Bailey's Billiards, after eight years in business, during which it was cited by Billiard Digest magazine as one of the best-designed pool halls in the country, closed its doors at the Springs-Fireplace Road One-Stop complex last month.

Bob Medved, the owner, said this week, "The bottom line was economics. It wasn't the landlord's fault, or my fault. You can only charge so much for an hour of play and so much for a bottle of beer."

"The saddest part of it," he added, "is that a lot of kids will miss it - a lot of kids and adults." Business had been good recently, Mr. Medved said, in answer to a question, though not so good that he could afford another hike in the 4,800-square-foot building's rent. "With a rent of $10,000 to $12,000 a month, you've got to be tremendously busy every night."

"Ten dollars an hour for the use of a table and $3 for a bottle of beer is as much as you can expect people to pay." Getting a beer license and Quick Draw had helped, he said, "but it's all relative - the beer license helped, but the rent went up."

Bailey's last day of business was Sept. 30. Since then Mr. Medved, who has a doctorate in oceanography and master's degrees in biology and statistics, has "been tying up loose threads." He had sold, he said, the 16 pool tables, each of which had cost $6,000 when new.

Asked what he planned to do next, Mr. Medved said he doubted he could land a job in academe, despite his impressive credentials.

"Tough Area"

"I've been out of the field for 10 years - I haven't kept up with the research, I haven't published. . . . I've looked into teaching at the high school level, but you've got to take two years of education courses to get certified. I'd do another pool hall, but you need a lot of space and the rents are so high out here, about twice what they are up the Island."

"It's a tough area for jobs - I don't just want to do anything, I want to do something satisfying."

In the end, he had "done everything I said I would do. There was some opposition when I opened if you recall. I promised I'd run a decent place for families, and that's what it was. I never had to call the police once. There was never a fight here. It was a place where kids and families could come and spend a little time. I did things for the high school, for senior citizens. . . . I ran the business as efficiently as I could run it. I feel good about what I did. But you can only charge so much - that's the bottom line."

"The Property Rights Dilemma," a panel discussion on the difficulties of developing properties in the age of multi-agency regulations and review, will be the topic of a panel discussion Monday night.

Sponsored by the Architecture and Design Forum, the discussion will begin at 7:30 at St. Ann's Parish Meeting House on Main Street in Bridgehampton.

Panelists will include Robert DeLuca, the executive director of the Group for the South Fork, Lucille Biery, a local property owner and realtor, Jim Zizzi, a builder and member of the Southampton Town Planning Board, and William J. Fleming, an East Hampton attorney who has represented applications before the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals and Planning Board.

Serving as moderator will be Bill Chaleff of East Hampton and of the Water Mill firm Chaleff and Rogers.

Among the topics to be discussed will be community rights versus property rights and what some consider to be arbitrary and confiscatory regulations and land use laws that constitute "takings" of property, environmental considerations, and the sovereignty of the individual in a democratic society.

Audience members will have an opportunity to ask questions and make comments. Monday's panel discussion will be free for forum members, and cost $5 for nonmembers.

The East Hampton Town Board agreed last Thursday to pay $125,000 toward the $550,000 purchase of a 2.9 acre oceanfront lot in Montauk owned by James Kollegger. The Nature Conservancy will contribute the rest.

The Kollegger property is in the moorlands of Montauk on Deforest Road and adjoins the historic Montauk Association properties.

The Town Zoning Board of Appeals had twice denied Mr. Kollegger's development proposals for the land, largely on environmental grounds. Neighboring property owners in the Montauk Association opposed his application for several variances to build a 3,474 square-foot house on the land.

Neighbors Kicked In

A group of them, including Dick Cavett and his wife, Carrie Nye, Marshall and Nina Brickman, Roberta Gosman Donovan, Michael and Jane Hoffman, and Walter and Eva Iooss, worked with the Nature Conservancy, and later the town, on a plan to purchase the environmentally sensitive property from Mr. Kollegger. According to Paul Rabinovitch of the Conservancy the neighbors donated more than $200,000 to the Conservancy for this purchase.

