PLEASE NOTE: Our official website address to go directly to this "HOME" page that you are NOW viewing is: www.EndangeredCatholics.org
Our Mission Statement:
In communion with Catholics in the Diocese of Cleveland we seek justice and equal opportunity for all parishes.
We affirm the contribution of the faithful - past, present and in the future, and expect our bishop to honor their input.
It is our bedrock belief that no parish should be closed, suppressed or merged without consent of the parishioners.
We believe the clustering process in Cleveland was flawed in principle and execution and resulted in manipulation and injustice.
We believe the Diocese of Cleveland should follow canon procedure that calls for pastoral units of clerics and laity working together for renewal and evangelization.
We seek and work for the reversal of parish closings, mergers and suppressions where parishioners stand in objection.
HOW YOU CAN STOP CHURCH CLOSINGS!
A diocesan-wide boycott of the Sunday collections, STARTING IMMEDIATELY!!!
We ask you not to donate to the usher's collection baskets. This will be noticed. Our presence alone is enough. We need the chancery to know we still oppose the assault on our parishes.
ALL CATHOLICS, FROM ALL PARISHES, PLEASE JOIN US and MANY OTHERS IN THIS BOYCOTT! This will help end the unjust closing of parishes in the diocese.
Please make your voices heard NOW in support of those Endangered parishes before it is to late.
Thank You for your support!
(Please Click Here) to open a ready-to-print Boycott Form.)
If your parish is one of the many ethnic parishes due to be closed by June 30, 2010, you may wish to print this sheet also and attach it to the above boycott form that you put into the collection basket.
Please (Click Here) to open a ready-to-print "Optional" Boycott Form for those attending Ethnic Parishes.
Please, wake up Catholics, "BEFORE" it's too late and you then finally realize what is happening
We are being sold and tricked.
It is up to us to safeguard our parishes. Our Beautiful Old Historic Churches (many over 100 years old)... Gone Forever!
Our Parish Members, Friends and Families... Gone and Scattered Everywhere!
Our Sacred Historic Church Relics... To Be Sold!
If Not Sold... THEY WILL BE DESTROYED and FOREVER IRREPLACEABLE!!!
NOW is the time to join us in putting a STOP to this tragic time in our lives. If there is fire in people... let it be in us now!
A posting of ten questions?
Bishop Lennon, Please respond to these 10 questions HONESTLY!
Why are you afraid to answer???!!!
1. In the Five Year Diocesan Financial Projection where are the major budget shortfalls and how does closing vibrant parishes plug the shortfalls?
2. How much money has been collected from closed (not merging) parish accounts? Would you please list the closed parishes and amount of money the diocese has collected from each? Would you please list the receiving parishes and amount the diocese has distributed to each?
3. Some dioceses follow a peaceful and progressive plan which organizes pastoral units (approved by canon law) where groups of parishes are served by pastoral teams. This allows each parish to decide whether to close or remain open. Did Cleveland ever consider such a process? If yes, why was it not implemented?
4. How do you respond to accusations that the Cleveland Cluster/Close Program (which forces parishes to sacrifice each other) is unjust, cruel, abusive and unChristian?
5. How do you explain the fact that the Cleveland Cluster/Close Program often ignored and reversed cluster recommendations?
6. Would you consider giving churches a second chance for continued existence if those churches can prove they are self sustaining, active in social service, able to pay all assessments and are working to increase membership?
7. Would you consent to a mediation effort between the Diocese of Cleveland and the Churches Asking for Second Chances, with mediators agreed to by Diocese and Churches?
8. Is there a reason why you are closing and stripping churches that are in appeal to Rome without waiting for answers from Rome? Has Rome given permission to close appealing parishes?
9. Why are ethnic and African American parishes being disproportionately targeted for closing?
10. Why is the Cleveland Diocese more concerned about dwindling financials than the dwindling number of people in the pews?
Reprinted From: "a voice from the rustbelt": Monday, February 15, 2010 - Ten Questions for Bishop Richard:
To-day, at noon, there was proclaimed in front of the portico, and cathedral doors, of St. John the Evangelist, Cleveland, Ohio, ten questions addressed to Bishop Richard Lennon. 'Code Purple', a group of catholic parishioners of the Cleveland diocese were the presenters of the questions regarding the intransparency and injustice of parish suppression and closure. 'Code Purple' is a group of catholic parishioners of the Cleveland diocese, speaking for some whom may be shy, or afeared, or despairing of being actually heard by the bishop and the public. They wish a conversation with the bishop. They point out there is nothing resembling a one-to-one correspondence with the stated rationale and the reality of closure.
Click This Link: To to go directly to this article and view the photographs taken.
One more question for Bishop Richard
A further question, that was not [but should have been] addressed to Bishop Richard Lennon:
11. Certainly you are aware that this process you approve of, and designed, has and will continue to force and send catholics permanently away from the western (roman) (latin)-rite of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. Is that not a great failure of your pastoral office? You are creating paths of schism and apostasy.
Reprinted From: "a voice from the rustbelt": Wednesday, February 17, 2010 - One more question for Bishop Richard:
Click This Link: To to go directly to this article.
