By Robert L. Smith
Plain Dealer
March 16, 2009
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/03/parishioners_of_catholic_churc.html
After weekend services charged with anticipation and sometimes drama, the region's 750,000 Catholics have a clearer idea today where their church stands in the future of the Diocese of Cleveland.
Some are saying prayers of thanks. Many of the faithful, especially members of urban parishes, wonder what happened to the church they knew.
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| George Gamble is comforted by Lisa Sullivan on Sunday after hearing the Church of St. Adalbert will close its doors as part of the Cleveland Catholic Diocese downsizing. Photo by Gus Chan |
A sweeping consolidation plan comes down hard on the church in the city. It prepares the diocese to shift staff and resources from venerable, often struggling urban churches to larger, younger parishes in the outer suburbs.
The newly shaped Diocese of Cleveland will field 52 fewer parishes by June 30, 2010, and most of the loss will be felt in Cleveland, Lorain and Akron and the inner-ring suburbs of Euclid and Lakewood. Eighteen of the 29 parishes that will close outright are in Cleveland.
For Catholics with ties to the city, it's almost impossible to escape a sense of loss and, some say, abandonment.
Irene Allen, 62, of Brecksville, came to Cleveland from Hungary when she was 10 years old. She attended elementary school at St. Procop, was married at St. Ignatius of Antioch and buried her parents out of St. Emeric.
All three of those churches are scheduled to close.
"I've been a Catholic all my life, but I'm thinking of becoming a Lutheran," an angry Allen said Sunday. "Cleveland is a city of churches. So what are we doing with them? Closing them down. It's an atrocity. How much are they thinking of God and how much are they thinking of their pocketbooks?"
The leader of America's 17th largest diocese insists he was thinking of both.
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| "The fact is, many of our parishes simply cannot survive financially," Bishop Richard Lennon said on Sunday. Photo by Gus Chan |
"The task for the church is to be faithful to what God asks of us," which is to bring the message of the Gospel to all people, said Bishop Richard Lennon. That has become harder to do because of too many churches serving too few Catholics.
At a Sunday morning news conference, Lennon refused to discuss details of decisions to close or merge parishes. Instead, he outlined the forces that he said shaped his decision-making and that sometimes compelled him to override the recommendations of cluster committees.
Finances loomed large, he said. Forty-two percent of the diocese's 224 parishes are losing money; up from 30 percent a year ago. Meanwhile, a priest shortage leaves the diocese ill-equipped to respond to powerful demographic changes.
Thanks to suburban sprawl, two-thirds of area Catholics are now being served by one-third of the diocese parishes, Lennon said. In extreme cases, some suburban parishes have three priests serving 14,000 members while some city parishes have one priest serving 150 members.
"The numbers represent a disturbing trend that needs to be addressed," Lennon said. "The fact is, many of our parishes simply cannot survive financially."
He called his consolidation plan a "difficult but necessary step forward" if the Catholic church is to remain vibrant and strong across eight counties.
"The church will continue to be a vibrant presence in our cites," Lennon promised.
He said many of the city parishes that will lose Sunday services will continue to offer social services from the parish complex. He expressed a desire to keep open urban Catholic schools, although they, too, await a reckoning.
The bishop said he is meeting today with leaders of 13 Catholic schools on Cleveland's East Side to discuss consolidation.
While many area Catholics and their leaders are still sifting the news and what it means, some have concluded the church is moving in the wrong direction.
Sister Christine Schenk, a St. Joseph nun and head of Future Church, an organization pushing for reform in the Catholic church, said the closings indicate an abandonment of the inner-city poor.
She cited the closings of St. Colman and St. Ignatius of Antioch, which have outreach programs in poor, diverse sections of the city, and St. Cecilia and Epiphany, two African-American parishes on Cleveland's East Side.
"What are we becoming, a homogenized, all-white church in the suburbs?" Schenk asked. "Or do we value diversity? We're one church of Cleveland, not just a suburban church with the inner-city getting leftovers."
Schenk said she was shocked that Lennon, in several cases, ignored the recommendations of the cluster committees -- made up of lay people and clergy from geographically grouped parishes -- and made his own decisions.
St. Colman, St. Ignatius of Antioch and St. James in Lakewood had been recommended to stay open, but were notified Saturday they will close.
"All those landmark churches are part of the cultural heritage of our diocese," said Schenk. "St. James was built in the Depression bit-by-bit by blue-collar people."
Churches have 10 days to appeal the bishop's decisions and many vow to do so. Meanwhile, many parishioners were still learning of their fates directly from pastors Sunday morning.
Nearly 400 people packed into the 11 a.m. Mass at St. Peter Church, the liberal-leaning downtown parish, to hear the official word.
The diocese had decided to close Cleveland's oldest continuously operating Catholic church building, ending more than 150 years of Catholic presence at East 17th Street and Superior Avenue.
The congregation plans to appeal the decision, church leaders said, all the way to the Vatican in Rome if necessary.
The importance of the occasion was signaled early, when the Rev. Robert J. Marrone changed the order of service and announced the contents of the bishop's letter first. He delivered a five-minute lead-off homily outlining the parish's argument for staying alive.
St. Peter is historical, financially solvent, growing and a provider of social services in a neighborhood of homeless people, he said.
The readings assigned to the third Sunday of Lent included one from the Gospel in which Jesus promised that if the temple were destroyed, "I will raise it up again."
The Old Testament reading was from the book of Exodus.
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