Lawyer: Vatican overrules 13 church closings in US [Cleveland, Ohio]

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The Vatican has taken the extraordinary step of overruling the closing of 13 U.S. parishes, a lawyer who fought the cutbacks said Wednesday.
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The move represents a rare instance in which Rome has reversed a U.S. bishop on the shutdown of churches.
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The Congregation of the Clergy ruled last week that Bishop Richard Lennon of the Cleveland Diocese had failed to follow procedure in the closings three years ago, attorney Peter Borre said.
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The bishop can appeal to the Vatican’s high court. It was not clear whether he could simply restart the process, follow the correct procedure and close the churches all over again. Nor was it clear how big a financial burden the churches would be if the bishop were forced to keep them open. However, the diocese said in its most recent annual report that its finances are “robust.”
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boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2012/03/07/lawyer_vatican_overrules_13_cleveland_closings/
 
pepipop said:
Seems, like the Vatican is now taking a more central role over bishop decisions, worldwide.
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No… it seems that the Church follows its own canon law; therefore, when a bishop makes an administrative action, there is the possibility of recourse to Rome. In this particular case, they found that the bishop didn’t follow proper procedure. That’s all…
 
Gorgias said:
No… it seems that the Church follows its own canon law; therefore, when a bishop makes an administrative action, there is the possibility of recourse to Rome. In this particular case, they found that the bishop didn’t follow proper procedure. That’s all…
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Oh, there’s a lot more than that to this story.
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/09/large_st-jame-church-lakewood.jpg

https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/i...WXCx9Vk5v2SzgL9F68Uo9lJovpm5waiV9I-vhbYKrHJyw

This parish was a vibrant parish community with 6000(?) families and all kinds of outreach programs. Does this look like the kind of building that should be mothballed?
 
Ignats75 said:
Oh, there’s a lot more than that to this story.
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/09/large_st-jame-church-lakewood.jpg

https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/i...WXCx9Vk5v2SzgL9F68Uo9lJovpm5waiV9I-vhbYKrHJyw

This parish was a vibrant parish community with 6000(?) families and all kinds of outreach programs. Does this look like the kind of building that should be mothballed?
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Was this one of the proposed closures, as the article read that they were small disadvantaged parishes?
 
pepipop said:
wpxi.com/ap/ap/religion/lawyer-vatican-overrules-13-cleveland-closings/nLND5/

Seems, like the Vatican is now taking a more central role over bishop decisions, worldwide.
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I made this comment in reference to this matter, due to OP’s comment in another post regarding the sex abuse scandals, i.e.

“The Church in matter’s not relating to theological truth is actually pretty decentralized, due to the immense areas the Church covers, hence the bishops were/are largely autonomous in day to day affairs.”
 
Ignats75 said:
Oh, there’s a lot more than that to this story.
http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/09/large_st-jame-church-lakewood.jpg

https://encrypted-tbn1.google.com/i...WXCx9Vk5v2SzgL9F68Uo9lJovpm5waiV9I-vhbYKrHJyw

This parish was a vibrant parish community with 6000(?) families and all kinds of outreach programs. Does this look like the kind of building that should be mothballed?
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Too many crypto-modernists are trying to close down every kind of actual worshipful, reverent church building with traditional architecture, from what I’ve seen of closings, and supporting the conciliar Protestant-style “worship room” that is so common in modern Catholic buildings.
 
Here is the copy of the letter from the Congregation of the Clergy which countermands Bishop Lennon’s plan to sell St. Patrick Catholic Church.
wkyc.com/assetpool/documents/120308065719_StPatricks_VaticanDecree.pdf

Pretty much identical letters have reportedly been issued for all 13 churches which are in dispute. Those churches are:
Along with St. Patrick, the other churches that appealed were St. Adalbert, St. Barbara, St. Casimir, St. Emeric, St. Peter and St. Wendelin, all in Cleveland; St. James in Lakewood; St. Mary in Bedford; St. Margaret Mary in South Euclid; and St. John the Baptist, St. Martha and St. Mary, all in Akron.
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blog.cleveland.com/metro/2012/03/vatican_decree_says_bishop_ric.html

I am certainly not an expert, but from what I read in the letter, the churches are not being required to serve as parishes. The letter simply says that the churches need to remain open as worship sites, and can not be sold for secular use.

As I recall, last year a bishop (when countermanded) chose to open the building for Mass to purposes of weddings, funerals, and the saint’s feast day. But the church was not required to serve as home for a parish. So the victory for those who want to preserve the churches may only be partial.

