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white beard, serene demeanor, and soothing tones, had the persona of a peacemaker. He met with abuse survivors to advance the healing. The archdiocese agreed to the $85 million legal settlement for the 542 abuse survivors; the threat of bankruptcy receded as the archdiocese and Boston College moved toward the sale of the cardinal’s estate. But O’Malley minced few words of his own on the depth of the financial crisis. On February 13, 2004, Lennon wrote to Boston priests explaining that ArchbishopO’Malley “has deliberately chosen the canonical procedure of suppression, rather than merger.” A suppressed church would close, its assets going to the archdiocese. The assets of a church that merged with another parish would follow parishioners to the new church. Lennon’s letter asserting that the archbishop had “deliberately chosen … suppression” suggested that O’Malley was a joint designer of the Reconfiguration blueprint. The archbishop set a March 8 deadline for leaders from eighty regional clusters to recommend which churches in their groupings should close.
    Peter Borré, who had seen his share of layoffs in the corporate world, was struck by the icy logic of Reconfiguration. The order bore the archbishop’s signature, but everyone knew it was Lennon telling parish groups to vote on whose church took the bullet. In corporate downsizing, you never asked people to vote on who kept their job. “Suppression”—a canon law term evocative of the Inquisition—meant you were evicted from your spiritual home, and all the money you and your people had put into that sacred space back through time went down to prop up a debt-ridden chancery. This is going to blow up on them , Borré told himself.
    Bowers secured an appointment with Archbishop O’Malley.
    The new prelate in his friar’s robe sat at the end of a long table. Seán O’Malley was visibly subdued. He spoke slowly, in a voice so low Bowers sat forward to hear, explaining that the church faced hard decisions about consolidating parishes. Bowers delivered an upbeat account of his parish, the diversity of people, rich allied with poor, a financial curve bending their way. O’Malley as a young deacon had done missionary work with Indians on Easter Island, far off the coast of Chile. The prelate who had read Spanish literature in graduate school would surely warm to the picture of brown folk from Puerto Rico making a spiritual home at St. Catherine of Siena. Or so thought Father Bowers. But as he spoke of his parish’s resilience, O’Malley seemed drained. “We are facing tough decisions,” he reiterated. Bowers wanted O’Malley to see the parish. Would he come to St. Catherine of Siena and say Mass? Yes , replied O’Malley stiffly.
    O’Malley seemed sad and listless as Bowers left.
    As Peter Borré suspected, the cluster meetings threw many people into bitter standoffs with neighboring parishes over whose should close. On March 12, 2004, the study group Bowers had worked with sent a “Minority Report” by lead author Val Mulcahy to Bishop Lennon. In a dispassionate economic analysis, the document provided Lennon the blueprint toreverse the financial decay and revitalize the area. Politically speaking, it gave Lennon cover.
    Where Mass attendance in generations past had been 45,000 a week, Charlestown had only 1,500 people per Sunday at the three churches. Charlestown could do with one church. Two parishes would cost $250,000 yearly in extra debt-servicing costs. “The luxury of retaining two parishes means that the community forgoes an annual surplus of $155,000,” the report stated.
The three struggling parishes could not maintain a school that gave parents confidence, because it was poorly funded. The cycle fed upon itself, poor funding begot low enrollment, which drained the funding, worsening the facilities even more. A prosperous parish might possibly reprime that pump and support a successful school. There is the demand for a good school