Ask Dorchester natives like Christine McLaughlin, "Where are you from?" and they're likely to respond with the name of a Catholic parish.
"Traditionally," McLaughlin, 46, explained while sitting cross-legged on a couch in her Dorchester home, "you wouldn't name your street, or you wouldn't name your train station. You would say, 'Oh, I'm from St. Mark's. I'm from St. Greg's. I'm from St. Brendan's.'"
McLaughlin remembers a time when this parish identification was common, and almost everyone attended mass at the church that anchored their neighborhood. She's been connected to St. Brendan's for generations. Her mother was married and went to parish school there. McLaughlin was baptized, went to school and was married there, and her children now attend the school. Inside her home, she has pictures that are visual testaments to her family's sacramental history in the 85-year-old building.
"This was another big part of mass," she said, pointing to a grainy image of herself with her siblings, mother and a late pastor outside the church after a service. “People would pour out of the building, continue the celebration and talk about the happenings."
McLaughlin now serves as a member of the St. Ann/St. Brendan Collaborative's joint parish council. The two parishes, separated by Gallivan Boulevard and about a mile, officially became a collaborative in 2014 amid a shortage of pastors and dwindling church attendance among the 1,170 parishioners registered at either church. Today, the two spiritual homes are struggling financially.
Over the years, the collaborative has accumulated $850,000 in debt. The two church buildings share an additional $2 million in deferred maintenance. Between a total of four weekend masses, the pair doesn't attract enough people to fill pews at either sanctuary once. Add those concerns to the national problems plaguing the Catholic church — ongoing scandals surrounding child sexual abuse allegations, the decreasing number of Catholics who regularly attend mass and subsequent shrinkage in offerings — and the collaborative can barely pay its weekly operating expenses.
Fr. Robert Connors, 73, is one of two pastors tasked with shepherding the St. Ann/St. Brendan Collaborative out of its debt. Even though he’s set to retire in a little more than a year, he is embracing the challenge of co-leading the church.
“It’s a difficult time for mainline religions. Most parishes are just trying to survive,” Connors said. “We need people — committed, involved, faithful, supporting. The buildings will come after that.”
Fr. Brian Clary, 47, said the job poses the biggest challenge of his two decades in ministry. Still, he's optimistic.
"We see it as a wonderful opportunity," Clary said with a upbeat tone. "What can the future of the parishes look like?"
Both priests said they’ve prioritized transparency since taking over in June and currently there are no plans to close either of the parishes. That could change depending on what happens in the next few months, but for now, church leaders have decided to focus on drawing more people back into the pews in hopes of increasing offerings and participation. Addressing the debt and pending building repairs can come later.
The looming threat of closure has drawn the interest of local politicians, including Mayor Marty Walsh. Clary said Walsh offered "sound advice" about managing church facilities, as well as ideas for developing its real estate holdings, including a soon-to-be-vacant convent, a house beside St Brendan's, a parish school, and two garages. Walsh declined to comment for this story.
State Rep. Dan Hunt, who grew up attending St. Ann’s and represents both parishes, said the collaborative community has made great strides since news of the dire financial situation first became public this summer.
“We’re going to do everything we can to make sure the collaborative is financially sound and continues on into the future,” Hunt said.
At a meeting on Oct. 22, church leaders provided an update indicating slight progress. Attendance, offerings and online giving increased through the month of October, but not enough to reach the estimated $12,000 needed to operate each week.
Sitting inside St. Brendan's 700-seat sanctuary, Clary said the collaborative is considering creative real estate solutions, like allowing developers to re-purpose some of the sanctuary space.
"They could probably cut this down to maybe 300 seats," Clary said, describing an arrangement wherein the rear of the church might be converted to rentable office space.
Fr. Paul Soper, director of pastoral planning for the Archdiocese of Boston, said the situation at the St. Ann/St. Brendan Collaborative is not unique. He estimated a third of the 284 parishes in the area are running a deficit — some because they're paying for repairs and renovations to old buildings.
"The problem is that with St. Ann's and St. Brendan's and some of our other parishes ... that have accrued a large debt like that, it has not come about as a way of trying to improve the life of the parish it's operating," Soper said. "They're borrowing to pay their day-to-day operating expenses. In the end, [it] becomes very difficult for a parish to pull themselves back from that pattern."
McLaughlin said she is holding out hope the parish community can pull itself out of the red. She's donated some of her family pictures to church volunteers organizing the collaborative's November fundraiser, the first joint gala between St. Ann’s and St. Brendan’s.
"We'll do anything to keep both of our buildings open and thriving," McLaughlin said. Although she agrees a congregation can have a church service anywhere, she said the sanctuary is more than a mere building. Were it to close, "we would lose our history, we would lose our community," she said.
Teary-eyed, she explained the communities around St. Ann's and St. Brendan's have endured instability through leadership changes, loss of parishioners and multiple sexual abuse allegations over the years.
"I think that if the buildings were to go, it would hurt, you know, any chance we have of rebuilding," McLaughlin said.
