Photo | John DePetro

Winn Residential says ban on Rosary prayer was temporary

Posted: 7/16/2012 10:12:24 PM
Updated: 7/17/2012 10:45:10 PM

Management at the Brook Village Retirement home tell WPRO’s John DePetro that a ban on residents praying the Rosary in a community room was only temporary.

In an email sent to WPRO's John DePetro from Stephanie Lewis Reional Vice President of Winn Residential, she says "Management is not preventing any resident from using the community room to say the rosary or to participate in any other volentary religious observation requested by residents."

Brook Village Retirement Home in North Providence had banned a small group of residents from praying the Rosary in the common area after one resident complained.

Residents tell WPRO’S John DePetro that a group would gather every Monday in the community room at 11:30 a.m. and watch “The Holy Rosary with Mother Angelica and the Nuns of Our Lady of the Angels Monastery,” on the Catholic television network. During the program the group would pray aloud.

According to the residents, property manager Carol Conti told the group they could no longer pray aloud in the common space after a resident complained. John DePetro attempted to speak with Conti but she refused to comment.

The complaining resident, Wanda Hughes told DePetro that she wrote a letter to the property management group because she finds the Rosary to be “an in your face ritual.” In the letter she threatens to bring the issue to the ACLU if it is not addressed.

Hughes said the community room is “suppose to be open” and the residents can pray in their rooms.

Dee DeQuattro | WPRO News