Group Trying for $50,000 for Legal Costs
By David Yonke
Toledo Blade
April 18, 2008
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080418/NEWS17/804180336
KANSAS, Ohio - Members of the former St. James Catholic Church, a rural Seneca County parish Toledo Bishop Leonard Blair closed two years ago, are trying to raise $50,000 from Catholics nationwide to defray legal costs.
They say their case could set a precedent giving parishioners ownership rights of church buildings and grounds.
The members of the closed parish, which is about 40 miles southeast of Toledo, are hoping to appeal a decision by Seneca County Common Pleas Court Judge Michael Kelbley, who recently ruled that the U.S. Constitution's requirement for church-state separation prevents the court from interfering in internal church matters.
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| Steve Johnson talks about efforts to keep St. James Catholic Church open in this photo shot several years ago. The diocese later locked the church's members out of the rural Seneca County building which their ancestors constructed. |
"The decision of Bishop Leonard Blair to close a parish in the present case was the sort of purely ecclesiastical decision that may not be reviewed by this or any court," Judge Kelbley said in his six-page decision.
The diocese was "happy to receive the judge's very carefully drafted decision," Tom Pletz, a diocesan attorney, said. "I feel some sympathy for these folks who have had a death in their spiritual family. I can appreciate their angst, but they chose to go to court."
St. James was one of 17 parishes closed in 2005 during a major restructuring of the Toledo diocese, which has 303,000 members in 19 counties. Twelve other parishes were merged to form four new parishes. Bishop Blair said the changes were needed because of shifting demographics and a growing priest shortage.
St. James' ex-parishioners plan to take their case to the Ohio 3rd District Court of Appeals in Lima.
A separate hearing is scheduled for April 30 over personal property, such as church members' guitars and a CD player, that was locked inside the wood-frame church when it was shuttered.
"We're working with the plaintiffs' counsel to amicably divide the individual parishioners' personal property from the parish personal property," Mr. Pletz said. "We hope to have that sorted out before the hearing."
Members of the former parish have continued to meet weekly despite the closing, holding prayer services in a nearby United Methodist Church every Sunday and performing a Lenten musical in churches throughout Ohio during February and March.
"The parish community carries on in the St. James tradition in every way, shape, and form," said Steve Johnson, a group leader.
St. James' former parishioners belong to a regional group called United Parishes that was founded by members of closed churches in northwest Ohio.
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| Kelbley |
They also joined a newly formed national group, Coalition for Parishes, seeking to prevent the closure of more parishes. That group consists of Catholics from six U.S. dioceses: Toledo, Boston, Buffalo, New Orleans, New York, and Camden, N.J.
Mr. Johnson said St. James' former parishioners, who have spent well over $60,000 of their own money thus far, are appealing to other U.S. Catholics for financial help because "this is a chance to help set a precedent that will benefit all Catholics."
The group is hoping to raise $50,000 in 10 days for the appeal and, after three days, was "on track to meet about 30 to 40 percent of our goal," Mr. Johnson said.
"If challenges such as the one St. James is making are successful," he said, "then people everywhere can say that they played a part in creating a legal precedent that will allow parishioners to have ownership of their parishes both conceptually and legally."
The rural church, which was organized in 1889, had been at the center of life for generations of Catholics.
"To the folks here, it goes much deeper than legal speak," Mr. Johnson said. "They have ancestors who played a big part in creating the parish; people who contributed their life's work to building it up and improving it, and they passed that tradition down through several generations of their family history."
St. James had about 200 members when it was shuttered.
In May, 2005, about 50 parishioners took turns manning an around-the-clock prayer vigil inside the church in hopes of convincing the bishop to change his mind and let it stay open.
The diocese called a halt to the prayer vigil after 10 months, sending a maintenance worker from Toledo to lock the building in March, 2006.
Contact David Yonke at:
dyonke@theblade.com
or 419-724-6154.
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