To say I was horrified by the news as communicated by the Ordinary’s letter detailing the closing of St. Anne’s would be to minimize the feelings, even at this distance, of shock and incredible sadness that the closing of the church and parish of my heritage and family, stretching back to the consecration in 1906, would become a reality. Words fail, and no amount of public relations phraseology and "accompaniment on the journey" spin can ever heal the potential loss to Fall River if this icon in the city and New England disappears as a place of community, worship and spiritual healing.

While in my heart I know that the odds are stacked, whether by design or some other reason, against being able to rescue and save St. Anne’s, there is always the hope that somehow, somewhere, because of what it should mean to the region and diocese, it will be preserved.

I get the feeling, both in the apparent lack of transparency and three years of delay in even starting the deliberations, as well as the detailed architect’s review, that the outcome was preordained. Since the church was sold to the diocese in the 1970s for $1, it seems to have suffered from benign neglect and lack of focus on preserving the patrimony the diocese was handed.

It sounds like the usual “It’s too big of a job," "It’s too haaaard," "It costs too much," "We can’t do it” and reliance on the advice of "experts." Even the architect states that it is irreplaceable, both as a structure and, by extension, a parish. (Remember, Noah built the Ark, experts built the Titanic.) The usual financial suspects and business interests are salivating over the real estate possibilities, the focus of which is on profit and return on investment.

I will be attending, yes, even from the Philadelphia area, the scheduled final (can’t believe I’m typing that) Mass on the Feast of Christ the King. I’m attending as both a descendant of the poor French-Canadian mill workers and laborers who built the parish with their nickels and dimes for the greater glory of God, and as a tertiary of St. Dominic, under whose patronage and at the hands of one of his priests, I was baptized into the faith in the upper church in June 1956. If it is to be the final Mass, I want to be there to say goodbye to the family parish, closing the circle for my family. Since my great-grandfather Pierre Michaud was there at its consecration, it’s somehow fitting to be there at the end.

But it doesn’t have to be. Instead of turning this magnificent church and its history into a parking lot or restaurant, pushing its people away to other parishes, instead of treating it as an asset to strip and sell off in pieces, how about giving the parish a real chance to reclaim its heritage and strengthen its membership in the diocese and using this as a pivotal moment to reestablish its faith as a center of the Fall River Catholic Christian landscape?

Fall River is a "passing through" diocese on the way to other postings apparently for whoever is assigned there, calling to mind bishops Medeiros or O’Malley of recent memory.

So, Your Excellency, is the legacy you take with you to be that of encouraging saving a parish that has contributed much to the fabric of Fall River and can still do so with renewed focus on growing the faith there, or as a symbol of failure and retreat (while preserving the bottom line) for future generations? Just say the word, and this son of St. Anne’s will be on I-95 North to help in the effort.

Bryan D. Boyle, Order of Preachers

Morrisville, Pennsylvania