World religion news in brief

Group asks Pope to reopen parishes

BOSTON (AP) — A group of Roman Catholics asked Pope Benedict XVI to reverse the decision by the Archdiocese of Boston to close their parishes, which sparked a six-year fight and several round-the-clock parishioner vigils.

Peter Borre, of the Council of Parishes, said he walked through the bronze gate at Vatican City on Tuesday and delivered the long-shot appeal to a Vatican guard on behalf of nine closed parishes.

Borre all but dismissed chances for "a miraculous Hollywood ending," but said the appeal was important as a final recourse within the church and to perhaps make space for negotiations that could prevent protesting parishioners from forming breakaway groups.

In 2004, the archdiocese began a reconfiguration that reduced the number of parishes from 357 to 291 as it struggled with shrinking membership, declining numbers of priests and financial problems.

Five churches have since been occupied by protesting parishioners. The archdiocese has not moved to take the buildings because Cardinal Sean O'Malley said he would not act until all the appeals were exhausted.

The archdiocese said that happened earlier this year, with a ruling from the Vatican's highest court, the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura.

Terry Donilon, spokesman for the archdiocese, said the parishioners can't appeal to the pope because, under church law, the Vatican high court rulings are made in the pope's name.

But Borre said the papal appeal was within parishioners' rights and was written by two experts in church law. The appeal will likely never be read by the pope himself, but was addressed to a top Vatican official, Monsignor Peter Wells.

Jewish museum to open on Saturdays

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The National Museum of American Jewish History set to open next month has adopted a unique compromise on an issue that pits religious law against economics: whether to open on the Sabbath.

The five-story museum next to Independence Mall, scheduled to open Nov. 26, is dedicated to chronicling 350 years of Jewish life in America and establishing a base for scholarly meetings and community discussions.

But officials had to decide whether to open on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath. Jewish law forbids work and commercial transactions on Shabbat, but closing that day would mean turning away thousands of visitors.