Render Unto Rome_ The Secret Life of Money in the Catholic Church - Jason Berry [137]
Schenk and her colleague Emily Hoag pointed out that the diocese’s Vibrant Parish Life Committee had cited the priest shortage in its statement. Lennon reiterated: the problem was not the priest shortage—42 percent of Cleveland’s parishes were in the red; that was a problem. When two priests were serving ten thousand people in the suburbs, and fourteen worked in a small radius in the city with far fewer parishioners, he had to assess the assignments. Schenk replied that urban parishes anchor neighborhoods; they could keep on with pastoral life coordinators, trained laypeople and religious sisters. Lennon gave an example of three urban parishes that agreed to merge. For that, said the bishop, “People thanked me.” In contrast, he continued, another parish had spent down its savings to $218,000. How wise was that?
Three years prior to Lennon’s arrival, the diocese had embarked on a process called Vibrant Parish Life, in which groups in small geographic areas met to assess their strengths and needs. In Boston, clustering had been the first step to closures, merged parishes, then Suppression. Like a dutiful debater, Lennon cited data, rebutting his visitors in a respectful manner that was nothing if not resolute. Schenk took comfort that he had refrained from criticizing FutureChurch for being at variance with church teaching, as Pilla had done in the swamps of scandal. Still, she couldn’t shake the impression that Lennon was rehearsing his talking points for later consumption. Sometimes, said Lennon, it took someone coming in from another place to have a fresh vision. In Boston he had closed or merged sixty-two parishes, with only a 2 percent drop in Mass attendance! Some Catholics in Boston had thanked him.
Not the ones I’ve spoken with, thought Sister Chris.
Lennon ended the meeting, saying the hour they had requested was up.
Several days later the Cleveland Catholic Diocese released a financial statement. In 2006 the diocese reported revenues of $269.2 million, up $6.4 million from the preceding year. The diocese was in the black. Collection baskets had yielded $106.1 million, a 2 percent increase and “the highest since 2002 when the church first began to feel the impact of the clergy sex abuse scandal,” reported David Briggs in the Plain Dealer. The parochial schools, however, had a $26 million deficit. Spread across the parishes, from affluent to poor, church expenses had risen by 3.8 percent, while revenues lagged at 2.4 percent. Nevertheless, compared with Boston’s financial disaster, and the New Orleans archdiocese’s free fall after Hurricane Katrina, when 80 percent of the city flooded, Cleveland was in decent shape. Briggs scrutinized problem areas:
The more than 20 percent jump in parishes operating in the red shows the wealth was not evenly shared. Many parishes in cities or inner-ring suburbs trying to hold on to their elementary schools face a particularly difficult road. The mixed financial results come as the diocese is going through an extensive process … in which all parishes will be placed in a cluster with up to five other churches.
The clusters will work on plans for shared ministry. The changes could range from staggered Mass times to the closing or mergers of some parishes and schools.5
On January 16, 2007, the PBS series Frontline aired a documentary by Joe Cultrera, Hand of God, that followed the Boston crisis through the long impact on Cultrera’s family, from his brother’s childhood abuse by a priest through his parents’ despair as the archdiocese closed their parish in Salem. As Bill Sheil watched the film, the reporter-anchorman was mesmerized by a sequence that opens with Lennon, in a Roman collar, smothering the lens with his hands. After watching the film, Sheil secured permission to air the scene on Fox 8, which ended Lennon’s honeymoon with the Cleveland media.
As Lennon