In Cleveland, on May 2, 2010, Bishop Lennon stands outside Sacred Heart of Jesus Church as parishioners leave a mass that he was part of. The church had always been a Polish parish, that went back to a time when every neighborhood and every ethnicity in that neighborhood had their own church, to the extent that you could live a few blocks away but could not attend school there because your country of origin didn’t match the church.
In 2009 the Catholic diocese began to close what they considered to be poorly attended churches that happened to be ethnic. Although this was still considered a Polish church with an active congregation, who of course, was largely Polish, it had to close.
The bishop, came in from Boston, and replaced what were a succession of native born Cleveland bishops. He was given the task of closing 30 churches permanently, most of which have been around for over 100 years. Even from a secular point of you, the history and architecture was too good to waste, but the loss from the inside would be stunning. Almost every church protested to some degree, and the vehemence aimed at the bishop was reflected in the bodyguards and security that continued to enlarge as more churches met their ends.
Shooting the entire event over a number of years I would always see Bishop Lennon at each of the church’s last masses. He didn’t miss one, and stood before packed churches of parisioners who hated what was happening. Protests and vigils went on for two years, and, it’s Cleveland, where folks have no filter on most things, let alone their most cherished things, like the church your ancestors built, and where everyone you know was baptized, married and buried there, and, they would occasionally let him have it.
And this guy faced it on Sundays for two years.