Vatican Reverses Cleveland Church Closings

Vatican reverses Cleveland Catholic Diocese’s closing of 13 parishes (Cleveland.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio — In an extraordinary move, the Vatican has reversed Bishop Richard Lennon’s closings of 13 churches in the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland, saying the parishes must be restored and the sanctuaries reopened for worship, according to activists who fought the closings.

 

Previous coverage on Pray Tell about the closings:

Church: Is it the Bishops? the People? or Buildings?

The Cleveland Diocese recently finished closing 50 churches.

St. Peter’s in Cleveland breaks with Bishop

Parishioners of St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Cleveland, which was slated for closing, have broken with their Bishop and started their own faith community.

 

A recent update on St. Peter’s appears in the National Catholic Reporter:

Cleveland parish remains a community of a different sort

 

Thanks to Jack Rakosky for compiling this post.

Editor

Katharine E. Harmon, Ph.D., edits the blog, Pray Tell: Worship, Wit & Wisdom.

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Comments

26 responses to “Vatican Reverses Cleveland Church Closings”

  1. Bill deHaas

    Still no independent report from Bishop Mort who was sent (or asked by Lennon – depends upon who you ask about this) to investigate.

    Wonder if Vigano will be involved in this?

    Reply
    1. Jack Rakosky

      Rocco Palmero suggests that Sambi was responsible for the investigation of Lennon, and that Vigano might take a different view.

      http://whispersintheloggia.blogspot.com/2012/03/lennon-had-vatican-orders-reopening-of.html

      But Vigano has a reputation of being a financial reformer at Vatican City, not being afraid of stepping on toes, hence his “exile” here.

      Financial issues are at the heart of the parish closings, especially the perceptions of many that a parish with a bank account and property that is able to be sold meant that it was likely to be closed in order to get the diocese money, i.e. they were “green” rather than “white” elephants.

      Furthermore, diocesan financial accountability is extremely poor. The Cleveland Diocese had a case of embezzlement, as have Philadelphia and New York in recent months.

      Vigano could do American Catholics a great favor by enforcing financial accountability and transparency on the American Bishops.

      Who knows where the complexity of Vatican politics may take this? While the parishes are jubilant, they know that the road ahead will be difficult.

      Reply
      1. Gerard Flynn

        “Vigano could do American Catholics a great favor by enforcing financial accountability and transparency on the American Bishops. ”

        This is the nub of the issue. American (or any other nationality) bishops shouldn’t need to have accountability and transparency forced on them by any external source.

        If local Catholics elected their bishops that would be the beginning of the end of bishops worrying what Rome thought. Instead they would be free to make decisions for the benefit of the People of God in their dioceses.

  2. Fr. Jim Blue

    Sounds like a tragic decision. According to news reports some of those parishes just have a handful of participants. At least one of them has a massive plant that was in disrepair prior to being mothballed. Unraveling this is going to be a nightmare. The implications will be far-reaching.

    Reply
    1. Jakob Rinderknecht

      I can’t speak to all 13 of the parishes, but at least one of the parishes closed (the above-mentioned St. Peter’s) was more than stable in both finances and parishioners. Over the last decade, they had repaired and renovated their building and, I believe, paid off those renovations. So, at least that one wouldn’t be white elephant. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same was true of at least some of the others.

      Reply
    2. Jack Rakosky

      Patricia Schulte-Singleton did what she had to do to get St. Patrick Church reopened

      http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/04/patricia_schulte-singleton_did.html

      Schulte-Singleton and scores of other St. Patrick parishioners quickly organized and raised $13,000 for a campaign that included mailings, T-shirts, billboards and the hiring of canon lawyers in Rome to represent them in their appeal.

      In May 2010, six days before St. Patrick was to close, Schulte-Singleton, wired with a hidden tape recorder, had a meeting with Lennon at the diocese’s offices in downtown Cleveland.

      Schulte-Singleton said he allowed her to be the one to lock up while the congregation exited through a side door. “I locked the outside front doors and the ones inside the vestibule,” she said. “I was crying, but I said to myself, ‘We’ll be back.’

      Schulte-Singleton said St. Patrick had about $36,000 in savings when it closed. It also owned nearby rental property, a pickup truck, furniture and a host of odds and ends, she said.

      “We want everything back,” she said. “The money, the truck, the furniture, even the rolls of toilet paper.”

      Schulte-Singleton said that when Lennon came to Cleveland in 2006, he met with her and other parish council presidents. “He told us we had to be bold leaders in our parishes,” she said. “Well, I’m doing what he told me to do. I’m being bold.”

