Greater Cleveland's Catholic priests should publicly call on the Vatican to remove Bishop Richard Lennon as head of the Cleveland diocese, a Catholic activist from Boston told the City Club Friday. "This shepherd has failed," Peter Borre told the luncheon audience. "It's time for Cleveland's clergy to speak out."
Borre, who regularly travels to Rome on a crusade against bishops closing churches, has been a constant critic of Lennon in both local and national media.
Anticipating that Borre's speech would sharply condemn the bishop, The Plain Dealer earlier this week requested that the diocese be available to respond.
A diocese spokesman said in a statement Wednesday, "Due to vacations and travel no one is available to respond to Borre Friday."
In an interview after Borre's speech, the Rev. Donald Cozzens, writer in residence at John Carroll University, who appeared to be the only priest in the audience, said, "I'm sensing a different temperament among Cleveland priests today, but I don't know whether it will result in public action."
Borre said in his speech that more than 50 Boston priests in 2002 publicly signed a letter to the Vatican calling for the removal of Cardinal Bernard Law who, as head of the archdiocese, had repeatedly failed to remove sexually abusive priests from ministry.
Within a short time of the letter becoming public, Law resigned.
"It's time for the Cleveland diocese, through its priests, to speak up," said Borre. The laity has done its part."
The laity Borre referred to were parishioners from 11 parishes who successfully appealed to Rome to reopen their churches closed by Lennon. Many attended the luncheon.
The 11 churches were among 50 the bishop closed over 15 months beginning in 2009 as part of a diocese-wide downsizing.
While under appeal, the diocese could not sell the properties, so the sanctuaries have been sitting empty and padlocked, some for years.
In March, a Vatican panel issued decrees upholding the appeals, saying Lennon did not properly follow canon law and procedures when he dissolved the parishes and closed the buildings.
The bishop had 60 days to appeal the decrees, but in April he said he would reopen the churches -- St. Casimir, St. Emeric, St. Peter, St. Barbara, St. Wendelin, St. Patrick (West Park), and St. Adalbert, all in Cleveland; St. John the Baptist and St. Mary, both in Akron; St Mary in Bedford; and St. James in Lakewood.
Lennon has begun meetings with parishioners of the closed churches, but so far he has not named any new pastors. He told The Plain Dealer last month that he expected to have all 11 open by the beginning of August.
Borre, who has been hired by St. Casimir, St. Patrick, and St. James as a liaison between the parishes and their canon lawyers in Rome, said during his well-received speech that the churches should have been opened by now and questioned why the delay.
"Slow-walking this thing is unacceptable," he said.
Borre said that Lennon, who became acting bishop of the Boston archdiocese after Law resigned, closed 83 churches, resulting in a huge exodus of Catholics.
Between 2004 and 2010, the archdiocese -- which had 2 million parishioners before the closings -- saw a net drop of 380,000, said Borre.
And today, attendance at Mass in the archdiocese is about 16 percent, about half of the national average which is over 33 percent, he said.
Borre said the most severe drop of Catholics in Boston occurred over the last four years and now it appears more churches will have to be closed.
"Here we have the residue of your bishop's work," he said. "To downsize parishes goes against the DNA of this religion."