The Observation Deck

Does anyone know what happened with the Cleveland/Lakewood Church Cluster announcement last night? Which churches are merging / closing?

The meeting was not about closing that actually won't happen for several months.
What happened last night at all the parishes was to inform the Parishioners what the scenarios that were to be put forward to the Bishop for his consideration.

Essentially, the scenarios are either a 3 Church variation and a small group within the Vibrant Parish Life Committee would shrink to just two parishes.

All the parishes except for St. Rose and St. Hedwig's are in the various scenarios.

The report will be submitted on Ocotber 15th. There are still a couple of more Local VPL committee and Diocesan reviews to take place before Bishop Lennon will even begin his deliberation.

Do you know anything specific about the plan for St. Clement's? Thanks

Hello --

I'm the communications liaison for the 30 member cluster planning team. I'll share a bit of what's been going on, and where we are headed.

After 15 months of meetings and work, the team has reached consensus on several of the goals set forth by the Bishop. Last night (Sept. 23), we shared our progress with cluster parishioners at town hall meetings. Each parish held a meeting at the same time using the same presentation materials and data. The attendees were encouraged to ask questions and make suggestions. Following the meeting each person was provided a sheet that allowed them to express support or share concerns about our approach. These sheets are being collected and the suggestions will be incorporated into our final proposal submission, due October 15.

The clusters of the Diocese are on rolling deadlines to spread out the workload ... some were due September 15, some are due next month and some in November. There are committees reviewing the proposals before they reach the Bishop. We have been told that decisions will be rendered mid to late first quarter of 2009.

It is true that the three, three-parish models do not incorporate St. Rose or St. Hedwig, but at this point there it is not possible to speculate on the final structure of the cluster. Because of strong feelings among a subset of the group that a two parish structure would be more viable, a "minority report" is going to be submitted as part of our recommendation expressing their views. The timeline for implementation will be approximately 18 months.

If you would like to view more information, you can find it on a web site we created, http://www.ourcluster.net

St. Clement appears in several scenarios, but not all. Let me also say as a cautionary tale, St. James which is my parish does not appear in all the scenarios too.

Will the presentation materials and slides be available on the cluster website? I was unable to attend the meeting last night. Thanks

Yes. .. I do not think it is up yet, but the web master has received the request to post it on the site.