The oceanfront land was valued at significantly more than $550,000. Mr. Kollegger will claim the difference between the purchase price and his appraisal as a charitable contribution.

In April, the Nature Conservancy bought the Sanctuary, a 339-acre parcel nearby. The Conservancy eventually hopes to preserve a greenbelt that would run all the way from the preserved land on the ocean to the Andy Warhol Preserve and the Sanctuary.

Ronald Lauder has applied for permission to revegetate his Wainscott Pond property, East Hampton Town Trustees were told during an abbreviated monthly meeting on Oct. 14, but wants to dredge the site first, in order to assure that phragmites - reeds - do not return.

Mr. Lauder has asked the Town Department of Natural Resources for advice. Trustee James McCaffrey, who lives in Wainscott, said he would talk to Larry Penny, the department's director, about the matter.

Mr. McCaffrey will take a look at the property, too; he does not think dredging will do the trick.

The Town Shellfish Hatchery has begun machine-seeding clams at Sammy's Beach off Three Mile Harbor in East Hampton. John Aldred, director of the hatchery, has informed Trustees that markers will clearly identify the seed lots.

Mr. McCaffrey has asked Mr. Aldred for a report on the oyster-growing pilot project Trustees allowed to take place in Napeague and Three Mile Harbors. Phase one of the Napeague program, which began in 1994, is due to be completed soon.

Participating baymen asked Mr. Aldred for more time to complete the growing, and he in turn advised them to talk to the Trustees.

Mr. McCaffrey noted that while Trustees were careful about crossing the line between a pilot project and a commercial enterprise, he would be in favor of letting the baymen finish their growing. The oysters are said to be terrific.

It was also announced last week that bid specification forms for supplying a marine sewage pump-out boat to the Trustees will be available through Tuesday at Trustee headquarters on Bluff Road, Amagansett. The boat is being purchased with the help of a Federal grant.

Monthly meetings of the Trustees will begin at 6 p.m. from now on. This goes for the regular meeting on the second Tuesday of each month at Town Hall, and for the work session held on the third Tuesday of each month at Bluff Road.

Georgica Pond in East Hampton was let to the ocean by order of the Trustees today, and should be running strong by this afternoon.

County Executive Steve Levy may not have been up for re-election this year, but with the political makeup of the Legislature hanging in the balance, he had a lot on the line. Clearly, he sees the Democrats' victories in 10 of 18 legislative races as his own.

"We targeted five legislative races and won four of them," Mr. Levy said last Thursday during a visit to The East Hampton Star. The one the Democrats lost was in the Second Legislative District, where the incumbent Jay Schneiderman of Montauk beat a former Levy aide, Tim Motz.

Mr. Schneiderman does not fit the mold of the classic Republican, but nonetheless has voted to override Mr. Levy "95 to 98 percent of the time," the county executive said. The differences between Mr. Levy and Mr. Schneiderman are no secret, but Mr. Levy said he likes the county legislator even if he has difficulty working with him.

Over all, Mr. Levy and the Democrats had a lot to smile about last week. In the wake of the elections, the county executive made the rounds of the East End newspapers, touting his accomplishments since taking office almost two years ago and painting a bright picture of the next two years with him and his fellow Democrats at the wheel.

Often county-level initiatives are felt little on the South Fork, but the South Fork has seen the effect of lower taxes and Mr. Levy was quick to point out that the East End has had two general fund tax cuts in a row under his administration. Mr. Levy, who described himself as a reformer and ran on a platform that called for making county government more efficient, came into office with a clear plan for what he would change.

"I knew exactly what I wanted to do, where the problems were, where the waste was," he said, adding that streamlining county government helped make the tax cuts possible.

