Cleveland Diocese Announces 29 Churches to Close

[lhk0pd]

One thing i’m willing to bet is there has been a large drop in Catholic members in the Cleveland area.It is a dieing city in the rust belt that like detroit and others priced them selves out of work and moved on to lower cost of living and cleaner cities. As for the school debate there is no doubt that Liberal teachers and a lack of Nuns to teach are a large reason of Catholic schools beginning to fail and loose favor in the eyes of Catholics.I know where i live here in the southwest in a small city of 30,000 that Protestants can hold school in the basements of there Churches with only maybe 10 or 20 students.But they turn them loose around the 6th grade to the public school but they seem to have done such a excellent job in there teaching and religious training that the kids seem to be well prepared for dealing with public school.The Menonites do not educate beyond the 8th grade and those kids are smarter and of course much more polite than public school and Catholic school children that have graduated. By the way as far as i know all accomplished by mostly Volunteers from there faith.Maybe the Catholic Church needs to go back to what gave us Great Catholic leaders and students since we keep becoming at least in the western world more and more secular and liberal.As POPEJP2 once said the spirit of anti Christ has entered the sanctuary.

 

[lak611]

There has been a 15.3% decrease in population in Cleveland since the 2000 census.

muninetguide.com/states/ohio/municipality/Cleveland.php

The voters approved a change to the city charter last November to reduce the number of seats on city council to reflect this loss of population. There are currently 21 seats, but 2 are being eliminated now. 2 more could be eliminated following the results of the 2010 census.

Most of the parishes that are closing are in the city of Cleveland proper, although some are in inner-ring suburbs facing similar issues that Cleveland is.

 

[Scoobyshme]

Wow. That’s horrible. I hope that the people who lose their parish will be able to afford the gas to drive to the next closest parish. I wish there was something we could do to help the diocese out so they didn’t have to close these parishes.

Why not organize buses, carpools, etc., by those who can afford to drive to other parishes? Protestant churches do it with surprising success.

On the other hand, I’ll bet many people wouldn’t mind paying for the gas to go that far to see their favorite entertainer, etc.

 

[lak611]

Wow. That’s horrible. I hope that the people who lose their parish will be able to afford the gas to drive to the next closest parish. I wish there was something we could do to help the diocese out so they didn’t have to close these parishes.

Why not organize buses, carpools, etc., by those who can afford to drive to other parishes? Protestant churches do it with surprising success.

On the other hand, I’ll bet many people wouldn’t mind paying for the gas to go that far to see their favorite entertainer, etc.

For the most part, it will just mean that the people will have to attend their geographical parish. Most of the members of the parishes that are closing did not live in the neighborhood. They drove many miles to attend a nationality parish in the neighborhood they grew up in but had not lived in for many years. The residents of the neighborhood where the closing parishes are located are, for the most part, non-Catholic.

 

[ack]

I no longer live in Cleveland, but I used to. Most of the churches that are closing are in areas that are densely packed with Catholic churches. If someone without a car lost their parish, a very short bus ride would get them to the next closest one.

I used to go to Sunday Mass at one of the churches that’s closing, and I’m pretty sure that they had less than 100 people in attendance every week.

I used to volunteer at another closing parish and go to the Saturday vigil Mass there, and there were never more than 20 people there (plus the Mass was celebrated sloppily and was full of liturgical abuses.) I think there were more parishioners on Sundays, but only because people from far away would come to Mass there. (I don’t want to name the parish, but it’s the one where the attendees are loudly protesting its closure in the media.)

I looked over the list of parishes that are closing, and almost all of them are in neighborhoods that were 95% Catholic when the parishes were built, but now have a Catholic population of less than 5% (my estimate.) The original Catholic residents moved away, and the residents that replaced them were nearly 100% non-Catholic. This has nothing to do with liberal priests, Vatican 2, or any of the other alternative theories offered.

The same thing is happening in other big cities that aren’t attracting Hispanic immigrants, and Cleveland is attracting very few Hispanics.

I was surprised by only two closures – the St. Paul shrine (what’s the point of officially closing it if the religious are going to remain there?), and another parish which has traditionally had a vibrant, orthodox community, but had a well-publicized confrontation with the bishop a few years ago.

Why not organize buses, carpools, etc., by those who can afford to drive to other parishes? Protestant churches do it with surprising success.

On the other hand, I’ll bet many people wouldn’t mind paying for the gas to go that far to see their favorite entertainer, etc.