Archdiocese names insider to replace outspoken pastor
Newton parish protests ouster

By Michael Paulson, Globe Staff  |  September 27, 2005

The Archdiocese of Boston, just days after ousting an outspoken critic of the
Catholic hierarchy from the pastorate of one of the most vibrant churches in the
region, has appointed the Rev. Christopher J. Coyne, a chancery insider and
former spokesman for Cardinal Bernard F. Law and Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley, to
take his place.

Parishioners at Our Lady Help of Christians in Newton, already furious over the
forced resignation of their longtime pastor, the Rev. Walter H. Cuenin, said
they were troubled by the choice because Coyne had been the voice of the church
administration during the clergy sexual abuse crisis and the start of the parish
closings process.

Cuenin, who had served two consecutive six-year terms as pastor of Our Lady's,
announced last weekend that he was resigning after the archdiocese accused him
of financial improprieties. The archdiocese said yesterday that Cuenin must now
reimburse the church $75,000 to $80,000 for improper financial practices.

But parish leaders, including members of the parish and finance councils, said
the archdiocese was selectively enforcing little-known policies. They said those
lay-led boards had repeatedly approved the payments, including a $500 monthly
payment from the parish for the performance of baptisms, weddings, and funerals,
and the parish-financed lease of a Honda Accord that was shared with visiting
priests. They also said they believed the arrangements to be fully in compliance
with archdiocesan regulations and similar to arrangements at other parishes.

Last night, about 300 parishioners angered over Cuenin's ouster gathered on the
front lawn of Our Lady's in the pouring rain, with candles flickering beneath
umbrellas and then filed into the church basement where they planned to hold a
vigil overnight. When parishioner Margaret Roylance called for ''the immediate
reinstatement of Father Walter Cuenin," other members of the parish responded
with raucous applause, tears, and foot stomping.

Parish leaders said they believe that Cuenin was targeted for ouster because he
was a prominent leader of local priests who helped organize a letter calling for
Law to resign, who reached out to gays and lesbians, and who frequently
suggested that the church should at least discuss the possibility of ordaining
married men and giving greater roles to women. The archdiocese denied that
Cuenin was targeted for any reason other than financial improprieties.

Last night in Dedham, Cuenin, after giving a previously scheduled speech on the
role of the laity, declined to criticize the archdiocese. But he said that
church officials had raised no objections about his compensation during several
previous audits of the parish.

''I feel sad to leave Newton," Cuenin said. ''I understand the people's sorrow
and loss, but I hope they welcome their new pastor."

During his tenure, Cuenin had been summoned to the chancery on several occasions
to explain remarks he made in homilies or, once, in a statement to the
Legislature opposing a bill that he believed would bar certain benefits for
same-sex couples by defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. And
for 10 months, from December 2002 to September 2003, the archdiocese banned
archdiocesan gatherings at Our Lady's after Cuenin was quoted in The New Yorker
magazine questioning church teachings on gays and women.

Cuenin briefly attempted to lower his public profile, but earlier this month, in
his parish bulletin, he suggested he was sympathetic to gay couples who were
married, writing, ''It doesn't appear that anyone's marriage has been threatened
or compromised by the 1,800 gay marriages that have already taken place in the
past year."

Cuenin was a frequent target of the most conservative elements of the church
locally, who wrote on blogs and in e-mails of their views that he was a heretic
who should be ousted from the priesthood. One of the blogs used the headline
''this is fun" on a link to a newspaper story about Cuenin's resignation.

''This is a witch-hunt, not more, not less," said Gisela Morales-Barreto of
Newton, a parishioner at Our Lady's for 20 years. ''They were trying to find
something against him, and it took them all this time to make it happen. This is
their way to punish him and punish us for how outspoken he has been. And now the
one thing we have feared all along is happening -- that if Walter will leave us,
they will send someone from the other extreme to put the brakes on what this
community is all about. Chris Coyne is in the opposite end of what Walter is all
about."

Coyne, in a brief telephone interview yesterday, said he understood the concerns
of parishioners. ''I think the most important thing, given the present
situation, is just to try and listen to people and also to be available to
people," he said. ''Over time, I hope to work with them, to continue to build
the good faith life and community that is already present at Our Lady's."

