No arrests for trespassing after pastor finds people inside Mount Carmel

By William T. Clew
The Catholic Free Press

    Members of the Mount Camel Preservation Society held a prayer service outside Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church Saturday morning and then some members entered the building, according to Msgr. F. Stephen Pedone, pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish, and Mauro DePasquale, president of the Mount Carmel Preservation Society.
    Msgr. Pedone said he was called Saturday morning and told that people were in the church. He said he arrived at around 11 or 11:30 a.m. to find about 10 people in the church. He said he recognized them as Preservation Society members.
    He said someone cut the wire holding the gate in the fence around the church. He said there are “No Trespassing” signs on the property. He said he entered the church and told the people to leave and that they were trespassing.
    He said one woman said to him, “So what? This is our church.” A woman also told him, “Don’t talk to me in that tone of voice!”
    Msgr. Pedone said he saw one man trying to take a thermostat off the church wall. Other people took pieces of marble from the church, he said.
    He said he called Worcester police, who arrived quickly, but the people in the church had gone out of the building by then and some were sitting in their cars. He said the police told him because they did not see anyone in the church they could not arrest anyone for trespassing.
    Mr. DePasquale said the door to the church was wide open and people, including himself, did go in. He said he left the area, apparently before Msgr. Pedone arrived because he did not see the monsignor there.
    He said some members of the Preservation Society had heard that youngsters had been trying to break in to the church. He said people were upset at the condition of the inside of the church and many cried when they saw it.
    Demolition work on the church began this week. Mr. DePasquale said members of the Preservation Society expect to be at the site when the demolition takes place.
    Bishop McManus closed Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in May 2016 because of the structural condition of the building, the estimated cost of rehabilitation and the inability of the parish   to meet the cost.
    The bishop merged the Our Lady of Mount Carmel /St. Ann Parish with Our Lady of Loreto Parish. The Preservation Society protested the closure to the bishop and to the Vatican. They lost every appeal to the Holy See. They sought a preliminary injunction in Worcester Superior Court to prevent the razing of the church but Judge Daniel M. Wrenn ruled against them.