If that were practical it would be done. The problem is that churches that were built after 1967 were built because that’s where people were moving to. Many of the beautiful older churches simply don’t have viable parish populations.
The four main parishes in Lakewood are St James (won their appeal), St Luke, St Clement, and St Cyril & Methodius. The other two parishes it was accepted to close.(St Hedwig and St Rose). Lakewood is a densely populated and diverse community of 55,000 peopleift into an area of 3 1/2 miles long by 1 1/2 miles (North and south) Bounded on the East by Cleveland (mostly poor except for the Edgewater area) South by Cleveland (mostly middle class) and on the west by the City of Rocky River (mostly affluent). To the north is Lake Erie.
Here is a diagram of the geography of the city/churches:
Code:
Lake Erie
R |----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------| C
O | | L
C | | E
K | X1 | V
Y | | E
| X2 | L
R | | A
I | | N
V | | D
E | X3 X4 |
R | X5 |
|_____________________________________________________________|
Cleveland
X1 is
St Luke parish. Wealthiest of the 5 on the map.
X2 is
St James. closed but won their appeal. Largest of the 6 parishes in the cluster. Is looking at about a million dollar roof repair but has the pledges from parish members to cover it. Bishop Lennon specifically told those parish members the pledges didn’t matter. Another parish in Cleveland proper (St Ignatius of Antioch) was facing closure for the same reason, but the Bishop himself reconsidered when they “promised” to raise the money for the roof repair.
x3 is
St Clement. Smaller and expected to be closed. At the time only had an administrator when previous pastor retired. Even parish members expected this one to close due to proximity to St Luke and the fact it is smallest in enrollment and is architecturally nondescript.
x4 is
St Cyril and Methodius. Merged with
St Rose Parish to become
Transfiguration Parish which on the map would be located approximately at the L in Cleveland on the east side of Lakewood.
x5 is St Hedwig, Closed due to declining enrollment. had over $1,000,000 endowment.
This map shows that geographically the decision to close St James and keep St Clement open made no sense either.
Transfiguration and St James are the two large stone basilica type buildings of the 6. The other 4 are brick and in a couple of cases, down right ugly.