Moreover, the ruling from the Congregation of the Clergy is basically that the bishop didn’t follow proper procedures
The St. Patrick decree said Lennon improperly issued the closing order and did not consult with the Presbyteral Council, a local panel of diocesan priests, as required by church law when closing a church.
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The Congregation of the Clergy, a Vatican panel that issued the decree, said it advised Lennon in 2009 on his procedural “shortfalls,” but the bishop “declined to clarify the matter.”
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“Hence, the Bishop of Cleveland is held to have acted in violation of the law on procedural grounds,” the decree reads.
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blog.cleveland.com/metro/2012/03/vatican_decree_says_bishop_ric.html

So couldn’t the bishop just start the process over, this time following procedures more closely?
 
That is awesome! I hope and pray that more parishes will be able to remain open. It is so sad when bishops are forced to close parishes. I think that in some cases the closure is unnecessary, such as in the case of these 13 parishes. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not judging any bishops for their action of closing these parishes. I would dare not judge a bishop for such an action. They are far more holy and wise than I.
 
Gorgias said:
No… it seems that the Church follows its own canon law; therefore, when a bishop makes an administrative action, there is the possibility of recourse to Rome. In this particular case, they found that the bishop didn’t follow proper procedure. That’s all…
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Supposedly, according to the decree, the errors were MORE than just procedural, but were also substantive. IOW, the Bishop would have to appeal the reversal on some grounds. However the bishop could also let the decree languish by failing to do much of anything in response. (the probable course.) His spokesman (who does all his speaking for him, says today they still have not received their official copy of the decree, even though it is already posted on the internet!)

This is one of the main historic reasons the Pope exists; as a court of final appeal. I am so glad that Pope Benedict XVI has reversed this Cleveland Bishop, who was thrust upon our diocese from Boston, a foreign land of perverse liberals. 😛 We have such an excellent aux. Benedictine bishop Gries. It pains me to be under the yoke of this foreign mercenary, when we have such worthy Cleveland bishops. 😦
 
First in Boston and now in Cleveland Richard Lennon has not been a very popular Bishop.
 
ringil said:
First in Boston and now in Cleveland Richard Lennon has not been a very popular Bishop.
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Closing parishes is never popular and its an inexact science. I’m sure the bishop was simply attempting to make the “least bad” of all the possible bad choices when faced with population shifts and limited priests. No one likes to be the bad guy but unfortunately sometimes hard choices have to be made by fallible human beings.
 
How to make the good choice is simple: close down all of the buildings built since 1967, and start collapsing parishes in to ones that have old, beautiful, reverent, worshipful architecture.
 
NewEnglandPriest said:
Closing parishes is never popular and its an inexact science. I’m sure the bishop was simply attempting to make the “least bad” of all the possible bad choices when faced with population shifts and limited priests. No one likes to be the bad guy but unfortunately sometimes hard choices have to be made by fallible human beings.
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I get the impression that Bishop Lennon is being used as a fixer. First he was tasked with closing parishes in the Boston archdiocese. And as a reward for his success he was promoted to Cleveland with the understanding that he would close parishes there.

This is from a December 2010 news article, announcing the appointment of Bishop Lennon to replace the retiring Bishop Pilla.
Where the nearly 800,000 Northeast Ohio Catholics in the pews may notice changes is in the area of church closings.
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Lennon more recently in Boston has overseen O’Malley’s 2004 directive to close a quarter of the archdiocese’s 357 parishes in response to changing demographics that have seen Catholics move to the suburbs, the shortage of priests and the costs of settling abuse lawsuits.
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Unlike bishops in other major cities, Pilla did not order widespread closings of urban parishes as Catholics moved east, west and south. He said worshipping communities were a vital part of city neighborhoods, and only a dozen city parishes shut down during Pilla’s tenure.
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But a Vibrant Parish Life program begun by Pilla asked the region’s 233 parishes to consider how best to work together under the realities of geographic change and a declining priesthood.
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blog.cleveland.com/pdextra/2010/12/new_bishop_i_am_humbled_boston.html

I think Bishop Lennon was handed a difficult and unpopular task. And that it was made all the more difficult because he was new to the area and was seen as an outsider.

I don’t know the specifics of any of the church closings in the Cleveland diocese. But I get the sense that closings were overdue and that Bishop Lennon was handed that job. I think he needs prayers both for support and for wisdom in how to best move forward.
 
As a member of a merged Parish in Lakewood (not St. James), I can tell you that his process was at best heavy handed and at worst a naked money grab. There was no consistency to the process as my post in the thread below described last summer. Parish F in my post was St. James

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=579255
 
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Dale_M:
I think Bishop Lennon was handed a difficult and unpopular task. And that it was made all the more difficult because he was new to the area and was seen as an outsider.
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But the question then become “by whom?” Who is this overarching authority that sends hatchet-bishops to prey-dioceses like Cleveland? The Pope? I don’t think so. This is very murky and far from transparent leadership.
 
Khalid said:
How to make the good choice is simple: close down all of the buildings built since 1967, and start collapsing parishes in to ones that have old, beautiful, reverent, worshipful architecture.
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I’d support this, except that my own parish was built in the mid-80s and is a miniature cathedral.
 
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