He has taken less pay than his predecessor, Robert Gaffney, cut cars in the county fleet, and reassigned the three police officers who once drove the county executive's car back to the County Police Department. "Those little symbolic things added up in all the different line items," the county executive said.

He also credited himself with "revitalizing the scandalized open space program" and hiring more lawyers to handle closings on county open space purchases. "Between our finances being very sound and our environmental programs being back on track, we feel very good," he said.

On the environmental front, Mr. Levy said his administration will be the first to start weaning the county off pesticides. Here it is possible that Mr. Levy and Mr. Schneiderman could find common ground. The legislator made pesticide reduction a cornerstone of his efforts when he was East Hampton Town supervisor and has introduced several versions of a bill seeking to ban the retail sale of certain pesticides, all of which failed to pass.

Last Thursday, Mr. Levy pledged a 75 percent reduction in overall pesticide use and said the county will begin integrating biological methods to control pests. Rather than relying on spraying and ditching to eliminate mosquitoes, the county will, for example, start introducing predators that feed on mosquitoes and creating areas where those fish predators can congregate.

The county has also initiated an effort aimed at restoring 4,000 to 5,000 acres of wetlands in the next 10 to 12 years. A draft of that management plan has just been completed. "It is the most thorough study in the nation," said Michael Deering, the county's director of environmental affairs.

To help ease traffic on the county's roads, Mr. Levy said he would like to see freight shipped to Long Island by rail rather than by truck. He plans to lobby to have the money currently earmarked for a $8 billion connection from Lower Manhattan to John F. Kennedy Airport reassigned to a rail freight project.

The county is also calling on the state to take over County Road 39, where improvements are expected to cost $70 million. "It has to be done, but it's outside the parameters of the county," Mr. Levy said.

He is considering, as well, a Southampton Town proposal to use the railroad right of way as a bypass road. "I'm not sold on the concept yet, but that may be our only answer," Mr. Levy said.

The county executive has taken a lot of heat in the past year for his efforts to address problems associated with illegal immigration and the rapid influx of immigrants into communities around Suffolk.

He drew fire from immigrants and their advocates for a proposal to give county police some of the powers of immigration officers and has drawn criticism from those same groups for the county's involvement in evicting mainly immigrant workers from overcrowded houses in Brookhaven and Farmingville.

In both cases, Mr. Levy said, his administration's efforts were wrongly characterized by the media. "Some of what I've been doing is misunderstood, but when I get a chance to explain myself, I think people get on board. The vast majority are happy that someone is dealing with this issue," Mr. Levy said.

On the police proposal, "we feel very strongly that we're on the right side of the issue. We think we have a very even-handed approach." He said he "never suggested that cops be given authority to go out on the street and start checking papers."

Rather, he wanted the police to try out a policy in which, "upon arrest of an individual for a felony, we would start cross-referencing" against other lists to see if that person had previously been charged with a felony, or if they were in the county illegally and could be deported.

Despite all the protest, the county has begun to do this, he said, and "we got a lot of bad people out of the county."

Mr. Levy has also targeted contractors who employ illegal immigrants without paying workers' compensation and taxes for those employees. Such contractors "put out of business the guys who are playing by the rules," he said.

The evictions were handled by the towns, not the county, but the county did offer help. In one case, he said, the district attorney and the police department had already issued a court order directing the landlord to bring the house into compliance. "We went in there for the purpose of arresting the slumlord," he said, and found 60 people living in a 900-square-foot house.

"Upon going in, the Town of Brookhaven, accompanied by the police department, sees 60 sleeping people, sees candles, sees propane tanks. The next day, Brookhaven closed it down. What I would have done, was get the propane tanks out and say, you've got 72 hours."

He maintains that the evictions were not anti-immigrant. "The average people in Farmingville, they don't want people urinating in the backyard because there aren't enough bathrooms in the house," Mr. Levy said.