Coyne, 47, currently teaches liturgical theology at St. John's Seminary in
Brighton and assists at parishes in Medfield and Holliston. He said that he
spent time at Our Lady's over the course of three years in seminary, when he
conducted a parish census, and that the Our Lady's parish choir sang at his
first Mass, in his hometown of Woburn, in 1986.

''I have a great affection for Our Lady's and already know it somewhat, and I
hope to be able to return to the people of Our Lady's some of the support and
kindness and Christian love that they showed me when I was a student," Coyne
said. His appointment is effective today.

O'Malley's current spokesman, Terrence C. Donilon, defended Coyne's selection,
saying: ''Father Coyne is an immensely talented, devoted, and caring priest. The
archbishop holds Father Coyne in the highest regard and knows he will do a
superb job as pastor."

Our Lady's is one of the largest parishes in the archdiocese, with average
weekend Mass attendance of 1,895 people and 201 baptisms, 118 funerals, and 92
weddings a year.

Late yesterday, the archdiocese issued a three-paragraph statement saying
Cuenin's resignation was requested because of financial practices that ''do not
comport with archdiocesan policy, canon law, or archdiocesan statutes."

The archdiocese said those practices included ''Mass stipends taken at a rate in
excess of that permitted by canon law and archdiocesan statutes; automobile
expenses funded by the parish in excess of archdiocesan policies for expense
reimbursement, which are updated regularly and circulated to all clergy; and
compensation taken from both the parish and the archdiocese for the same time
period time during a sabbatical."

The archdiocese did not disclose the current level of permissible reimbursement
for Mass or for vehicle costs.

The lay leadership of the Newton parish -- members of the parish and finance
councils-- used unusually strong language to defend the former pastor. The
parish council, in a statement issued before the archdiocese spoke, said ''the
allegations of financial impropriety are ridiculous on their face."

''Father Cuenin has been one of the leading voices of protest and inquiry
throughout the scandal of clerical sexual abuse," the statement said. ''We do
not consider it a coincidence that the archdiocese has now created a way to
force Father Cuenin out of his pastorship, and we find it deceitful, cowardly,
and immoral to pretend that parish finances have anything to do with his
departure."

In a separate statement, the parish finance council said the stipend in question
predated Cuenin's arrival at the parish, and was a practice ''that the finance
council knew about and fully supported." The council said the leased automobile
was the idea of the finance council, which thought both practices complied with
archdiocesan policy.

The chairman of the board of the Boston Priests Forum, the Rev. Thomas
A. Mahoney, said he cannot understand what the archdiocese is doing.

''I see this as a very focused application of a diocesan policy that for the 12
years of Father Cuenin's stewardship was approved by previous audits, and the
violations themselves are of a nature that no reasonable person could consider
as greedy, secret, or malfeasance of any kind," Mahoney said. ''There were many
opportunities along the way to ask him to correct those policies, and that was
never done, so I don't understand why that would be applied so harshly at this
moment."

Raja Mishra of the Globe staff contributed to this report. Michael Paulson can
be reached at mpaulson@globe.com.

------------------------------------------------

Smear tactics

By Brian McGrory, Globe Columnist  |  September 27, 2005

Let's see if I have this right. The Catholic Church is facing a severe shortage
of priests. Sunday Mass is so empty it's starting to look like a meeting of the
Cambridge Republican Club. The contribution basket has been coming up nearly
empty.

So what does Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley do? Here's exactly what he does: He
fires the popular pastor at one of the most successful parishes in the entire
state, a rare church constantly filled with communicants, bustling with
weddings, brimming with christenings, welcoming to people of all types. A priest
who should be held up as an example is cut down in shame.

But that's not all. Rather than be up front with parishioners, rather than
explain that the Rev. Walter Cuenin is being relieved of his Newton post because
his views on hot-button topics such as homosexuality and women differ markedly
with those of Catholic leaders, rather than just admit that Cuenin was never a
favorite among higher-ups because he was so critical of the church during the
sex scandal, O'Malley chose a markedly different path. He chose to smear Cuenin
for driving a parish-funded, parish-approved lease car.

That's right: After silently shuffling pedophiles from one town to another to
prey on fresh batches of children, the archdiocese is finally cracking down on
wayward priests -- for driving Hondas.

Honestly, I want to think nice things about the Catholic Church and its
leaders. I want to report that the Boston Archdiocese has turned the proverbial
corner, that it understands the horror of its recent past and is looking to make
amends with the people who need its ministry most.

