By Bill Forry
Managing Editor

While a long-shot appeal to reopen Saint William Church awaits its day of judgment at the Vatican, neighbors in Columbia-Savin Hill are preparing for the anticipated sale and re-development of the Dorchester Avenue block now occupied by the shuttered church and rectory.

A sub-committee of the Columbia-Savin Hill Civic Association has met several times over the last three months to discuss the community's vision for the church's re-use, hoping that a proactive approach will prevent a future dispute with church officials, who remain largely aloof from any dialogue with the community.

The St. William church complex has sat dormant since last August, after Archbishop Sean O'Malley ordered that the parish be suppressed, along with another nearby parish, St. Margaret on Columbia Road. The two parishes merged into one entity, Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta Parish, whose congregation is based in the old St. Margaret church facility. The new parish uses the former St. William schoolhouse on Savin Hill Avenue to house the parish grammar school.

According to the pastor of Blessed Mother Teresa parish, Rev. Paul Soper, the St. William property is now being maintained by a real estate management firm that was hired by the Archdiocese of Boston, which claimed full ownership of the church and its attached rectory and parish hall in the suppression process. Soper has said that the new parish does not have control over the St. William facility and will not have a formal role in determining what will be done with the site.

Any attempt by the Archdiocese to sell the St. William property has been stalled by a still-pending appeal effort mounted by a group of parishioners calling themselves the Ad Hoc Committee for the Future of St. William. One member of that group, Mary Hogan, told the Reporter this week that the most recent correspondence from the Vatican indicated that a decision may be forthcoming on May 10. However, Hogan cautioned that the death of Pope John Paul II may further delay any final decision into the summer.

Despite her hope that the church is granted a reprieve and re-opened, Hogan says that she has attended meetings of the civic subcommittee, which typically meets in the basement of C.F. Donovan's restaurant.

"I can appreciate the neighborhood wanting to have a voice, particularly after being so betrayed by the church," said Hogan. "The least [the Archdiocese] can do is consult with the best interests and desires of the neighborhood to have something that can serve and benefit folks and not just be a private, profit-making enterprise."

City Councillor Maureen Feeney says that if the appeal is not successful, she intends to push for the Archdiocese to meet face-to-face with Columbia-Savin Hill neighbors to discuss redevelopment options.

"The Archdiocese of Boston owes us something," said Feeney. "It's generations of families in Dorchester that built these wonderful parishes. It's time for (the Archdiocese) to demonstrate some respect. We don't want this to be a closed process where they're making all the decisions."

Getting Ready for a Possible Sale

According to Don Walsh, the chairman of the Columbia-Savin Hill Civic Association subcommittee, four general suggestions have been brought to the group's attention in public meetings held thus far. Walsh stressed that the subcommittee has not formalized any recommendations and called all discussions to date "tentative."

"We've come up with four options we want to explore further," Walsh told the Reporter.

Included among the four general re-use themes, according to Walsh and others, are: the possible re-use of St. William's as a Catholic church; a combination assisted living facility for seniors with adult day care programming; housing; and artist lofts.

"Where we'd like to go with this is, if we can get some strong consensus, go out to developers and have them partner with the civic group," said Walsh. "Rather than have us respond to someone else."

"I think the effort will be to come up with one thing that the majority would like to see," Walsh said. "We're asking the city to come up with some demographics. We'd like to find out just who lives there and if a senior service center is what's really needed.

"We'd like to have a couple of months of putting information together and then, hopefully before the summer, come out with a recommendation," Walsh said.

Bill Walczak, another Savin Hill resident engaged in the subcommittee's work, says that housing is generally thought to be the most likely re-use proposal for the site. The civic group hopes that by engaging in a dialogue before the church initiates its own process, the community might have more say in the outcome.

"It seems as though people want to know that whatever goes into that space is going to mesh well with needs of the community and the community itself," Walczak said. "The general sense, I think, is that housing is probably the easiest."

Walczak added that the subcommittee hopes to set pre-approved limits to the amount of units and density that can be built on the site so that "anybody who walked into it would know they'd have to adopt those plans to get it through the community."

"It's definitely worth doing, to have this as a proactive process rather than just having to say no to something later," said Walczak.