He believes the immigration system is not working and that "we've got to go back to a system that worked," when migrant labor could get seasonal passes.

"Do it in a way that's legal," he said. The county is working with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to get the flexibility to allow for more legal seasonal workers.

"We could . . . recognize that a lot of these laws are outdated, so we should fix the laws and enforce the laws," Mr. Levy said.

The large swells spawned by this week's passing northeaster seemed to be just what the big bluefish have been waiting for to help them herd the baitfish shoreward. Surfcasters report the kind of bluefish blitzes that were missing before the storm.

Freddie's Bait and Tackle in Montauk reported good surf-fishing on Sunday whenever casters could find a perch safe from the waves. The south-facing beaches on Monday morning saw blues in the 8 to 10-pound range joining with the waves to drive bait onto the beach.

The Full Moon Striped Bass Tournament held annually from the Montauk Marine Basin took place over the weekend. It proved there are big bass feeding in the rips.

Bass Tourneys

The boat angler division was won by Jim Katsaros of Mount Sinai. He caught a 361/2-pound bass. Donald Delbora placed second and third with fish weighing 36 pounds even. The Blue Fin IV charter boat won all three places with bass weighing 37.8 pounds, 35.8 pounds, and 34.6 pounds.

The leader board has not changed in the Montauk Locals bass tournament, as the bigger bass remained out of casting range despite what appeared to be ideal, big-surf conditions brought on by the passing storm.

While the small boats were kept off the Point by the big waves, Harvey Bennett of the Tackle Shop in Springs says he found a school or two "knotting up" off Goff Point.

Off Gerard Drive

Mr. Bennett also reports a surfcaster, who stayed away from the crowd at the Point, catching fluke from the beach at Gerard Drive in Springs.

And, in keeping with the reported big bluefish blitz on the south-facing beaches, he spoke of a 27-pound bass being pulled from the surf at Georgica in East Hampton.

Altenkirch's Precision Outfitters of Hampton Bays reports that small bass have been hitting the beaches in the area of the Shinnecock Inlet, but not big ones, and the bluefish are still scarce up that way.

In conjunction with a national effort, the East End Peace and Justice Coalition will march and rally in East Hampton tomorrow to call attention to whatthe group calls "this country's addiction to the military."

Called "A Day Without the Pentagon," the protest, organized by the War Resisters League, will take place in more than 35 cities. In East Hampton, demonstrators will gather at 4 p.m. in front of London Jewelers on Main Street and walk to the South End green for a rally with speakers and music by Jim Turner.

Money used to fund the military should be used instead for human services such as health care, education, and housing, organizers contend. With the cold war over, "we want to enter the 21st century without a military," a release states. A follow-up march on the Pentagon is planned for next October.

A delegation of East End officials appears to have succeeded Friday in persuading Suffolk Executive Robert J. Gaffney to restore their portion of sales tax revenue-sharing for police services to his 1998 county budget.

Mr. Gaffney said after the meeting, which was attended by County Legislator George O. Guldi and East Hampton Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr., among others, that he would support a budget amendment to restore the program for the East End. Mr. Guldi will prepare the amendment.

The five East End towns and 15 villages had stood to lose some $2.1 million because of the proposed cuts. To make up for that money, the municipalities would have had to raise taxes.

Avert Tax Increase

East Hampton Town expects to re ceive $200,000 from the county un der police revenue-sharing next year. The elimination of the funds would have meant a tax increase, outside East Hampton Village, of $11.90 for the average homeowner, Michael Ha ran, the town budget officer, said yesterday.

Southampton Town stood to lose a total of $500,000. In Riverhead Town, which will get $350,000 in revenue-sharing under the program, a proposed 4.6-percent tax cut would have been virtually wiped out by Mr. Gaffney's proposal.

Riverhead Supervisor James Stark said after Friday's meeting that Mr. Gaffney had apparently not appreciated the impact of his proposed cuts.