I want to write nice things about the hundreds of achingly selfless nuns and
priests who feed the hungry and shelter the indigent and guide so many poor
souls who inevitably get lost along the way. They do this every single day.

But O'Malley and his insipid advisers, leftovers from Cardinal Bernard F. Law's
long reign of incompetence and malevolence, make this somewhere beyond hard.

How hard? Consider, for a moment, one of the most active and devout Catholics in
town, Peter Meade, the chairman of Catholic Charities, a guy so virtuous he can
make you feel guilty just by contrast. When I called him yesterday, he was
sputtering, he was that angry. ''I don't know how we can afford to lose good
pastors," Meade said. ''But if this church has a problem with a pastor, they
ought to deal with that, rather than this incredible stretch of having a parish
think that because their priest leased a Honda, that it's some sort of egregious
sin."

Quietly, archdiocesan leaders have warned Catholic Charities not to expect any
church contribution to the upcoming budget. That amounts to a million dollars
that now goes toward food pantries, homeless shelters, immigrant programs, and
the like. Gone.

Still, it comes to my attention that the archdiocese was able to find $687,000
recently to buy a house in West Roxbury on behalf of Richard Bradford, a former
Episcopal priest who left his church in a dispute and was ordained as a Catholic
priest under Cardinal Law in 1998, despite being married.

Bradford and his wife were apparently displaced when church property was sold to
Boston College. One logical option would have been to assign them to one of the
little-used rectories in the area. But Terry Donilon, a spokesman for the Boston
Archdiocese, said, ''Since he's married, you can't do that."

Why not? Because that's the way it is. Walter Cuenin gets canned for driving a
Honda while the church buys a favored priest an expensive new place to live. Any
real estate agent will tell you that $687,000 still gets an awful lot of house
in West Roxbury.

Of course, none of it, absolutely none of it, should come as any surprise. The
same collection of incompetents who locked a bunch of children out of their
grammar school in Brighton now smear and fire a popular priest in Newton.

What's next?

Brian McGrory is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at mcgrory@globe.com.

-------------------------------

Letter may shed light on ouster of pastor
Suggests his views on gays played role

By Michael Paulson, Globe Staff  |  September 28, 2005

In an indication that a Newton pastor's position on gay rights may have played a
role in his ouster, a conservative website has posted a letter from a top
archdiocesan official saying that Roman Catholic Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley had
been ''very disturbed" by an accusation that the pastor had invited parishioners
to consider marching in a gay-rights parade in Boston last spring.

O'Malley's spokesman said last night he could not authenticate the letter, which
is posted on the website of the antiabortion organization Operation Rescue
Boston, but he insisted that the archbishop sought the resignation of the
Rev. Walter H. Cuenin from his post as pastor of Our Lady Help of Christians
Church in Newton solely because of financial improprieties, and not because of
church politics.

''I can't vouch for this letter's authenticity, but it doesn't change the
dynamics of what happened here, which is that Father Cuenin broke archdiocesan
policy, and by virtue of his agreeing to reimburse us, he obviously concurs,"
said the spokesman, Terrence C. Donilon. ''Seventy-five thousand dollars is a
lot of money, and we cannot ignore the financial piece of this. We cannot allow
one pastor to operate under a separate set of guidelines or rules."

In the letter posted on the website, Bishop Richard G. Lennon, the archdiocesan
vicar general, writes of receiving complaints that Cuenin had positively
mentioned an upcoming gay pride parade in the church bulletin, and says,
''Please know that the archbishop is very disturbed by the information that you,
along with others, have sent to him regarding this event and the involvement of
Father Cuenin. He wishes to assure you that he is in the process of addressing
this whole matter."

The letter was dated July 8, one month after the annual Boston Pride parade on
June 11. Cuenin was forced to resign, effective yesterday, after the archdiocese
said a $500 monthly stipend and a leased Honda Accord he was receiving from his
parish were in violation of archdiocesan rules. Cuenin said that the payments
had repeatedly been approved by the parish finance council and reported during
previous archdiocesan audits.

A leader of the parish's delegation to the gay pride parade said Cuenin did not
author the bulletin announcement and did not march in the parade.

''It wasn't an invitation from Walter, but from the justice and peace committee
of the parish, because gay rights is an issue of justice in our minds," said
Larry Kessler, a member of the parish council at Our Lady Help of Christians and
a founding director of the AIDS Action Committee.

