Community of St. Peter--Amazing Ecclesial Community in Cleveland

Yesterday, the Feast of Pentecost, I celebrated the coming of the Holy Spirit by attending mass with Kathleen O'Neill Webb and Rick Webb at the Community of St. Peter, which is now located in a historic old building at E. 71st Street and Euclid Ave. in Cleveland, Ohio. The community moved to this building when Bishop Richard Lennon closed the community's historic (and beautiful) old church a few years ago. Old St. Peter's was located at the corner of E.17th and Superior. My great grandfather, Cornelius Coughlin, an immigrant from Ireland, married my great grandmother, Lizzie Ierg, an immigrant from Germany, somewhere around 1885 in Old St. Peter's. So I took it personally when the bishop shuttered the historic old church.

A view of old St. Peter's Church

The community took the blow, which must have been a kind of death, and they have risen into a new facility. They have an absolutely thriving, dynamic community. Here is a photo of the outside of their new facility:

Well, from the outside it doesn't have the beauty of the old church. But they are beginning to make the inside their own. One of the first things you see as you enter the room is a beautiful holy water/baptismal font, carved from a solid piece of stone found by Lake Erie. The font is quietly powerful, solid, and beautiful. I heard the font as well as the altar were sculpted by the Koehn Sculptors from Green Road in South Euclid. Here is their website: Koehn Sculptors.

St. Pete's Holy Water Font

The simple, beautiful Altar

The mass was packed--possibly 250 people around the altar. There was a 15-person choir, with musicians playing grand piano, viola, and violin. The music was wonderful! And maybe most wonderful of all was an Alleluia called "Heleluyan: Traditional Muskogee Creek Indian Song." It was accompanied by powerful drumming and interesting and very different harmonies. I located a Youtube version of this Muskogee Creek Indian hymn:



Fr. Bob Marrone is a powerful figure. He is serious, focused, and charismatic. I think his fellow community members really love him. In his sermon he talked about failure of imagination as one of the central flaws of our time. I am sure he is right about this. He also discussed the beautiful image by Emil Nolde that was on the cover of the church bulletin. Nolde, one of the greatest of 20th Century artists, entitled this work "Pentecost." Here it is:

Emil Nolde's "Pfingsten" (Pentecost)

Fr. Bob pointed out how Peter is at the center of this painting. Peter was the fool, the failure, the apostle who denounced Jesus three times--and yet is the "rock" of the Church. That gives hope for fools and failures like us, like me!

After the mass there was coffee and some food. There I met some old friends, including Pat and Mike Coughlin (who are friends in spirit, but no close cousins, as far as I can tell), and Tim Musser. Tim is really an amazingly focused worker for peace and justice, and a friend of many of my friends, including Chris Cotter, my roommate for many years in Cincinnati.

Mike Coughlin and Tim Musser

As I left the building I met Cormac Somerville. He comes from Dublin, Ireland. I have met and played Irish music with his brother, Dermot Somerville, one of the finest Irish musicians in Greater Cleveland.

All in all, this was a wonderful, Spirit-filled experience at the Community of St. Peter. I plan to come back often.

Bishop Lennon's Excommunication of Fr. Bob Marrone Is Baloney!

Cleveland's bishop, Richard Lennon, announced yesterday the excommunication of one of the diocese's great priests, Fr. Bob Marrone. Fr. Marrone is the leader of the Community of St. Peter. Not long ago he was pastor of  St. Peter's Church, one of Cleveland's oldest and most historic parishes (my great grandparents, Cornelius Coughlin and Lizzie Ierg were married there in the 1880s!). Then a couple years ago Bishop Lennon closed this vibrant community down (this closing and about 11 other closings were later overturned by the Vatican--a slap in the face of Bishop Lennon). When the church was closed, Fr. Marrone and about 300 parishioners moved to another location, 7100 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44104, where they've re-established their vibrant community. To see what the Community of St. Peter is doing, check out their website: http://communityofstpeter.org/.

Bishop Lennon has damaged the Diocese of Cleveland severely since his tenure began. He continues to do that.

