As Catholic Churches Close, Hearts Must Stay Open

You don't have to be Catholic to feel anguish over the news that 52 parishes will disappear in the Cleveland Diocese.

The response has been an outcry from families being pulled apart. Who cannot empathize with such heartbreak?

Just like their brothers and sisters in cities across the country, Catholics here are reeling from the consequences of a dispersed and diminishing flock. Bishop Richard Lennon matter-of-factly announced that 70 churches will be affected by closings and mergers by June 30, 2010. The collective gasp assured him this is not business as usual.

It was Cleveland's turn, some say. Hard to hear when this beloved city of ours already has suffered more than its share of economic hardship. This latest blow feels like loss heaped onto loss. The broadest shoulders bend.

It is an essential human longing to belong to something that, collectively, makes us bigger and better than our lonely selves. Many find that solace in communal worship.

There is something so intimate in the shared humility of heads bowed in prayer, week after week, year after year. Together, we stumble and grow, each "I" becoming "we" through the interlocking weave of celebrations and mourning, potlucks and fish fries.

Listing the churches that will close does not begin to describe the impact on the spiritual lives of the nearly 800,000 Catholics in this region of Ohio. What will become of us? they ask. How will we survive?

Catholics might find comfort in the experiences of Cleveland's older Jews, many of whom remember all too well what it feels like to lose one's family's religious home.

"I can remember so many abandoned synagogues in the city of Cleveland," Myra White told me earlier this week. "Years ago, everyone was from a different small town in Poland or Lithuania or Ukraine. … Every group had its own little temple."

She is 68 and a longtime real estate agent. To her, a house of worship is more than bricks and mortar.

"To me, a building is a person," she said.

"It feels so sad to leave them behind. But, you know, it didn't affect my identity. I didn't stop being a Jew."

Like many major cities, Cleveland's east side is peppered with churches housed in former synagogues that closed as Jews migrated to the suburbs, which is documented superbly by the Cleveland Jewish History Web site (http://www.ClevelandJewishHistory.net/index.htm).

Some temples merged. Others relocated. What happened to their congregations was up to them, says Arnold Berger, the 77-year-old retired professor and computer whiz who maintains the Cleveland Jewish History Web site.

It takes conscious effort to preserve tradition beyond the walls of its birth, he said.

"This is a sad time, especially for older Catholics with memories," Berger said. "Like the old synagogues, old churches were a response to large surges of ethnic populations. But if you want to preserve your traditions, you must be willing to move where your younger people are going. You leave the building, but you take the art and the stories with you."

It's also important that congregations merge histories, Berger said. He helped with the controversial merger in the mid-'60s between the Case Institute of Technology and Western Reserve University, so he knows a thing or two about what does and doesn't work.

"It does not work for one church to say to the other members, 'Welcome.' That makes the people who lost their church feel like losers. Ideally, merged churches are like good second marriages. Some pictures have to come down; others go up."

The challenge is in preserving an old church while growing a new one.

For many Catholics, it's too early to imagine such a thing, but this is precisely the time to start thinking about it. Unlike Catholics in Boston, where churches shut down quickly, Cleveland's Catholics have about a year to adapt to this dramatic change.

The diocese insists that some churches must close.

All hearts are welcome to stay open.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House: "Life Happens" and "… and His Lovely Wife." To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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