Kessler said this year was the second that a group from Our Lady Help of
Christians marched in the gay pride parade. A dozen people participated, and
there was a banner with the parish's name and the slogan, ''All are welcome."

Kessler said several other Catholic congregations also sent delegations to the
march, including the Jesuit Urban Center in Boston, St. Ignatius Church in
Newton, and the Paulist Center Boston, as well as Dignity, a gay Catholic
organization. He said the delegations marched alongside a large contingent of
Protestant and Jewish organizations. The Catholic groups also shared a booth at
a Pride Festival on the Boston Common after the parade, Kessler said.

''Walter's role was nothing -- he didn't participate, and when we asked him if
he was going to walk, he said no, because he didn't think that was a good idea,"
Kessler said.

The Lennon letter, on archdiocesan stationery and over the signature of the
bishop, is reprinted as a scanned image on the website and includes several
characteristics that suggest it is authentic.

A parish leader said Lennon's letter reinforces the belief that their pastor was
ousted because of his liberal political positions and his outspokenness.

''I believe this is about more than money -- that is an excuse, not a reason,"
said Christina Graf, the vice chairwoman of the parish council at Our Lady Help
of Christians. ''They've used that as a way of moving Walter out of the way, and
ensuring he can never be a pastor again, and I believe it has more to do with
his stand and activities in the sexual abuse crisis and his support of women, of
gays and lesbians, of divorced couples, and of marginalized people."

Donilon said that the Cuenin resignation should be seen not in the context of
the gay-rights debate, but in the context of O'Malley's effort to bring greater
financial accountability to the archdiocese.

Regardless of whether gay rights played a role in Cuenin's ouster, the
increasing acceptance of same-sex relationships in Western societies has become
a major concern for Catholic bishops nationally and globally. O'Malley has been
a strong opponent of same-sex marriage and is supporting an effort to have it
declared illegal in Massachusetts.

Cuenin has been an outspoken supporter of welcoming gays and lesbians to the
church, and his position on that issue, as on many other issues, has angered
conservatives, some of whom have been agitating for his ouster for years. The
Operation Rescue: Boston website, www.orboston.org, for example, refers to
Cuenin as a ''pro-gay, dissenting priest," and to his actions as ''heresy."

Last year, on the eve of the legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts,
Cuenin was one of the lead signers of an open letter from 100 prominent
Catholics asking state residents to defend the ''fundamental human rights of
homosexuals."

In the parish bulletin at Our Lady's earlier this month, Cuenin wrote: ''We have
made a special effort to welcome gay and lesbian persons and their families. The
parish is blessed to have many couples, some now legally married, as members of
the community. They come on Sundays and are raising their children in the
faith. Their marriage seems to have been a good experience for them. It doesn't
appear that anyone's marriage has been threatened or compromised by the 1,800
gay marriages that have already taken place in the past year."

Cuenin acknowledged in the bulletin that ''there are, however, those who are
opposed to gay marriage including the Massachusetts Conference of Catholic
Bishops."

He said that the bishops are asking Catholics to sign a petition for a ballot
measure to define same-sex marriage as a heterosexual institution.

Cuenin had previously landed in hot water in 2002, when he was quoted in The New
Yorker magazine saying that divorced people should be granted a ''front-row
seat" in Catholic parishes, and that gays and lesbians should be granted the
''other front row."

Cuenin also led a group of priests who wound up signing a letter calling for
Cardinal Bernard F. Law to resign in December 2002.

Meanwhile, about 50 parishioners and Cuenin supporters met last night to discuss
plans for a celebration after his last Mass on Sunday, and for putting pressure
on the archdiocese to bring him back as pastor.

Peter Metz, one of the organizers, said that he expects several thousand people
at a reception honoring Cuenin after the Mass, and that the group also discussed
a possible protest at the chancery in Brighton on Sunday afternoon.

''The basic feeling is that Walter has been terribly wronged, and falsely
wronged, and that the parish has been wronged, and we want him back," said Metz,
63, of Newton.

Michael Paulson can be reached at mpaulson@globe.com.

