OHIO
Akron Beacon Journal
[the bishop’s letter]
By Colette Jenkins
Beacon Journal staff reporter
Published: March 28, 2012
Catholic Diocese of Cleveland Bishop Richard G. Lennon has issued a letter to the more than 700,000 Catholics in the eight-county diocese to assure them that he is working on a response to Vatican rulings that upheld appeals from parishioners challenging the bishop’s orders to close 13 parishes.
Lennon received documents from the Vatican Congregation for Clergy on March 14, a week after Peter Borre, a Boston activist who has fought the closing of churches in the Cleveland diocese, told the Associated Press that the Congregation of the Clergy had ruled Lennon did not follow proper procedures in closing the 13 parishes.
While Borre and other critics of the closings have interpreted the documents to say that the bishop’s mandates to shutter the parishes have been overturned, diocesan officials say the documents must be analyzed before they can reach that conclusion.
“The language in the decrees is being carefully studied to see what is being said by the Vatican,” said Robert Tayek, spokesman for the diocese. “This is pretty new territory. We can’t find a precedence for it.
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