The East End officials stressed to the County Executive that their proposed 1998 budgets included the revenue-sharing funds, and that they had been given no notice the money might not be forthcoming.

Police Services

In 1993, the county designated one-eighth of a penny of sales taxes for police services, though the East End, which has had its own town and village police departments since 1960, received only a portion of that percentage.

Most of the money goes to the County Police Department, which provides all police services in western Suffolk but only specialized services on request to the East End.

Although "in fact a quarter of the sales tax collected countywide comes from the East End," according to Mr. Guldi, the region has received far less in revenue-sharing, based on its having 10 percent of the population of western Suffolk.

In Attendance

The discrepancy, long a bone of contention, meant the East End has been "getting partially screwed," said Mr. Guldi, who was not a member of the 1993 Legislature that established the arrangement.

However, under Mr. Gaffney's proposed cuts, the East End would be "getting totally screwed," Mr. Guldi said: "There would be no money going to the East End under this program. Period."

Also present at Friday's meeting were Southampton Town Supervisor Vincent Cannuscio and Southold Town Supervisor Jean Cochran. Mayor Rickenbach represented the Suffolk County Village Officials Association, of which he is president, as well as East Hampton Village.

East Hampton Town Supervisor Cathy Lester did not attend. She was at The Star at the time, taking part in a campaign interview with her opponent for Supervisor, Tom Knobel.

Now The Good News

Mr. Gaffney's $1.7 billion budget otherwise provides good fiscal news for East Enders: a 21-percent "average" cut in county taxes.

In East Hampton Town, the proposed cut would be the second highest for an East End town, according to the County Executive's office - an average of $57, reflecting a reduction from a median of $274 this year to $217 next.

Southampton Town residents will save even more: $59, for a total county tax bill of $195.

For the East End as a whole, the median county tax bill is expected to be $181. K.G./I.S.

Dominic Schirrippa of East Hampton is keeping up a family tradition. The former New York City police lieutenant raises and races pigeons, a hobby he was initiated into during his Brooklyn childhood by his father.

Mr. Schirrippa's racing pigeons live in an immaculately maintained loft with a waterside view of Accabonac Harbor, a somewhat more pastoral view than the city rooftops the birds of his youth inhabited.

Racing pigeons are rock doves, as are the feral pigeons that city dwellers are familar with. (The ubiquitous city pigeon is almost always descended from lost or abandoned domestic racing and homing stock.) The two types of pigeons look very similar but close examination reveals that the racing birds have a leaner, more athletic body type and are more brilliantly colored than the average street pigeon.

Stone Age Origins

Pigeons were the first birds to be domesticated by man. Some scientists think that the birds were domesticated as early as the Stone Age but this has never been verified. Recorded history indicates that the birds were initially prized as food and for uses during religious ceremonies, but the pigeons became used increasingly for communication as mankind discovered their homing instincts.

Homing pigeons flew the results of the Olympic Games to the towns and cities of Ancient Greece. And during the 16th century in Europe they provided the first air mail postage service.

Their swiftness - pigeons have been clocked at speeds of 82 miles an hour - and their low profile appearance made the birds especially useful in wartime. The ancient Romans used the birds during military campaigns.

Early Warning

Even in modern warfare the birds proved invaluable. American forces used 36,000 pigeons during World War II and one of these birds, "G.I. Joe," received a medal for bringing warning of an intended bombing of an Allied-occupied Italian village in sufficient time for the inhabitants and the soldiers to get out of harm's way.

A few military forces still use pigeons, notably Switzerland and Saudi Arabia. Due to the Saudi connection, the birds were used during the Gulf War.

Racing pigeons for sport first became popular during the 1870s in Belgium and now goes on worldwide, but it is still immensely popular in Europe, where, according to Mr. Schirrippa, a swift and fecund bird can sell for well over $50,000.

In the United States there are numerous racing clubs and a national organization to set the rules and protocol for races.

