Closing parishes among new bishop's challenges

Richard G. Lennon will be installed as the diocese's 10th bishop during a Mass today.
CLEVELAND (AP) -- The new leader of the Cleveland Diocese's 800,000 Catholics faces a number of challenges, including a priest shortage and the possible closing of some parishes.
Challenges are nothing new to Bishop Richard G. Lennon, who led the Boston Archdiocese at the height of the clergy sex abuse scandal and was faced with closing his boyhood church.
Lennon will be installed as the diocese's 10th bishop during a Mass today, taking over for Bishop Anthony M. Pilla, who is retiring after 25 years.
Lennon noted that he was humbled by Pope Benedict XVI's selection of him as bishop on April 4.
That day, when he spoke to the media in Cleveland, one of the first questions asked was, "Do you favor the Red Sox or the Indians?"
But Lennon, whose Boston accent will be just as out of place in Cleveland as his love for the Red Sox, faces greater challenges than the questioning of his baseball allegiance.
Widespread issue
While the growing priest shortage is a widespread issue for the Roman Catholic church, the Cleveland Diocese will have to run 233 parishes with the thinning ranks of about 460 active priests.
Pilla has closed just one parish and merged two others since 2002, instead establishing a program in which parishes share resources. But church closings would seem inevitable, particularly in the inner-city.
Lennon, 59, hopes his experience as an auxiliary bishop in Boston, and head of the committee responsible for consolidating the archdiocese, will help him in Cleveland. Among the more than 60 church closings in Boston was his home parish, St. James the Apostle, whose church was built by his grandfather and great-uncles.
"I appreciate in a very real sense that there's pain and a real sense of loss," Lennon said. "These aren't just any old buildings. These are buildings where some very holy things have happened that have touched individual lives and family lives."