Stigmata Martyrs

From Dave Brigham:

This very welcoming statue of Jesus sits at the entry to the Congregation of the Sacred Stigmata in Waltham, Mass. But it won't be there for long; in fact, it may be gone already.

Known locally as the Stigmatines, this Catholic order was founded in 1816 in Verona, Italy, by St. Gaspar Bertoni. He was "inspired by a vision in front of the altar of St. Ignatius of Loyola and upon realizing that it was the will of God, moved everything toward the creation of a new religious community," per the order's web site (check the site out to see more of the campus; I didn't feel like trespassing beyond the statue was an option). The priests at the Waltham campus for nearly 100 years "provided meaningful and even life-changing ministry for thousands upon thousands of men, women and children through the retreats and other spiritual programs offered at the Espousal Retreat House."

But that has all come to an end.

Years ago the City of Waltham launched an effort to buy the 43-acre campus from the Stigmatines in order to build a new high school there. The city's existing high school, which is just up Lexington Street, is old and too small, according to officials. In April 2016, the city and the Stigmatines entered into a Memorandum of Agreement while they discussed a sale. My understanding is that the order had a relatively small number of priests living and working at the property, and that many of them were quite old.

By September 2017 the two sides had failed to reach an agreement, and the Stigmatines notified the city that the property was not for sale, in whole or in part, for any amount of money. Then, in the summer of 2018, the city council voted to take the property by eminent domain, and pay the order $18 million.

The vote and the monetary offer didn't sit well with the Catholic order. "The Mayor’s efforts to acquire the Stigmatine property for the high school have been coercive and relentless," the Stigmatines wrote on their web site. "No one is doubting or discounting the need for a new high school in Waltham. We just don’t believe the City should be able to end our existence here in Waltham because it covets our land for its own use. Nor do we believe any Citizen of Waltham should ever be treated the way Stigmatines have been treated by the City throughout this process."

On June 20, a Middlesex Superior Court judge ordered the priests living on the property -- who had refused entry to city surveyors and other workers after the eminent domain vote -- to leave by the end of that month. I'm not sure where the Stigmatines will go. The City offered some alternate locations for the order, none of which were accepted, according to this Waltham Patch article.

This is a tough one. From what my local sources tell me, the Stigmatines site was underused, and Waltham has a great need to build a larger, more modern high school. I know people on both sides of this issue, so I'm not going to take sides.

Now, here's your headline explainer: