Render Unto Rome by Jason Berry Page A

charm Cleveland’s civic elite? “There are many things that a bishop is engaged in internally,” he began. “Preaching and teaching, celebrating the sacraments and pastoral care … I entitled our little talk today, ‘The Church Going Forward.’ ” The transcript suggests Lennon spoke extemporaneously or possibly from notes. The syntax is excruciating:
Certainly, one of the things that strikes me but also strikes many people as looking for the church’s attention at the present moment is the need for education and formation within the Catholic community …
We are in need of solid religious education in the parish programs for youth in our Catholic schools and, in particular, as the Catholic bishops in the United States increasingly have focused on is adult education and formation. There’s a crying need for all of us within the Catholic community to know our faith so that we in turn may live it as fully as possible. 7
    Declaring “no shortcuts” for adult religious education, Lennon mentions his work for vocations. Then he cites two phases in Vibrant Parish Life.
The first one was to invite parishioners of their diocese as parishioners of parishes to reflect on the vibrancy, the vitality, the energy of their particular parish to really come to understand who they were and what they were doing with the idea that the second phase would be when parishes would then begin to work together to enhance and to better what their internal life had been.
There are all kinds of concern about what may happen with the clustering. I must say in the past week and a half since the letters went out, we have received only four replies, two of which was congratulatory, one was questioning and one asked for reconsideration.
I think the low response is reflective of how the process was done and the respect with which the various parish requests as to who they would be clustered with were respected.
To a very large percent, the parishes were clustered with those who they had mentioned in their own report. My hope is that this will be an opportunity for all of our parishes and all the people in the parishes to enhance their own Catholic life … The clustering process with the good will of the people and their energy will in fact do what Bishop Pilla had envisioned to be an opportunity for the church to revigorize itself going forward.
    Returning to “the church’s interaction in the larger community,” Lennon assessed Catholic education:
The schools, especially as we see them, but not exclusively in the inner cities, the church is committed to not only educating, but helping people to give them an opportunity … I have visited now twelve of our Catholic high schools, many of which have large numbers of nonCatholic students, and I feel confident that the contribution we’re making is indeed a helpful contribution and a significant one. It does challenge us, however, as a church to be able to continue to offer this because of resources and personnel, and yet I personally would want us to be able to always offer what we’re offering today.
    Turning to Catholic Charities, with its large budget, he was on surer footing, reviewing various programs, and thanking members of the development office in the audience “for all that they have done … so that we, as a diocese, can make a contribution to the larger community.”
    Bishop Lennon cited scripture to convey his idea of faith.
As we go forward as a diocese, we do so in a dual relationship, as I see it. One relationship as a bishop, I call the Catholic community to a deeper relationship with God. First and foremost, we are a religion. We are a faith community. So, as a bishop, my concern is a relationship with God that, in turn, enlivens the lives of individuals so that they in turn may have a committed relationship with all of their brothers and sisters in these eight counties. When Our Lord was asked what is the greatest commandment, he answers very succinctly, to love God