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	Cleveland Catholic Diocese Is Preparing a Manual on How to Close a Church By Michael O'malley and Robert Smith The Plain Dealer February 23, 2009 http://blog.cleveland.com/pdextra/2009/02/cleveland_catholic_diocese_is.html When Bishop Richard Lennon announces early next month which churches in the Cleveland Catholic Diocese will close, it will mark the end of one long and agonizing process and the beginning of another. The first ones to learn of the decision will be the parish priests, who will receive letters in time to read at Saturday night Masses. The diocese is preparing a closing manual for the churches to be shuttered and a welcoming manual for surviving parishes bringing in displaced worshippers. Affected churches must close by July 1, 2010. One of the first tasks is to remove sacred artifacts from the closed churches, including the stained-glass windows, said diocese spokesman Robert Tayek. The diocese has hired Jim Armstrong, a deacon at St. Wendelin in Cleveland and former spokesman for Akron General Medical Center, to take inventory in the closed churches and oversee distribution of the artifacts. "He will have to straddle the fence between the practical side and the pastoral side," said Tayek. "We're not a corporation that closes down and just says, 'Goodbye.' " The sacred artifacts -- such as relics, chalices, tabernacles and religious icons -- will be offered first to neighboring churches, then to any church in the diocese. Except for stained-glass windows, artifacts that can't be reused will be destroyed as prescribed by church guidelines, said Tayek. "What are you going to do with 20 altars?" he asked. Stained-glass windows will be stored and maintained until a use can be found for them. "We don't want sacred artifacts to be used for what we call profane use, like pews in a bar," said Tayek. Discussions about closing and merging churches have been held for about two years. The process began with the creation of 69 so-called cluster committees -- made up of representatives of parishes grouped by geographical areas. One-third of the committees were told by the diocese to downsize their clusters by closing churches and merging parishes. The recommendations were then sent to the Vibrant Parish Life Committee, a 31-member diocesan group of lay and clerical people founded 4? years ago. That committee reviewed the work of the cluster committees and made its own recommendations to the bishop's staff. The staff then sent its recommendations to a 27-member priest council, which, according to canon law, must approve church mergers and closings, even though the bishop has the final say. "Now the bishop is looking at all those consultative recommendations from the four levels and trying to make his final decision," said Tayek. If a church is closed, it has 30 days to appeal to the diocese, asking the bishop to reverse his decision. If the bishop refuses, the church has an additional 15 days to appeal to the Vatican. Tayek said some of the closed churches could be sold, others could be torn down. Last week, St. Andrew in Cleveland, which closed last year, is being demolished.
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