Burin Peninsula Catholics were already unsettled over insolvency. Now they're losing their priest

Roman Catholics in a rural area of southern Newfoundland have for months felt stress — and anger — over the uncertain fate of their church buildings and other properties, and the very future of their faith communities.

Now, parishioners in the area of St. Lawrence, a town on the island's Burin Peninsula, face a new and unsettling reality: they're losing their outspoken priest, Father Nelson Boren, with little hope of a replacement.

"We've dealt with lots of adversity over the years like any parish has," said Jim Etchegary, administrative assistant at St. Thomas Aquinas parish in St. Lawrence.

"But this right now threatens to close our parish down, or at least decimate it to point where we're just a shadow of what we always were."

As Boren, 46, prepares to say goodbye, he's speaking out — against the wishes of his superiors — and expressing frustration at the state of affairs in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. John's as it deals with insolvency and massive liabilities from a sexual abuse scandal at the Mount Cashel Orphanage. 

After more than six years as a priest on the southern tip of the Burin Peninsula, Boren has announced he is taking an indefinite leave of absence at end of this month and taking off his clerical collar. 

His plan?

To partner with other members of the Filipino community and establish a pizza franchise in the St. John's area so he can earn more money and look after his ailing back.

"I am just leaving my active ministry to focus on my health to work out of my back pain and do the work as well," said Boren.

Clergy members, including Archbishop Peter Hundt, have largely steered clear of the media spotlight since the archdiocese announced late last year it was granted court protection from its creditors in order to sell off churches and other properties.

The money raised from the sales will be used to help pay millions in claims from victims of abuse perpetrated by Christian Brothers at the former Mount Cashel orphanage in St. John's.

But Boren has not been shy about expressing his views.

In March, he wrote a letter to The Telegram newspaper in which he questioned the merits of selling off church assets.

Boren wrote that victims deserve to be compensated, but said "to use the assets of the parishes that the parishioners themselves helped to put together must not be used to pay the victims. The parishioners did not commit the sexual abuse; others perpetrated this, not them."