AP–Vatican: Churches can be shut for good of a diocese

The Vatican’s highest court has ruled a diocese can close a parish, regardless of that parish’s health, if it decides the good of the church’s religious mission is at stake.

Ten churches that appealed their closings by the Boston Archdiocese learned their appeals had been denied in May, but written rulings by the Collegium of the Apostolic Signatura were not released until Saturday.

The rulings were in Latin. On Thursday, a lay group that advocated for several of the closed churches released a translated version of one of the rulings, and said they all have “substantially identical” reasoning.

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