------------------------------------

Dislocation, scrutiny of priests raise fears
Archdiocese denies politics behind moves

By Michael Paulson, Globe Staff  |  October 2, 2005

The many supporters of the Rev. Walter H. Cuenin long feared that archdiocesan
officials would find a way to remove him as pastor of his Newton parish: There
was his embrace of divorced Catholics and gays and lesbians, his emphasis on
finding prominent roles for women, his sharp critique of the church hierarchy's
handling of sexual abuse, and his activism in pulling together priests to call
for the resignation of Cardinal Bernard F. Law.

But last week, the archdiocese ousted Cuenin not over a doctrinal or theological
matter, but for alleged financial wrongdoing: accepting from his parish a leased
Honda Accord and a $500 monthly stipend.

The forced resignation of Cuenin has heightened fears among many Catholics that
the archdiocese, led by Archbishop Sean P. O'Malley but overseen on a daily
basis by aides held over from Law's administration, is slowly purging from
public ministry priests who are viewed as troublemakers.

Multiple interviews with priests, diocesan officials, and laypeople found no
evidence for the most explosive allegation against O'Malley, that he is
systematically removing from public ministry those priests who joined the
history-making effort to force Law's resignation in December 2002.

But the interviews make clear that O'Malley is overseeing the largest
dislocation of priests in archdiocesan history and that his administration is
subjecting priests to an unprecedented level of scrutiny, accompanied by
explicit or implicit threats of discipline.

They also make it clear that the twin efforts to close parishes and reform the
archdiocese's historically weak management have allowed O'Malley's
administration to eliminate that small subset of Law's critics who have been
most willing to talk with their parishioners and, in some cases, with reporters
about disagreements with diocesan officials.

By the archdiocese's own calculations, 66 priests lost their posts as a result
of parish closings since last summer, and just 33 of them are now serving as
pastors. Most of the others have either retired, are on leave, or are simply not
assigned to a new parish.

The archdiocese has recently begun conducting more regular and, in some cases,
unscheduled financial audits of parishes. Several priests said the archdiocese
has been warning priests that it intends to turn over problematic findings to
the attorney general for possible prosecution.

The parish closings and the audits follow the sexual abuse crisis, which led to
removal from ministry of dozens of archdiocesan priests, some of whom have been
on administrative leave for as long as three years with no determination by the
church of the credibility of the accusations.

The archdiocese has also begun trying to reduce the number of inactive priests,
men who stopped working as priests years ago, by sending out letters asking that
they return to duty or seek voluntary laicization.

The Globe has spoken with two inactive priests who said they have been suspended
by the archdiocese. One of the priests had been officiating at same-sex civil
unions in Vermont, and one had officiated at same-sex weddings in Massachusetts.

Now the Vatican has begun looking for evidence of homosexuality in seminaries
and is preparing to issue a document reiterating a ban on the admission of gay
men to seminaries, moves troubling to the some of the many gay men serving in
the priesthood.

The archdiocese denies that politics have played any role in its personnel
actions, particularly its handling of the 58 priests who signed the letter
calling on Law to resign. Four days after they issued the letter, Law stepped
down.

''The archbishop has long expressed that we should not hold any negative
feelings against those priests who signed the Law letter, nor against those who
have been critical of the church in general," said archdiocesan spokesman
Terrence C. Donilon. ''From a personal perspective, the archbishop is incapable
of holding grudges and looking for retribution. It simply goes against
everything he stands for and represents. He believes we are only going to repair
the church of Boston with a shared and common commitment from priests, the
laity, and others in these difficult days."

But many simply do not believe that.

''I don't buy that they're systematically after the 58 guys; in fact I think
that there are some of the 58 that won't be touched," said the Rev. Thomas
A. Mahoney, the chairman of the board of the Boston Priests Forum, a group that
has attempted to represent the interests of local priests.

''But I do think there are people being targeted: those who haven't capitulated
to the desires of the diocese . . . starting with gay marriage and
reconfiguration," Mahoney said. ''It's whether you're willing to play along or
not. Basically, there's an atmosphere that's one of intimidation: It's expected
that you will be loyal, and, if you're not, you're a dissident and you're a
target."

Several priests reinforced that sense of a climate of fear.

''The morale is very low among priests, and we all feel that we're made suspect
by anything we've done and anything we do, by the chancery," said the Rev. John
W. Gentleman, one of two priests who oversee Holy Family parish in Amesbury.

Reform advocates are horrified by what they perceive to be a purge of
open-minded clergy.

