This article on Cleveland.com’s website, http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/10/st_john_the_baptist_church_in.html, discusses the closing and merging of 50 parishes. There were accusations against the bishop that he was dishonest in managing the churches’ finances and protesters who tried to stay in the churches as long as they could before being forced out by law enforcements.
When I read this article, I was completely shocked. I always thought that the Catholic church was full of money so I was really surprised that they have to close of merge 50 parishes in an 8 county diocese. Somehow, I feel that if the church wasn’t involved in all those lawsuits, they could’ve prevented this. But the article does not mention anything about the profitability of the churches like if they were worth keeping open or if the donations were not enough and if the church would sell the land of the former churches.
The article ends with a quote from a church member saying that the number of her church has been dwindling due to people moving away from the area. If this is the case, I hope churches in other dioceses will get these members who have moved and become bigger. But it does not explain why all this happened at one time instead of slowly church by church. It's just so sad to see that there are enough people who care about these churches to try to save them and it makes me think that the Catholic church did not do everything they could've to save more of these churches.
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