I was a little surprised to learn yesterday that one of the churches we used to go to in Wellesley, St. James the Great, has had a vigil going 24/7 since last Halloween. Given how often we went only to see the place a quarter full, I don't think I'd ever have suspected that they could pull this off.

What brought this to my attention was a lawsuit brought against the archdiocese of Boston by the wife of the man who sold the land that St. James sits on to the archdiocese. The interesting wrinkle in this lawsuit is the claim that the sale was conditional on the property being used as a church. The plaintiff wants either a church open or her land back.

I can't imagine the archdiocese is too thrilled about this - they bought the property in 1948 for $12,000 and it now has an estimated value of $10 million. Given that there were a few closings where the likely value of the property seemed to play a little more heavily in the decision-making, this could be a case of the archdiocese getting caught with it's hand in the wafer jar.

In a completely unrelated bit of news, it looks like neighboring Salem is getting a statue of Samantha Stevens, the witch played by Elizabeth Montgomery on Bewitched. TV Land is apparently behind this, seeing it as a natural link between honoring the show and Salem's witch-filled history.

Personally I think it's one of those reasonably harmless but stupid things, given that the show had nothing to do with Salem. It'd be like putting a statue of Marcus Welby at the entrance to Mass General because doctors work there.