According to the city of Boston's Assessing department, the parcel occupied by the St. William property is 39,037 square feet in size. The block is bordered on three sides by entirely residential sidestreets, St. William Street, Auckland St. and Belfort St.

Elsewhere in Boston, a Possible Sign of Things to Come

The processes of selling several other suppressed parishes are already well underway in other parts of the Greater Boston area. Closest to home, in Jamaica Plain, a 90-day marketing period just ended for Blessed Sacrament parish- a complex comparable to St. William's that includes a church, school, rectory and parish hall. According to the Jamaica Plain Gazette newspaper, sealed bids from as many as three potential developers are likely to be considered by the Archdiocese, which has used a South Boston-based realtor to market the Hyde Square property. The Gazette reports that the bidders include a local community development corporation, a condo developer and a South End church.

Like their counterparts in Columbia-Savin Hill, the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood Council (JPNC) met repeatedly to formulate a set of guidelines of what it would like to see done with the property at Blessed Sacrament. In the end, the JPNC did not take a position on any one proposal, according to chairman Nelson Arroyo, because they did not have an opportunity to review all of the bids. However, the group did send a letter to the archdiocese emphasizing their wish to see affordable housing as part of the plan.

In the Jamaica Plain process, Arroyo said, the Archdiocese was "very hush-hush on any information."

Nevertheless, Arroyo is pleased that the Jamaica Plain community - like Columbia-Savin Hill- was proactive.

"Our final goal was to give community input and hopefully have the Archdiocese consider it when they make their final decision," said Arroyo, who added that the decision from the Archbishop's office is expected as soon as this week.

The Archdiocese of Boston did not respond to repeated requests made this week by the Reporter for more information about the St. William's disposition. Past calls to the Archdiocese's Community Relations office have similarly gone unreturned. However, on the Archdiocese's website, the broad outline of the typical disposition process is outlined repeatedly in statements referring to other suppressed churches.

"The Archdiocesan Real Estate office and the Real Estate Advisory committee will review offers received," read one such statement. "They will make their recommendations to the Chancellor, who will then review the financial terms. The Chancellor will forward his recommendations to the Vicar General, who in turn will review the recommendations in light of other considerations, including social concerns. The Vicar General will then forward his recommendations to the Archbishop concerning the received offers. If the Archbishop is inclined to accept the offers, the required permissions will be sought from the College of Consultors, the Finance Council and, where needed, from the Holy See."

A Terrible Lesson

City Council President Mike Flaherty, who last year asked the Archdiocese to engage in a public process through the city of Boston to dispose of suppressed properties, said this week that he admires the work of community groups to prepare for what is likely the next- and final- stage in the Saint William's saga.

"I tip my hat to all the people who are meeting and they're probably very frustrated, as I am," said Flaherty, adding that his calls to have a dialogue with the Archdiocese have "all fallen on deaf ears."

"They've pretty much been noncommittal and somewhat evasive. Decisions are being made with very little input from community. They seem to have a plan and are continuing with their ways of not engaging in a dialogue.They've farmed out properties to brokerage firms, clearly with the intent to get the highest bidder. I find that to be somewhat disingenuous, because in some instances they got the property from the city for little or no money."

Still, Flaherty noted that at some point, he expects "the pendulum to swing back."

"I expect that they'll need approvals for building permits and variances at some point. Then, we'll get a bite at the apple," Flaherty said.

Feeney said that the frustration level has been exacerbated locally in the immediate aftermath of the Archdiocese's decision to reverse the closures of several suburban parishes after protests in those communities. In St. William's parish, where the appeal process has followed the formal course as outlined by church policy, the apparent permanent closure of the parish is "a terrible lesson for all of us."

"It appears the parishes that were obedient and followed the mandate of the Archdiocese are now without parishes and those that stood up and fought are in a different situation," Feeney said. "It's very unsettling to be told this was an absolute decision and then, when enough pressure was applied, the Archdiocese acquiesced."

"We'd like to still think there's hope for St. William's," Feeney said. " And that they'll recognize that it seemed to have all the ingredients for a successful parish.

"I commend the good people of St William's for not sitting back and for being proactive. They don't want any more surprises. And, you have to say, taking one of the most viable parishes in the city and closing it down was a surprise."