My prayers are with Fr. Bob Marrone and his community members. My advice: just keep following where the Holy Spirit leads you!

Reopening of Closed Catholic Churches: A Reason for Celebration

Yesterday it became official: 12 Catholic churches that appealed their closing by Bishop Richard Lennon will reopen. This is an astonishing turn around, totally unexpected when you think of the power of a bishop in the Catholic Church. Three parishes that I cared most about, St. Peter in Cleveland (right near Cleveland State--about 18th and Superior), St. James in Lakewood, and St. Patrick in the West Park neighborhood of Cleveland, will all reopen before the end of the year. This is the result of hard work and considerable prayer. Some smart people must have understood Vatican procedures and Canon Law to get these closings overturned.

This is good for the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland, for the City of Cleveland, and for the Greater Cleveland area. It is also good for the Catholic church in America and around the world.

We can hope that there is reconciliation, understanding, and forgiveness for Bishop Lennon's actions of past years. Many will be quick to forgive and forget; but for me it's going to take a while!

Bishop Richard Lennon Damages the Cleveland Catholic Diocese

Last week, Bishop Richard Lennon announced the closing of some 52 parishes in the Diocese of Cleveland. Many historic parishes will be closed and then consolidated with other parishes. The consolidated parishes will have to change pastors and change their names. For instance, St. Robert's in Euclid will close their church and consolidate with St. William's (the parish I grew up in). Then a new pastor will be appointed at St. William's, and the name of this 60-year-old parish will be changed (the joke is that it will be changed to St. Billy-Bob's). The City of Euclid, with some 50,000 residents, will close 3 parishes. Historic St. Paul's will close and merge with St. Felicitas; St. Christine's will close and merge with Holy Cross; and as mentioned, St. Robert's will close and merge with St.William's. No Roman Catholic parish in Euclid will have the same name (this name change doesn't affect the Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes or the Byzantine Catholic Church of St. Stephen, institutions outside the authority of Bishop Lennon). I am sorry to hear about St. Paul's, because it's the Mother Church of Euclid. But it no longer has a neighborhood around it, and the church building itself is extremely modest. What does bother me is that the cemetery behind St. Paul's will no longer be guarded by the school and church. My grandmother, Margaret Ann Fitzpatrick, is buried there, as are many, many other relatives (Broughan's, Fitzpatrick's, Sweeney's, and so on).


I am much more concerned with the closure of historic churches and architectural treasures within the City of Cleveland and in inner-ring suburbs, in particular the closing of St. Colman's, St. Ignatius of Antioch, St. James (in Lakewood), and St. Peter's. St. Colman's is being closed despite the overwhelming recommendation of committees which worked on these issues. It is an important historical treasure as well as an inner-city parish that reaches out to so many different constituencies: Latinos, poor, elderly, the hungry. It is pastored by Fr. Bob Begin, a prophetic presence in the city for many decades. St. Ignatius of Antioch is a West Side landmark and architectural treasure. And the closing of St. Peter's, the oldest Catholic church in the diocese, breaks my heart. St. Pete's is one of the most progressive communities in the region, with no debt, and a dynamic community (http://www.historicstpeters.org/index.html). The pastor is Fr. Bob Marrone, a gifted leader, and the church is a monument to the German Catholic pioneers of Cleveland. My great grandparents, Cornelius Coughlin, born in Ireland, and Lizzie Ierg, born in Germany, were married there in the early 1880's. The parish serves both the middle class and the poor of the area. It was put in a "cluster" with St. John's Cathedral in a process that can only be described as rigged--the fix was in! Let's hope the appeal process is not also fixed!

Catholic bishops have tremendous power, and Bishop Richard Lennon is an outsider, who doesn't adequately understand the history or culture of the Cleveland Catholic Diocese the way retired Bishop Anthony Pilla did. What kills me is that we Clevelanders built and paid for these parishes, and yet we have almost no say in whether these parishes survive. Tearing down these temples of prayer, community, and history will greatly damage our community as well as individual lives. And it will ultimately do no good for our diocese or the Catholic Church in general. What it has done is to sow anger, discouragement, and even hatred. Whose Church is this? Is it just the church of bishops?