Two Seasons

Mr. Schirrippa is the secretary and treasurer of the Southampton Racing Pigeon Club. He and the club's 12 other members take part in 180-mile races during the two racing seasons that occur annually.

Birds must be trained before they can be raced. Mr. Schirrippa starts his birds at 5 weeks old, before they can fly, by getting them used to the landing platform and the entranceway to the loft. Food is the primary motivator for pigeon obedience.

By 12 weeks, the pigeons are flying, and they begin to familiarize themselves with their home territory. Forming small groups, called kits, they begin to range and route over the area, gradually increasing their distances.

Tailgate Party

Working from the "liberation site" or race starting line in Pennsylvania, officials from the national racing association set and authorize the racing clocks. Each racing pigeon wears a rubber band on its leg. When it has returned to its home loft, the rubber band is removed and placed into the clock, which stamps the official race time on it. Mr. Schirrippa usually enters 10 birds in each race.

Once the birds are airborne, Mr. Schirrippa and his family and friends prepare a tailgate party to enjoy while they're waiting for their first pigeon to heave into view. Mr. Schirrippa can relax with wine, cheese, and fresh baked bread for a time, but when his pigeon flutters down he needs to get the rubber band off and stamped as quickly as possible.

This is when Mr. Schirrippa's early training with the birds pays off. It is infuriating when a high-flying speed demon of a bird refuses to settle on the landing platform and loses precious minutes by skittishly flitting about, thus preventing its owner from retrieving and stamping the rubber band.

"It's never happened to me but I've heard of it happening to other guys," says Mr. Schirrippa.

Norma, Dodi Win

Two of his birds were winners this year. Norma, named after Norma Edwards of Springs, who lets Mr. Schirrippa keep his pigeons on her property, won two races. Dodi, named after the unfortunate Egyptian boyfriend of Princess Diana, also won.

Though humans have enjoyed and made use of the homing abilities of these birds for thousands of years, we still don't completely understand how they do it. It is known that the pigeons use the location of the sun as a guide and use an internal time sense to compensate for the sun's movement across the sky.

But studies indicate that the birds have several additional guidance systems, the best understood being the birds' ability to orient themselves by using the earth's magnetic field. Homing pigeons present yet another example of an extraordinary and mysterious ability used by a non-human animal to negotiate and survive.

Easy To Raise

Mr. Schirrippa hopes to interest local schools in the formation of pigeon racing clubs for their students. The birds are hardy and easy to raise, but provide much excitement, enjoyment, and educational opportunity.

"It would be good for a science class or an after-school group," he says.

Those interested in finding out more about racing pigeons and the Southampton Pigeon Racing Club can contact the club's president, Ronald Morgan of East Hampton. And if you should see a fast flying group of pigeons wheeling about over Accabonac Creek wish them godspeed and good luck. But you'd better look fast, because those birds are quick!

A new ministry has joined the ranks of the East End's spiritual institutions, offering dedicated Catholics who disagree with some tenets of the Roman Catholic Church a chance to remain within the fold.

The American Catholic Church, whose local parish, the Church of the Good Shepherd, meets at 5 p.m. on Sundays at the Wainscott Chapel, offers a "progressive alternative in the Catholic tradition," according to church literature.

While adhering to many aspects of traditional Catholic doctrine, including the celebration of mass and the sacraments, the American Catholic Church takes a "softer stance" than the Roman Catholic Church on issues such as divorce and remarriage, said the Rev. Sharon DiSunno of Hampton Bays, one of the parish's two clergy members.

Wanted More Freedom

"More often than not the people who come to us are people who feel alienated for some reason," she said. Members include those who are dedicated to the Catholic faith but who face exclusion from the traditional church due to its policies against divorce, or the ordination of women, for example.

Ms. DiSunno, for her part, felt a religious calling since age 15, but knew "there was no way I could go to a seminary," she said. Though her "heart was still in Catholicism," she "wanted more freedom, and wanted to serve."

