From Red Sox Nation

So I was getting text messages last night from Fenway Park as the Sox beat the bejesus out of my Phillies, 10-2.

No grudges, of course. The Sox are my favorite AL team. Along with the Yanks....

Don't dare call me unprincipled. But let's cut to the real ballgame.

Back from his Spanish-immersion course en la America Latina, and awaiting the mitre which is a perk of his former job, Bill Fay is becoming a Boston pastor -- of a newly-merged parish... one near the chancery, to boot:

Archdiocesan spokesman Kevin Shea would not specify a date for the closing of St. Gabriel, saying the archdiocese needed to talk first with the parishioners, but said, ``it is well known that the Passionists are moving out of Massachusetts to consolidate their ministry." Parishioners said they expect the doors to be closed tomorrow. The Passionists have staffed the small parish since it was established in 1934.

Shea said the parish's programs, including a Spanish-language Mass, will be transferred to the last surviving Catholic church in Brighton, St. Columbkille. Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley is naming as a new pastor of that parish Monsignor William P. Fay, who had been the general secretary of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington.

And, to mark the feast of St Josemaria, Cardinal Sean -- who looked resplendent in his new get-up the other day in DC -- is saying a Monday evening liturgy for The Work:

A Boston leader of Opus Dei, Joseph Billmeier, said there are 300 to 400 Opus Dei members in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. He said the movement has houses of men in Chestnut Hill and Cambridge and houses of women in the Back Bay and Newton, as well as a retreat center in Pembroke.

Billmeier said that O'Malley's predecessor, Cardinal Bernard F. Law, had said Masses to mark the anniversary of the death of Escriva, but that this was the first year the movement had asked O'Malley to do the same. Billmeier said the invitation was not provoked by the movie, but that ``we are trying to get the word out and to help people understand us."

-30-