Other Interesting Information Worth Noting:
A written quote from "voice from the rustbelt": "At one time the figure 52 was made, and some were to be determined. A few parishes were shuttered leading up to the announcement. The final count is not known, while individual parishes may have closing dates, the public is not aware of them as a whole, nor can anyone be certain if the dates are truly fixed. Why did Cyril & Methodius, Lorain receive such short shrift immediately after the closings of Stanislaus and Ladislaus? It was a bit of a scandal that the sale of the campus of St. Stanislaus was advertised before the closing, and that the asking price was less than the remodel cost of the church eight years prior. Some of the portable sacred art had already been sold.
On the most part, the ethnic and more urban rustbelt has been targeted. Some parishioners are still upset about the initial discussion process. Pointless meetings were attended to discuss clustering and sharing resources, and a point was made that geography would not be a limiting parameter. It turned out geography was, and clustering meant reduction and extinction. The homogenised parishes of the suburban sprawl were safe. One size fits all was good, particularity, tradition and character--not so much. And the negotiating to reduce was often political and unpleasant, akin to the rubbish of "reality tv" tactics. Some people have made their peace with the grief, others have decidedly not."
Which parishes were sacrificed and why? Finances mattered, but strangely. Small, solvent, parishes were not free from closure, 'closed' parishes would revert their accounts to the diocese. Fund raising campaigns were encouraged after reprieves, especially for the diocesan treasury. Some details were more consequential. Parishes without full time pastors were endangered. Parishes with aged pastors were endangered. Smaller parishes were endangered, but not absolutely. The press and the public accepted american business rationale, while ignoring christian sentiment and catholic canon law. Demographics mattered, sentiment was absent."
A Interesting Written Quote Obtained Through Document Research:
"It should be noted that Bishop Lennon's heavy reliance on canon 123's draconian mechanism of suppression goes explicitly against the Holy See's guidance, contained in a letter to all American bishop issued by the prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy in 2005 where he wrote:
This Congregation notes that the erroneous use of ca. 123 in the dioceses of the United States is not uncommon and therefore asks Your Excellency [the president of the USCCB] to bring this matter to the attention of the individual bishop members of the Episcopal Conference.
In 2005 the most egregious misuse of canon 123 was in the Archdiocese of Boston where, mirabile dictu, it was Bishop Lennon, then Boston's vicar general and the architect of Reconfiguration, who planned to apply the suppression canon to 83 parishes in the archdiocese, and had to be admonished by Rome. Notwithstanding this, the bishop has misapplied Canon 123 four years later as Cleveland's ordinary."
(Errare humanum est, sed in errore perseverare est stultum.)
Interesting "Legal" Written Information.
This Is Concerning Our Sacred Historic Church Items and Relics... To Be Sold! If Not Sold... THEY WILL BE DESTROYED and FOREVER IRREPLACEABLE!!!
We Quote This Legal Information!:
"For the legal theory of such causes of action would be based upon the following legal arguments, expressed in language accessible to those not trained in the law:
Diocesan bishops do not own the parishes' material goods, but merely hold these in trust within the formal meaning of civil law in the American states.
In recent years, the Roman Catholic Church has gone on record in the American federal court system through sworn statements filed voluntarily by bishops and their experts, citing and interpreting canon law, and attesting that the bishop holds all parish properties in trust for the exclusive use and benefit of the parish and its parishioners.
These documents establish – from statements of Catholic bishops – that a legal relationship exists between the diocesan bishop and the parishes and parishioners of the diocese, in canon law as well as in civil law, namely a fiduciary relationship.
A bishop violates his fiduciary obligations as trustee by closing diocesan parishes through the canon law technique of “suppression, in clear violation of his fiduciary duties under civil law.
By suppression, the bishop injures the primary beneficiaries of the trusts, viz. the parishes and parishioners. The bishop compounds his offense under civil law by taking the trust property for his own use to pay the debts of the diocese. This conduct violates the core concepts of fiduciary duties underlying basic trust law, which, among other things, prohibit a trustee from diverting property held in trust to his own benefit, or to the benefit of a third party (viz. the diocese or other parishes)."
Please Remember: In canon law, it is very difficult to suppress, or to make extinct a parish. The episcopacy in the US has made it too easy. The bishop's advisers, by canon law, are his college of priests (presbyteral council). There is no official role for a cluster committee. A parish is a juridic person, when once created, is meant to be perpetual. The term "juridic person" is similar in concept to a "corporation" being a public person in US law. A parish, by nature, as recognised, in canon law is meant to continue forever and forever.
That is the constitutional requirement for the formation of a parish. And again, canon law says that a parish is meant to be perpetual. There is an on-going reduction in parishes, and with this reduction, there is sorrow.
Included Coalition Parishes:
St. Adalbert
St. Barbara
St. Casimir (Cleveland)
St. Emeric
St. James
St. John the Baptist (Akron)
St. Joseph (Lorain)
St. Lawrence
St. Mary (Bedford)
St. Margaret of Hungary
St. Patrick (West Park)
Historic Saint Peter
Sacred Heart of Jesus (Akron)
Saint Stanislaus (Lorain)
St. Wendelin