The Bishop's Dilemma in Wake of Vatican Church-Closing Ruling: Editorial

Plain Dealer
March 10, 2012

http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/03/the_bishops_dilemma_in_wake_of.html

A St. Patrick Catholic Church sign is changed to reflect the Vatican's decision to reverse Bishop Richard Lennon's closing of the parish. Photo by Gus Chan

Some Greater Cleveland Roman Catholics are breathing a sigh of relief amid church activists' reports that a Vatican agency has issued a landmark decision to reverse Bishop Richard Lennon's closure of 13 churches.

The activists say this means the churches, which have been padlocked and kept secure during their appeal, must open their doors and let the parishioners return.

They may be right, but Lennon still has cards to play, should he choose to appeal. The diocese's own canon lawyers have not yet reviewed the decisions of the Vatican's Congregation for the Clergy to see what they mean.

So far, the congregation's decisions in Greater Cleveland appear to go beyond reversals it ordered in other U.S. dioceses last year.

The Dioceses of Springfield, Mass., and Allentown, Pa., were ordered to reopen closed churches. The bishops there were forbidden to sell the churches, but were allowed to dissolve their congregations. Activists say the Cleveland ruling preserves the 13 churches as well as their congregations.

Lennon has 60 days to appeal the decision to the Apostolic Signatura, essentially the Vatican's supreme court.

Lennon closed or merged 50 churches in 2009 and 2010 in an effort to right-size a diocese that he said faced shrinking and shifting congregations, a shortage of priests and financial woes.

Diocese-wide, those fiscal, personnel and demographic problems remain. Reopening churches and reactivating congregations might well force the diocese to go looking for other solutions that might prove just as unpalatable to some Catholics.

The bishop must weigh his options carefully. If he appeals and the Apostolic Signatura agrees to hear the case, he risks further embittering his critics. If he accepts this week's ruling, he risks inviting other challenges to his authority.

In the end, he must do what he thinks is best for the diocese as a whole, and he will have to do it in full accordance with church law.

It is too early to say how this standoff with a segment of his flock will end, but it would be a hardship for Catholics if it degenerated into extended canonical guerilla warfare that leaves parishes, priests and the faithful in limbo.

The universal church may "think in centuries," but a local church beset with books that have to balance and a shortage of priests can't afford to wait that long.

Some Greater Cleveland Roman Catholics are breathing a sigh of relief amid church activists' reports that a Vatican agency has issued a landmark decision to reverse Bishop Richard Lennon's closure of 13 churches. But Lennon still has cards to play. He must weigh his options carefully.