Connelly Makes Online Plea for Parishes

BOSTON Steve Connelly, founder and chief executive of Connelly Partners, one of the region’s larger independent ad agencies, has launched a personal campaign asking parishioners to go online in an effort to keep open 65 Roman Catholic churches scheduled for closure on Sept 1.

“The motivation was twofold,” said Connelly, a member of St. Anslem’s in Sudbury, Mass., which is marked for closure. “First, give angry Catholics a tool to express their anger and themselves, a tool that is both therapeutic and productive … Additionally, my motivation was to create a groundswell of sentiment to force a fair and honest appeal process by the archdiocese.”