Cleveland West Side Market

Bishop Richard Lennon's Cleveland Catholic Diocese church closings under ...

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Vatican is investigating Bishop Richard Lennon's closings of churches in the Cleveland Catholic Diocese, according to a report in an Italian newspaper.

A spokesman for the diocese said Tuesday he would look into the account, but had no immediate comment.

The report Friday in the Italian newspaper La Stampa by veteran Vatican journalist Marco Tosatti, said the Vatican has decided to send "an apostolic visit, or rather, an investigation" to look into Lennon's decisions on the closings.

Lennon, citing changes in Catholic demographics, a shortage of priests and dwindling Sunday cash collections, ordered the shuttering of 50 parishes, beginning in August 2009 and ending in June 2010.

Going from church to church each Sunday to say final Masses, Lennon, escorted by armed body guards, became a target for protestors and the subject of angry letters to Rome.

More than a dozen Cleveland-area churches appealed their closings to the Holy See and are still waiting for decisions from a Vatican panel called the Congregation for the Clergy

The report published in La Stampa's "Vatican Insider" said, "... "The reasons that prompted the decision to close parishes in Cleveland have been the flow of population to outlying areas, the financial difficulties that have seen 42 percent of parish budgets finish in the red and the shortage of priests.

" . . . The apostolic visit will serve to ascertain the facts."

Tosatti did not immediately respond to an email from The Plain Dealer, seeking more details.

The Italian paper said the Congregation for the Clergy is preparing guidelines on how "each individual diocese must act to rebuild its presence in their area." The guidelines could be ready by October, the newspaper said.

"The protests of the faithful . . . have been numerous and loud and have reached the Vatican," the paper continued.

The protests also reached Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the papal nuncio -- the Vatican's U.S. ambassador -- in Washington, D.C., according to author Jason Berry in his new book "Render Unto Rome," released this month.

Berry says that Sambi, who had gotten angry letters about Lennon from Cleveland, told Boston Catholic activist Peter Borre last year that "he would authorize an apostolic visitation, an investigation of Lennon by another prelate."

Meanwhile, local Catholics opposed to the church closings will gather for a prayer service Thursday on Cleveland's near West Side at St. Emeric Hungarian Catholic Church. The service comes on the one-year anniversary of closing St. Emeric's, the last church shuttered under Lennon's downsizing.

Cleveland West Side Market « Flash Parker

If you’ve followed my work with any regularity over the past few years you know that I love shooting markets. Specifically, I love shooting South East Asian markets – the grimier, the grungier, the better. I have yet to encounter a market anywhere in the Western World as full of life, culinary delights and sheer filth that can compare to even the tamest of markets in a place like Cambodia or Indonesia.

Cleveland’s West Side Market isn’t grimy or grungy, either. It is, however, a fantastically diverse emporium of ethnic curious, loaded with culinary treasures and bursting at the seams with friendly, good-natured American Midwest folk. If you want to throw out the word authentic, this is the time to do it. I don’t get excited about shooting America’s urban chaos all that often but I got up for this one. Can’t wait to do it again.

Check it out: I’m presenting here a little snapshot of my work from the West Side Market. One of the things I’ve been more cognizant of lately is color pallets, tonality, similarity and synchronicity among sets of images. This is very important for me in my editorial and travel work. It’s also very important to Ed McGowan; Ed is one of my favorite photographers and always has tonality and synchronicity in mind when he’s shooting. Check out what I mean in this set here . Anyway, I hope you consider tonality when you’re creating your own sets of images and especially when working for clients; editorial jobs, weddings, engagements, bar mitzvahs… always, always keep in mind the set of images you’ll be generating as a whole. One frame in black and white, one in colour, one HDR’d until your eyes are sore does not make for a good set of images (though there are, of course, exceptions to the rule!

NARD journal

Rockefeller's Cleveland

Cleveland Ethnic Eats, The Guide to Authentic Ethnic Restaurants and Markets in Greater Cleveland

Cleveland, Ohio, A Photographic Portrait

Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science