''Actions such as we are witnessing in the Catholic Church today lead me to
wonder whether we are becoming a church of darkness that is characterized by
fear, repression, and persecution, instead of a church of light, characterized
by tolerance, charity, and justice," said James E. Post, the president of Voice
of the Faithful, a lay reform organization supported by Cuenin and other ousted
priests.

And Peter Borre, chairman of the Council of Parishes, an organization
representing parishioners opposed to some of parish closings, decried ''a
stealthy campaign of retaliation" and accused the archdiocese of maintaining a
''hit list against its own clergy."

The overwhelming majority of the 58 signers appear to have suffered no negative
career impact as a result of signing the letter; many were essentially immune to
punishment because they were retired, belong to religious orders, or work in
academia.

Over the last week, 19 of the signers, including several who have gone through
assignment transfers or parish closings, told the Globe they had experienced no
negative repercussions. Two said they had been approved for membership on the
presbyteral council, which advises O'Malley, and one said that he had met
several times with O'Malley and that the archbishop had never raised the
subject.

''Perhaps I am naïve, but it seems to me that the fellows who are being
persecuted have issues of the present moment to deal with," the Rev. William
G. Williams, pastor of St. Mary of the Assumption in Hull, said in an e-mail.

Another signer, the Rev. Frank J. Silva, pastor of St. Ann Church in Wayland,
wrote in an e-mail that ''I can definitively state that there have been no
repercussions whatsoever." He said he views as ''complete nonsense" suggestions
that disciplinary actions against priests are motivated by their role in the
letter.

The archdiocese has not publicly cited theological or doctrinal issues in the
disciplining of a priest since 2000, when Law's administration helped engineer
the transfer of a Jesuit priest who allowed an elderly nun to help baptize the
adopted child of a gay male couple. But in at least four cases in the last two
years, the archdiocese has cited other reasons for ousting from public ministry
priests who have been at odds with the administration.

In 2003, the archdiocese cited alleged financial misconduct in removing
Monsignor Michael F. Groden, the only monsignor to sign the letter seeking Law's
resignation, as pastor of St. Cecilia Church in Boston's Back Bay.

Last year, the archdiocese closed St. Albert the Great Church in Weymouth,
ousting as pastor the Rev. Ron Coyne, long a bugaboo of conservatives because of
his liturgical innovations and liberal views. Protests forced the archdiocese to
reopen the church, but the archdiocese did not reinstate him.

Also last year, O'Malley demanded the resignation of the Rev. Robert J. Bowers,
whom the archbishop had privately derided as a ''media darling," as pastor of
St. Catherine of Siena Church in Charlestown. Bowers, who had been critical of
diocesan leadership, resigned as part of a deal to keep open his parish.

O'Malley declined to reassign Bowers as a pastor. According to Bowers, when the
priest then asked the diocese to support his application for a chaplaincy job at
his alma mater -- Boston College, which had given him an honorary degree in 2002
-- several priests suddenly went to the college administration to suggest that
Bowers not be hired.

But it is the ouster of Cuenin from Our Lady Help of Christians Parish that has
galvanized concern among archdiocesan critics. His supporters pointed out that
Cuenin's alleged misdeeds, although apparently a violation of an archdiocesan
policy that says priests should receive a stipend of no more than $5 per Mass,
comes in a context of an archdiocese with historically loose parish financial
controls and in which some priests have simply been given envelopes of cash by
their parishes as compensation for saying Mass.

None of the four outspoken priests who lost their positions as pastor is
assigned to a parish. Coyne, who could not be reached for comment, is a rarely
used member of a team of priests that is supposed to fill in for vacationing
clergy; Cuenin, who declined to comment, is taking a leave of absence; Groden,
who did not respond to a request for comment, is working on affordable housing
development for the AFL-CIO. Bowers is looking for pastoral work and is raising
money for the Chernobyl Children Project USA.

''The events happening to me are unusual, the near closing of my parish, the
loss of my assignment, the rapidness of the decision for me to move, with no
attempt to work with me to find an agreeable way to move on, it was more like a
punishment," Bowers said.

''It seems to me like a gross misuse of your resources to let people like me and
Ron Coyne and Walter Cuenin go. It's beyond my comprehension, and it looks to me
like the church is being destroyed," he said.

Globe correspondent Michael Levenson contributed to this report. Paulson can be
reached at mpaulson@globe.com.