      Reply
    3. Jack Rakosky

      Linda Gamble now has two parishes she is pleased to be a part of
      http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/04/linda_gamble_now_has_two_paris.html

      “I don’t think I want to leave Our Lady of Lourdes totally,” she said.

      But St. Adalbert is in her heart. It’s a 10-minute walk from her house. It’s the place where her five children were schooled. And it traces its roots to Cleveland’s first black Catholic church, established in 1922.

      That church, Our Lady of Blessed Sacrament, was on East 79th Street. But in 1961, it was in need of major repairs so the diocese closed it and the congregation migrated a few blocks into a dying Bohemian church, St. Adalbert.

      In their new home, the congregation painted the faces black on the statues left behind by the Bohemians. They also built a school which is still functioning.

      “We can go back and build again,” said Gamble. “I’ve got my sleeves rolled up. I’ve got my bucket ready. And I’m waiting to go home.”

      Reply
    4. Jack Rakosky

      Carol Szczepanik is ready to return to St. Mary Catholic Church in Bedford
      http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/04/carol_szczepanik_is_ready_to_r.html

      Szczepanik and her mother joined St. Rita in Solon, but she continued her grassroots protests and filed an appeal in Rome seeking to overturn Lennon’s closing order. On Tuesday, the bishop said St. Mary will reopen.

      Szczepanik is ready to return to the place where she sang in the choir for 25 years; the place where her father’s funeral was held in 1999.

      Szczepanik said that more than 220 St. Mary parishioners have already signed up for various committees to reopen the church.

      “I’m going to write Bishop Lennon a letter and tell him that we’ve got all these committees organized to help you reopen our church,” said Szczepanik. “We want to get things rolling.”

      Reply
    5. Jack Rakosky

      Miklos Peller can’t wait to play the organ again at St. Emeric Church

      http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/04/miklos_peller_cant_wait_to_pla.html

      When St. Emeric, a Catholic Hungarian church near the West Side Market closed in June 30, 2010, under the order of Bishop Richard Lennon, many of the parishioners scattered to other churches.

      But a core group, anchored by people like Miklos Peller of Westlake and Eva Szabo of South Euclid, worked to keep the congregation together, hoping that their appeal to Rome would reverse the decision.

      They held prayer services each week outside the closed church and worshipped together at St. Colman Church on West 65th Street where the Rev. Bob Begin, who is not Hungarian, celebrated Masses with music and prayers in the Hungarian tongue.

      “Our parish never really dissipated,” said Peller, 71, who had been the organist in the church for 34 years.

      Lennon agreed that while St. Emeric was under appeal, the parish’s Hungarian Scout troop could use the church social hall for events.

      Last Christmas, during an event, Peller slipped into the sanctuary to check out the organ.

      “The organ is in good shape,” he said. “The whole church is in good shape. Now we wait.

      Reply
  3. Fr. Jim Blue

    In general, the right-sizing of dioceses is a necessary evil.

    Reopening 13 white elephants will break that diocese financially.

    Reply
  4. Jack Rakosky

    Bishop Lennon is having no difficulty in raising $125 million for the diocese. His strategy is very simple. The parishes are being done in waves. Each parish is given a targeted amount. They get to keep 30% of what they raise up to the targeted amount, then 70% of money raised over that. The campaign begins quietly in the parish with the pastor lining up big donors so that by the time it becomes public they have much of money raised, and can show people the high average amounts that have been pledged. This is the most recent updated report, study it so you can see how it works.
    http://www.catholiccommunity.org/document.doc?id=153

    This fund raising is solid evidence for my contention that the basic strategy of the bishops (and many pastors) is to give more and more services to fewer and fewer people at higher and higher average costs. They don’t care if they alienate people with poor liturgies and poor communities; they can always raise money from the remaining parish members particularly the wealthiest members.

    So if we are unhappy with the diocese and/or the parish, we should simply give them no money. Don’t worry they will make it up. Let the very rich of the diocese and the parish support them. After all Jesus said the rich will have a hard time getting into the Kingdom of Heaven. The more opportunities we give the rich to give even more the better off they will be.

    When I am happy with a parish whose services I use, I give my money to specific targeted ministries. When I am not happy I give the money to the poor

    I think it is terrible that rich suburban parishes in my area are raising a million or two for the bishop, but care nothing for inner city parishes. Another reason for giving them even less money.

    Reply
    1. Fr. Jim Blue

      Your contention around providing more services to fewer people dovetails with something I was reading yesterday online. (I forget where.) It was a report that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger promoted the idea of a smaller and more faithful church years before he was fatefully elected pope.

      Reply
      1. Brigid Rauch

        Yeah, time to reconsider that “go out and preach to all nations” business plan and go for a boutique operation!

      2. Emily Kloster

        For what it’s worth, Ratzinger never “promoted” the idea of a smaller, purer church in the sense in which this apocryphal quotation is generally trotted out (“Ratzinger wants to kick us out of his church in order to purify it”).. Rather, he has predicted that the church of the future will be smaller and “more spiritualized and simplified .” He also, said, “Smaller numbers, I think. But from these small numbers we will have a radiation of joy in the world.”

  5. Fr. Jim Blue

    Brigid Rauch :

    Yeah, time to reconsider that “go out and preach to all nations” business plan and go for a boutique operation!

    True, Brigid.

    Wish I could find that citation about the “smaller more faithful church.”

    Help, anyone?

    Reply
    1. Jeffrey Pinyan

      Did someone ask for the “smaller, purer Church” quote?

      Reply
      1. Fr. Jim Blue

        Thanks, Jeffrey. I appreciate it.

        What is your take on Jack’s contention above vis-a-vis the “smaller, purer” church theme?

  6. Brigid Rauch

    Re-opening these parishes makes no sense at all to me. Not that I’m against it; I wish every parish forced to close would be allowed to re-open. What I mean is that re-opening these parishes seems as fickle and random a decision as the decision to close them was in the first place. I am left wondering; would my parish still be alive if we had figured out the right buttons to push? If we’d hired a different canon lawyer who knew the right person to schmooze? Were certain palms greased, or left ungreased?
    For a while, in my diocese, the pattern seemed to be to close the larger, more active parishes in favor of smaller (more docile?) parishes. In my town, we prayed for half a year in a modern building while the combined endowments of three parishes was spent to pretty up a century old building that wasn’t that great shakes even back when it was built. Nothing about the process made sense fiscally or in terms of human capital, except if the point was to prove to us who was in charge.

    Reply
  7. Fr. Allan J. McDonald

    Closing of parishes is very difficult and I don’t envy anyone involved especially parishioners. My previous parish was an amalgamation of three downtown parishes in 1972. Pain still accompanies those whose lovely churches were closed.

    In this instance, I think one practical solution is to hand these parishes over to a “Board of Trustees” to manage the physical plant’s upkeep and budget. At the least the church building could be opened for daily prayer, the liturgy of the hours, for funerals, weddings and the like if another priest could celebrate these–but that would be at the work of the Board of Trustees to enlist priests of the diocese, retired or not for these celebrations. This lets the diocese off the hook and allows these parishes to sink or swim on the merits of what they can provide for themselves and their fund raising activities.

    Reply
  8. Jack Rakosky

    For about 20 years in the public mental health system I was involved in something similar to parish closings, namely the funding and defunding of mental health programs in agencies. While county mental health boards do not directly operate agencies, they control most of the funds for the agencies. However since about half these funds come from county tax levies, if the board defunds an agency or one of its programs it can face a lot of backlash when those levies come up for renewal at the ballot box.

    When I came into the county as its chief planner I was faced with a very disorganized system in which programs were in agencies that did not make sense because money had been awarded far to much on the basis of agency pull rather than of client interests. It took me about five years to reorganize the system through elaborate and patient planning efforts.

    The key to those planning efforts was to get beyond the agency CEOs to all their internal and external stakeholders. That takes a lot of time and patience but ends up being rewarding. I was able to do things like transfer a program intact with all staff from one agency to another while having the CEOs of both agencies look good to all their stakeholders. A person from another county was convinced I had some secret magic bullet rather than just prolonged in depth grass roots planning processes with everyone concerned.

    Most parish planning processes involve mainly the pastor and the pastoral staff rather the people of the parish. People in one parish really don’t get to know the pastors, pastoral staff and people in the other parishes. They see everything to lose and nothing to gain. Even the clustering concept often ends up being a way to allocate staff resources rather than encouraging people to participate in multiple parishes. The key to restructuring parishes is to look at it from the viewpoint of the people and open up to them attractive opportunities.

    Reply
  9. Jack Rakosky

    Read one of the Vatican letters reversing 13 Cleveland area church closings
    http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2012/03/read_one_of_the_vatican_letter.html

    The Congregation hereby decrees that this petition for recourse as presented, with regard to the suppression of St. Patrick Parish 515, does have canonical basis in law and in fact, and so is
    upheld both de procedendo and de decemendo.

