St. Mary’s Church closes
Billerica » After more than 80 years of serving the community, St. Mary’s Church closed last month, leaving two remaining Catholic churches in town.
St. Mary’s Church was built in 1928 as the Mission of St. Andrew, and, in 1937, it was established as the Parish of St. Mary. In 2020, it was combined with St. Andrew Parish and St. Theresa of Lisieux Parish to form St. Matthew the Evangelist Parish, after declining membership at all three churches made it difficult to keep them open individually.
In August this year, just a week after the first anniversary of the creation of the new parish, the Rev. Paul Aveni posted a video to the parish Youtube page, announcing the decision to have the church be relegated for profane use, the term for when a church is no longer dedicated or used for a sacred purpose.
“I recognize that this news may be extremely heartbreak
He attributed some of the problems to declining participation in local churches and changing demographics. the immigrants that settled in this area during the last century needed three catholic churches, but as those immigrants became more settled and moved out of the area, it wasn’t necessary, he said.
ing to hear,” Aveni said in the video. “I am fully aware of the contribution and history that St. Mary’s Church has provided to our parishioners throughout their lives. St. Mary’s has had a significant presence in the heart of Billerica Catholics.”
In an interview, the Rev. Paul Soper, director of the Office of Pastoral Planning for the Archdiocese of Boston, said that the decision was a long time coming. The parish’s finance council and building committee had evaluated its properties as part of an analysis of its financial situation, and determined that things were not going well.
Structural and safety repairs to the building would have cost at least $203,000, which would not have included fixes to bring the church and rectory up to modern building codes.
“They came to the conclusion together as a parish that they could no longer keep St. Mary’s Church open,” Soper said. “The problems with the building were too serious and they didn’t have the cash available to fix all of the problems. They also looked at would people continue to be served well by having a fewer number of churches, and the answer was yes.”
He attributed some of the problems to declining participation in local churches and changing demographics. The immigrants that settled in this area during the last century needed three Catholic churches, but as those immigrants became more settled and moved out of the area, it wasn’t necessary anymore, he said.
“It’s a constantly shifting landscape,” he said. “The layout of parishes today will never be the optimal layout for tomorrow.”
In addition, COVID-19 notwithstanding, the attendance at Catholic Mass has gone down by 2% to 3% each year, Soper said. Whereas in the 1990s, around 70% of those who identified as Catholic attended Mass every weekend, the number today is closer to 10%.
“The structure of churches that was built to be needed when 70% of Catholics were going to Mass can’t be sustained by the 10% going now, so there have to be adjust