Even some of today’s harshest critics of the archdiocese in Boston admit that reconfiguration is necessary in a climate of declining attendance, financial hardship, deteriorating structures and limited priest availability. The archdiocese’s stated mission of merging and reconfiguring its parish network is based on the making the surviving parishes stronger, reducing the number of parishes requiring subsidies and avoiding expensive maintenance and renovation of underutilized, physically declining buildings. This is to be accomplished, according to the archdiocese, without sacrificing the true mission of the Catholic Church – providing sacraments to its parishioners, caring for and tending to the disadvantaged and...