Cert. Filed In Massachusetts Church Closing Case

Today's Boston Globe reports that a petition for certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court has been filed in the case of Maffei v. Roman Catholic Archbishop of Boston. In May, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court dismissed a challenge to the Archdiocese's decision to close and sell off St. James Church in Wellesley, brought by heirs of the Maffei family who donated the property on which the church sits, as well as by a donor to the church. They say they were promised that the church would be maintained in honor of Waldo Maffei's father. The petition for cert. challenges the ruling of the Massachusetts high court that most of the claims in the suit raise matters of internal church governance that the First Amendment precludes civil courts from deciding. (See prior posting.) Petitioners' attorneys argue that this is a secular civil dispute that involves no religious doctrine or practice.