From Cleveland:

CLEVELAND, Ohio – The twelve final words on the back of St. Peter Catholic Church’s Easter Sunday program said it most plainly.

A timeline spanning 156 years ended this way: “Parish suppressed and church building closed April 2010 by Bishop Richard Lennon.”(I don’t know the political situation in Cleveland, but I have a suspicion that the bishop does not bear as much blame as one, say, in Rochester, New York.)

But before the Rev. Robert Marrone kicked out the wooden blocks and locked the massive arched doors — that had remained open to worshipers from all walks of life since 1859 — he served up a forceful sermon.

His words were the last orated in the church thanks to an agreement with the Cleveland diocese to cancel a final Mass set for next week at which Lennon was to desanctify the church.(All that’s really needed to desanctify a church is a lay preacher in an alb, incompetent altar servers, and whordes of “extraordinary” ministers of Holy Communion.)

Marrone took aim at two audiences.

To church leaders, he warned that the closing of the downtown church and suppression of the parish would come to be seen as, “one of the most egregious mistakes ever made by this diocese.”(Sound familiar?)

He summoned history itself to make his point recalling early church leaders traveling on horseback, begging for money to build. All the pancake breakfasts, spaghetti dinners and rummage sales manned by parishioners to keep the church alive, afloat, during rough times. Members who carted in wheel barrels of concrete to pave a new floor on one of the hottest days of 1989 and, a few years later, the parishioner who carved their beloved altar in the courtyard.

And the last battle fought and won to restore the historic towers and edifice in the face of a city dwindling around it, just five years ago. Marrone said the decision would come not only to symbolize the abandoning of what he called the most historic church in the city and the dispersing its vital congregations but also “tragic and even sometimes sinful decisions” by church leaders — leaders who were leaving the promises of Vatican II unfulfilled and leading instead with fear.(Again, I’m not sure how one should take this statement, due to our removal from Cleveland. I tend to doubt they’re in the same “reform of the reform” mindframe we are, but who knows?)

The closing of St. Peter – a part of what he called the church closing epidemic – was not because of economics, or lack of clergy or parishioners, Marrone said.

Instead it was a “steadfast refusal and or inability to imagine things in a different way.”(Again – sound familiar?)
To Marrone’s flock, whom he sits among (uh oh) — not above (God forbid the priest actually “presides”)— during Mass, the priest urged that they extricate themselves from their connection to the building where they worshipped.

As the hundreds there to celebrate their belief that Jesus Christ rose to give them new life, dabbed their eyes or sobbed as if they were attending a funeral for a beloved friend, Morrone prodded them forward.

“This community has always respected and honored its past but it has steadfastly refused to live in it,” he said.

He said they would leave the white-washed walls and brilliant stained glass windows, “as an empty tomb” which, going forward, will represent only the “incredible lack of faith, hope and love in our church.”(I’m not entirely certain who’s to blame, specifically, for this parish closing. Maybe their bishop, maybe some council that “suggests” things to him. Details would be nice if anyone has any.)
But he urged the diverse (oh?) group of church members, some who drive in from suburbs, some who walk from nearby shelters, to refuse to play it safe and keep their mouths shut. Rather, he said, they should be brave like Jesus’ disciples.(Kind of like those kooks who drive into the heart of downtown Rochester to Our Lady of Victory or St. Stanislaus – nut jobs, all of them.)

And he cautioned them not to “mistakenly confuse blind obedience with faithfulness” and “allow more churches to become tombs to the living dead.” Marrone warned that the collective silence of church faithful in the face of church officials’ actions could make them equally culpable. (Whether this man is liberal or conservative, this ought to ring true to many of us.)
“The power of fear which has caused this injustice is not the last word, must not be the last word and will not be the last word,” Marrone said.
“I know it seems unbearable but we can bear it. Go forth into the world and be living stones,” Marrone said. “God will tent with us wherever he go.”
And with that, the parishioners took with them, their light — symbolized by thin w
hite candles — and left the church in a procession which took them sobbing into the street.
As they gathered in the sunshine, many parishioners vowed to move forward, each heading their beloved priest’s advice in their own ways.
The Wienceks, a family of five that drives in from Medina County, didn’t know where they would end up. Tom and Anka Wiencek have been members of St. Peter for 20 years.
“I’m thinking that many people will support the new community,” Tom Wiencek said, referring to the non-profit Community of St. Peter to be housed in a building on Euclid Avenue.
He hoped it might even become a model.
“The people will become the stones,” said Brenda Pestak, who met her husband at St. Peter on Good Friday in 1981, a day he carried the cross into the church.
“This is not the end,” she said. “This is the beginning.”
An end with one last message left inside the “tomb” for the man leading the charge to close more than 50 churches in the eight-county diocese.
At the foot of the altar, in a plastic baggie, coins glimmered and a note read: “A gift for Bishop Lennon. 30 pieces of silver for the one who has betrayed us.”

 The question of whether this parish is a loyal one or a dissenting one is not relevant, at least for the point I’m trying to make. We cannot be silent when our churches are closed or threatened with closure. To be silent is to be complicit in the stripping of Christ before His crucifixion, just as we watch our altars stripped one last time, the relics removed from their resting place.

Not all of the closings here in Rochester are the fault of Bishop Clark. Many are, legitimately, due to shifting demographics. However, for the few parishes that are being targeted, such as St. Thomas, there is such blatant political maneuvering as to be sacrilegious. When we are presented with true injustice, we must be vocal and cry out, addressing the problem. Yes, pray, but pray and act together. Let your efforts to save your parishes be a perpetual prayer to God. Words are clumsy instruments contrived by humanity – actions are mirrors of divinity. Words are necessary, but so too are actions. Do not abandon yourselves to despair, but take heart. Any parish that has been closed, be it liberal, indifferent, or solid, has gone through unimaginable sufferings. To sit back and twiddle your thumbs is to be a living example of a Christian who has lost his sense of charity.

Tags: Church Closings

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