CLEVELAND (OH)
ABC News
By THOMAS J. SHEERAN Associated Press
CLEVELAND April 17, 2012 (AP)
Twelve of 13 closed Roman Catholic churches spared by the Vatican in the Cleveland Diocese will be reopened, the bishop announced Tuesday.
The action was a response to last month’s extraordinary Vatican decision overruling his decision to close the 13 parishes, a rare instance in which Rome reversed a U.S. bishop on the shutdown of churches.
Cleveland Bishop Richard Lennon had ordered the churches closed over the past several years because of declining numbers of priests and parishioners and financial issues.
The Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy ruled Lennon failed to follow church law and procedure in the closings.
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