Return to Links and Resources Page(Plain Dealer Editorial - appearing April 17, 1996)
Bishop Pilla preaches a vision of regional salvation that's good for Greater Cleveland's body and soul
It was good to learn that the Church in the City Bishop Anthony M. Pilla's ambitious plan to unite inner-city and suburban residents, has not flagged. To the contrary, the idea, hatched two years ago, is becoming the cornerstone of the Cleveland Catholic Diocese's social policy.
Pilla is asking Catholics and people of other faiths, whether they live in the suburbs or the cities, whether they are rich or poor, or black or white or brown, to remember and recognize their connections. At a time when some of the affluent have written off the poor as ne'er do wells and the poor are resigned to going their own way, this is a radical message.
But Pilla has not stopped there. He has also used his office to criticize urban sprawl and to insist that the mission of the church focus on worship and good works in poor areas.
To those who have left Cleveland to forge a new and better life for their families, it may seem as though the bishop is cursing their good fortune. His is not. Instead, to all who treasure Greater Cleveland, Pilla is issuing a call to arms and alms.
The Church in the City is suffused with optimism that Catholics and other people of good will can improve Cleveland's neighborhoods. It calls - for partnerships between urban and suburban parishes and between urban and suburban parish schools. Some such parings already exist.
It asks Catholics to use their influence to slow outmigration and to discourage transportation, sewer and water policies that create breakneck growth in the far suburbs at the cost of economic and social abandonment of the city.
The plan asks suburbanites to renew Cleveland through housing development, gardening projects, education and job training projects.
This is a tough charge for a city where East Side residents admit they get lost on the West Side and vice versa. And as the bishop noes , some suburbanites, when confronted with a request to help solve the city's problems, are sorely tempted to turn their backs and grumble, "Those problems are exactly why I left."
An eight-county diocese, however, gives Pilla a view afforded few of the region's leaders. His concern extends far beyond city and even county boundaries, and he rightly perceives the dangers inherent in a Cleveland Collapse. The Church in the City seeks a way out of that peril.
Doubtless some projects and partnerships created in a burst of enthusiasm will, because of distance, time and lack of commitment, fail.
But bringing together Greater Cleveland for the betterment of all is not an impossible task. Indeed the US Catholic Church has done some of its most vital work in the cities - educating youngsters whose families need and affordable alternative to public schools, feeding the hungry and caring for the ill. Even though the numbers of Catholics in Cleveland have dwindled from 234,000 in 1950 to 127,000 in 1990, the church has tried to maintain its educational, social and spiritual services to those who remain.
Now the church is asking for all Greater Clevelanders to volunteer their time, their spirit and their prayers to the important task of renewing Cleveland. It should be a catholic cause for all those who value this region.