(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)In No Closure: Catholic Practice and Boston's Parish Shutdowns , John Seitz, Assistant Professor of Theology at Fordham University, provides a scholarly analysis of the on-going occupation of five parishes ordered closed by the Archdiocese of Boston in May 2004. Using extensive interviews from occupiers, principally from two of the five parishes, and exhaustive secondary sources, Seitz crafts an insightful monograph that seeks to answer two questions: why did people resist closures of these parishes? and what does resistance to Church closings tell us about modern American Catholicism? In a tightly written and extensively footnoted text, Seitz ably accomplishes his basic purpose while significantly adding to the literature of contemporary American Catholic life.Seitz presents his description and analysis of the Boston parish closings in a highly informative introduction, five chapters, and an epilogue. While mention is made of various parish closures, Seitz's primary analysis centers on two specific faith communities: Mount Carmel in East Boston, and St. Albert's in Weymouth. Seitz first looks at the concept of sacrifice as the basic pill that the Archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O'Malley, asked the parishioners of parishes scheduled to be closed to swallow. In this discussion, the author makes a clear distinction between the two contesting parties: the archdiocese and the so-called occupiers of these parishes. The archdiocese asked parishioners to see the obvious signs that led to the decision to close certain parishes--lack of clergy, dwindling Mass attendance, and the poor material condition of many churches that possessed insufficient economic resources to repair them. While difficult, parishioners were asked to display the heroic sacrifice as many of their ancestors in the faith did at a time of crisis. For those who resisted, however, Seitz clearly points out that the loss of sacredness of the church building itself, its contents, and the locale was not merely a sacrifice, but rather perceived to be spiritual abuse. He writes, the resisters the shutdowns were an attempt to shut down memory and, therefore, a subversion of religion (80).The author's analysis continues by showing how resistors defended their action in the light of history, while always maintaining themselves to be fully within the Catholic family. While he discusses reasons for the demographic shift leading many parishes to close, Seitz emphasizes the concept of sacred presence as the mantra for those who resisted. He looks at how competing orientations, some seeing the church as a shell or building, others viewing the church as living stones of people, were negotiated by those who occupied churches. Seitz explains how the concepts of sacrifice and church authority played out among the occupiers. As in one example he describes the tension among the occupiers with respect to the use of married priests for Sunday celebrations. …