BishopAccountability.org
	Cleveland Council and Catholic Diocese Need to Talk about Closing Churches Plain Dealer March 8, 2009 http://blog.cleveland.com/pdopinion/2009/03/cleveland_council_and_catholic.html It's time for a kumbaya meeting between the Cleveland City Council and the Cleveland Catholic Diocese about church closures. No doubt, the closings come at a bad time. Most of the city's wards have been battered by an avalanche of foreclosed properties and job losses. Add to that many council members' close ties to parish churches and it's easy to see why this is a volatile issue. Yet the eight-county Cleveland diocese has a good case. With too many shrinking parishes and too few priests, it is well within its rights to shutter some churches and to sell or redistribute its property as it sees fit. Anxious City Council members appear to agree in principle, but are displeased that the diocese has not said what will happen to the properties. Some council members are talking of passing legislation that would forbid removal of interior architectural features or statuary from closed churches because, they say, that would detract from the sale value of church property. That's not just heavy-handed; it's wrong. Those artifacts are private property -- church property -- and council has no claim over them. What council does have a claim to is a clear statement of the diocese's intentions going forward. Many of the churches that will close have been neighborhood anchors and havens in blighted areas. Bishop Richard Lennon must hold candid meetings with council and community development groups about the diocese's plans for each shuttered church -- maintenance, repurposing, sale, demolition, whatever the case may be. The decision to close almost 50 churches is painful enough. No one should make it worse by allowing a long, unseemly squabble to ensue. It's time to talk.
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