The American Catholic Church has approximately 75 parishes nationwide, including several in Queens and New York City, the closest parishes to the Church of the Good Shepherd.

By Word Of Mouth

It began in the early '80s, Ms. Di Sunno said. Many of its clergy are ex-Roman Catholic priests who wanted to marry but found that doing so would sever their ability to pursue their spiritual calling, or women who found no opportunity to attend seminaries or to be ordained in the traditional church.

Members of the local parish, which is in the "infancy" stage, according to Ms. DiSunno, have been meeting for five years at locations in Riverhead and Hampton Bays. Between five and 30 people have been gathering at the Wainscott Chapel each week since June. The group has grown by word of mouth, though a small advertisement announcing the Wainscott services was recently placed in local papers, Ms. DiSunno said.

The church has been called "the church of the second chance," said the Rev. Gary Washington of Southampton, the parish's other minister.

Rejecting Barriers

Life circumstances four years ago, he said, led him back to his spiritual roots, Roman Catholicism. "I wanted to 'go home,' " he said. "But knowing what I know and being who I am, I did not feel comfortable going home to the Roman Catholic Church."

The church's exclusionary policies toward women as clergy were particularly off-putting, Mr. Washington said. Though acknowledging that other local churches "go out of their way to be inclusive," Mr. Washington said, "we have an open door and we invite people to walk through it."

"The American Catholic Church rejects artificial barriers to the reception of the sacraments based on marital status, sexuality, or lifestyle," the church's mission statement says. "We believe that who a person is, how a person has chosen to live, does not separate them from the love andcompassion of God."

The church supports the ordination of women, welcomes members of other churches to its communion services, and does not impose mandatory celibacy on its clergy.

The use of birth control in family planning is accepted, because, while recognizing that children are "a blessing to married life," the church is concerned about the "hardship" additional family members bring to those with limited resources, and "the devastating effects of human overpopulation upon the entire ecology of the earth." It differs in these areas from the Roman Catholic Church, which does not officially recognize the alternative sect.

Aligned With Pope

On abortion, a controversial topic within the Catholic community, the new church is aligned with the Pope's adamant opposition, Ms. Di Sunno said.

"We strongly, strongly, encourage a woman to keep her baby," Ms. DiSunno said, "but don't feel someone should be denied sacraments because they chose abortion."

The church's "statement of principles," while stressing the church's adherence to "the essentials of Catholic doctrine and practice" and acknowledgment of "the primacy of the Bishop of Rome," nevertheless strikes a blow for a freer, more inclusive religious community.

". . . We believe that the Papacy has overstepped the bounds of its legitimate authority," it says, ". . . and in straying from the principles of loving compassion in the interests of preserving and enhancing its own power, has driven many to dissent, to disobedience, to reaction against what appears to us to be a clear abuse of power and/or rightful authority."

Equal Dignity

"We are building a church which strongly affirms the equal human dignity of all persons and fundamental human rights to freedom of choice and to freedom of thought, one which recognizes the importance of adopting a more humanitarian pastoral approach."

Sunday services at Wainscott follow a traditional pattern, with readings from the Gospel and the Old and New Testaments. The service be comes interactive, and more meaningful, perhaps, as parishioners are encouraged to express their personal interpretations of the passages.

"It's amazing what people draw [from the readings], and what people share of their own lives," Ms. Di Sunno said. "When you take part in something, it means a lot more to you."

"Deep "Spiritual Need"

The parish sponsors a study group on seasons of the church year and a "social justice outreach project," in the form of a small food pantry that, said Mr. Washington, services "a couple of people."

The number of people attending services has doubled in the past year, Ms. DiSunno said.

"There certainly is a deep spiritual need, evidenced by what's happening in our local communities," Ms. DiSunno said. "We're a very quiet group . . . we're certainly not in competition with anyone."