from within the parish, through offertory and other sources, leaving a net operating deficit of $251,115.

Only through $88,039 in Archdiocesan support and $304,000 in rental income from the city, for the charter Harbor School's use of the parish school building, does the parish run a $140,924 surplus. The Harbor School is slated to merge next year with another school in Fields Corner and Boles said the Archdiocese &endash; which has been drained by the sexual abuse scandals &endash; is financially unable to continue to provide the same support it has.

St. Peter's School itself runs a net operating surplus of $89,776.

Parishioners pleaded with the priests to keep the church structure in its current capacity, some of them speaking emotionally to Boles.

"Has the Archdiocese already determined our fate?" asked Mary Lou Amrhein. Boles said it had not.

Another parishioner, who did not give his name, said he drove to the parish from Braintree weekly because of the sense of community and diversity. Originally populated by Irish immigrants, the parish now includes a heavy Cape Verdean population and was once a nexus for the city's Vietnamese community. The parishioner from Braintree won sustained applause when he said, "There isn't any other church anywhere around here that's architecturally as beautiful or historic … I really think someone here ought to be able to find a way to keep this place open, just because of the historical significance."

The Archdiocesan reconfiguration of all its parishes two years ago revealed strong resistance to changes.

"There is no other parish in the city that won't have strong arguments as to why it has to be the last to close," Boles said. "Sorry, but that's the way it is."

The oldest church structure in Dorchester, dating to 1872, St. Peter's Gothic frame towers above Bowdoin St. from Meetinghouse Hill. (St. Gregory's parish in Lower Mills is a decade older than St. Peter's, but most of St. Gregory church dates to the 1880s and 90s.)

In a neighborhood frequently beset by violent crime, the parish has stood as a beacon for youngsters and families, present and past congregants said Tuesday.

"Without the presence of the church, I don't think we can really try to save some of these kids," said Paul Barros.

Boles said the parish served a similar mission during its earliest years.

"The parish was built, as you know, by people who didn't have very much. They skimped and they saved because it was important to them … It was the core of their lives," he said.

With a low rate of weekly attendance and a collection below $1,000 per week, the parish's financial difficulties stirred concern in 2004 when the Archdiocese was considered closings. But of Dorchester's 11 parishes, only St. William's was shuttered.

In that process, church officials encouraged the area's Vietnamese Catholics to regroup in St. Ambrose's in Fields Corner. Their departure dented both the financial and social standing of the parish, said parishioner John Fahey.

The large crowd, seated on folding chairs, spanned generations, with a group of teenagers seated in the back and a pack of elderly parishioners in what one woman called "the 7:30 Mass corner."

Inside the door of the gym, older women sat behind a hand-lettered sign touting raffle tickets. A youngster in a replica high school varsity jersey welcomed attendees with greetings repeated verbatim from Rev. Christopher Gomes, the parish's parochial vicar.