CLEVELAND (OH)
The Plain Dealer
By The Plain Dealer Editorial Board
Some Greater Cleveland Roman Catholics are breathing a sigh of relief amid church activists’ reports that a Vatican agency has issued a landmark decision to reverse Bishop Richard Lennon’s closure of 13 churches.
The activists say this means the churches, which have been padlocked and kept secure during their appeal, must open their doors and let the parishioners return.
They may be right, but Lennon still has cards to play, should he choose to appeal. The diocese’s own canon lawyers have not yet reviewed the decisions of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy to see what they mean.
So far, the congregation’s decisions in Greater Cleveland appear to go beyond reversals it ordered in other U.S. dioceses last year.
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