    The Congregation further decrees that this petition for recourse as presented, with regard to the closure of St. Patrick Church 1222 does have canonical basis in law and in fact and so is upheld
    both de procedendo and de decernendo.

    The Bishop of Cleveland is instructed to enact the implications of this Decree.

    Interesting he not only has to reopen the churches; he has not suppressed the parishes. So this is not just about buildings, it is about communities.

    It is also interesting to read the legal details. Bishops need to dot a lot of “i”s and cross a lot of “t”s if they want to make their actions unappealable. The congregation makes clear it knows what he wanted to do, even why he wanted to do it, but he did not follow all the exact procedures such as consulting the Priest’s Council. Sounds like a message to bishops on the procedural as well as the substance issues. Don’t expect us to back you if you have not done your homework. I think they do not want to be spending their time with these appeals.

    Reply
    1. Fr. Jim Blue

      Thank you for the link, Jack. This will be very difficult for the Cleveland bishop and the Cleveland faithful. I hope it can be resolved in the best interest of the common good. It sounds like it will be very expensive. Taking those places out of mothballs will be very, very expensive – and there will be nobody there to pay the bills. My guess is the bishop had the best interests of the diocese at heart. There will probably be another round of appeals and the churches will remain padlocked for a couple more years. It is very sad for all parties. I had an aunt in that diocese who belonged to one of those churches. A giant church in Rockwood with mosaics, artwork, gigantic historic pipe organ, beautiful windows. After five years of being padlocked a community will go back in there? I don’t see it. All three hundred households will sustain a building that will cost a couple hundred grand just to keep the doors open?

      Reply
      1. Brigid Rauch

        Are all the church buildings involved actually intact? Around here, many were stripped of stained glass, statues, altars, etc within weeks of the final Mass.

  10. Jack Rakosky

    Lennon has removed all the valuables from the Churches, and has made sure they are kept in good condition. Why? because he wanted to sell the valuables and the properties as he has done with the parishes who did not appeal.

    However he has kept the money that resulted from the sale of the other valuables and properties seperate and has made a public accounting of the amounts and their use. There is still more than $6 million dollars left in that fund, and I think not all the valuables and properties have been sold. He could use that money to reopen the parishes.

    Cleveland-area Catholic churches that won Vatican appeals should reopen by Palm Sunday, activist says
    http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2012/03/catholic_churches_that_won_vat.html

    But regardless of whether Lennon appeals, the 13 parishes are to be immediately reconstituted, said Borre, citing the decrees.

    Michael Dunnigan, a canon lawyer at the St. Joseph Foundation, a parishioners advocacy group in San Antonio, Texas, agreed.

    After reading a copy of the St. Patrick decree , Dunnigan said in an email, “The Vatican has directed Bishop Lennon to implement its decision, and this necessarily includes the reopening of St. Patrick’s.

    “If the bishop wishes to appeal to the Signatura, he may request a suspension of the effects of the decree, that is, a suspension of his duty to reopen St. Patrick’s, but the burden is on the bishop to obtain this suspension. He may not simply decline to reopen the church, nor may he just assume that the decree is suspended.”

    “Since the parishes and churches are now canonically restored,” said Borre, “it would be scandalous if they were not open and ready to accommodate Cleveland’s Catholics during the holiest period of the Catholic liturgical calendar, beginning on Palm Sunday.”

    Borre told The Plain Dealer and WCPN 90.3 FM that he has advised parishioners not to bargain with Lennon over reopening the churches.

    Reply
  11. Chris Adryan

    As a resident of the greater Cleveland area, I confess I am mystified by some of the parish closings. And yet two of the most beautiful church buildings are now on the historic register so in no danger of being closed, one being the Shrine Church of St. Stanislaus in Cleveland’s historic Slavic Village and St. Stephen Church, a German Catholic parish on the west side of Cleveland. The stained glass windows, wood carved statuary and other ecclesiastical appointments are treasures. Neither of these parishes are located in “rich suburbs” and St. Stephens has a city wide school that serves minorities, as do a couple of the parishes in Slavic Village.

    Reply
  12. Chris Adryan

    This fund raising is solid evidence for my contention that the basic strategy of the bishops (and many pastors) is to give more and more services to fewer and fewer people at higher and higher average costs.

    I just looked up the “goal” at my parish and see exactly what you mean. They have got to be kidding. In this economy?? I also agree with your comment that “They don’t care if they alienate people with poor liturgies and poor communities; they can always raise money from the remaining parish members particularly the wealthiest members.”

    Reply

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