Catholic church cancelled memorial service at the request of state police
Months after the announcement that Nicholas Alahverdian had died last February — his obituary declared him a “warrior” for children whose last words were “fear not and run toward the bliss of the sun” — Father Bernard Healey received an email from someone “purporting to be his widow.” “This person,” Father Healey says, requested a memorial Mass for Alahverdian at Our Lady of Mercy, in East Greenwich. State politicians and other officials would be invited to celebrate the life of the 32-year-old man who had once been a familiar State House advocate for child welfare refor...