Bishop Lennon Announces Plans to Reopen 12 Closed Catholic Parishes

By Joel Hammond
Crain's Cleveland Business
April 17, 2012

www.crainscleveland.com/article/20120417/FREE/120419857

Catholic Diocese of Cleveland Bishop Richard Lennon announced Tuesday that he'd reopen 12 closed Catholic parishes that he closed in 2009 and 2010 as part of a wide-ranging restructuring of the diocese.

"It's time for peace and unity in the Diocese of Cleveland," he said in a news release.

Citing cash and priest crunches, Bishop Lennon closed 50 churches across the diocese over a two-year period. Activists fought the closings, and last month the Vatican overturned the closings and ordered the parishes reopened.

Bishop Lennon could have appealed that decision, but instead made Tuesday's announcement.

"I will not appeal the decrees to the Apostolic Signatura," he said. "Doing so would prolong the process a number of years and would create more uncertainty and continue to divide our Catholic family."

The dozen parishes include St. Mary and St. John the Baptist in Akron; St. Mary in Bedford; St. Adalbert, St. Barbara, St. Casimir, St. Emeric, St. Patrick, St. Peter and St. Wendelin in Cleveland; St. James in Lakewood; and St. Mary in Lorain.

Challenges still lie ahead, Bishop Lennon said.

"Our present situation is a very complex matter with no easy or perfect solution," he said. "With fewer active priests to serve the entire … diocese, we will be forced to spread our clerical resources thinner.

"It will be essential for each of these parishes to demonstrate on an ongoing basis that they have the active membership and the financial wherewithal to sustain themselves."