Questions for Bishop Richard Lennon

Lennon Takes Over & Futurechurch Gets the BOOT!!!

2006-06-02T21:36:00.000-07:00

From Call to action: Now that Bishop Pilla has resigned and Bishop Lennon has taken over, the Futurechurch national headquaters is being kicked off diocesan property:

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:Vc0wNRBjP-MJ:www.ctanewengland.org/+FutureChurch+needs+your+help&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1

Call To Action/New England is proud to be a member of the Coalition for the Freedom to Marry. We encourage your support in assisting MassEquality and in doing whatever you can do to defeat this pending amendment. You can contact MassEquality.org for more information.

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FutureChurch needs your help

You may know that Archbishop Pila has been succeeded by Richard Lennon, late of the Boston Diocese. It sounds as though there is a crackdown on everything that looks progressive. The letter below is a request for badly needed help.

FutureChurch

15800 Montrose Avenue

Cleveland, Ohio 44111 USA

Phone: 216.228.0869 | Fax: 216.228.4872

E-mail: info@futurechurch.orgma.

Dear Friend:

Faced with an enormous challenge, we turn to you, one of our special friends, to ask for help.

For 15 years, FutureChurch has been able to devote maximum resources to our educational
and advocacy efforts because our offices have been in very low-cost parish based space.

Now, we have been asked to move out of the rectory basement that has been our home
for 8 years. We must find new space by August 1st and know that we have no choice but
to find commercial rental space. Doing so will have a significant impact on our operating budget.

There is no possibility of finding space in another church. Diocesan officials have made
no secret of their desire to deny FutureChurch access to church property for our activities – including educational programs and prayer services. And, as many of you know, FutureChurch
has been the subject of a nasty, vilifying campaign by a self-proclaimed group, which has also harassed pastors who have been supportive of our mission.

We anticipate that going to commercial space will quadruple our office overhead costs. Added
to this ongoing operating expense are the costs of moving and replacing office furnishings that
were in the basement when we moved in.

We hesitate to turn to you for help, knowing that you have recently received our annual
Pentecost appeal, which provides funds vitally needed to maintain and expand our programs.
But, we have no choice if we want to continue to move ahead with our educational and advocacy programs, including The Future of Priestly Ministry and Women in Church Leadership, at their current level.

As you know, we are hard at working at expanding our Mary of Magdala celebrations to include
a post card campaign to urge that bishops welcome women as proclaimers and preachers of the Gospel. We are also collecting signatures on a letter to Bishop Wuerl, a member of committee drafting the Pope’s Post-Eucharistic Synod with the hope of encouraging the Vatican to adopt meaningful solutions to the priest shortage. We are also moving full speed ahead on our newest advocacy project, Save Our Parish Communities, designed to give Catholic parishioners tools to meet the challenges of maintaining vibrant parishes in a time of fewer priests and closing parishes.

The FutureChurch Leadership Council and staff express our gratitude to the St. Mark Parish Council, the wonderful parishioners of St. Mark and, especially, former pastor, Fr. Doug Koesel
for providing us with office space for these past eight years. We will miss our good neighbors
and our parish-based home.

We are especially sad to be asked to leave church property because we believe that discussing opening ordination to all who are called and advocating for greater lay involvement in the life of the Church are very important to the future of our Church. We should be talking about these critical issues in every Catholic parish, every Catholic school, and every Catholic home. Otherwise, we risk losing access to Eucharist and losing our parishes because of the ever-worsening priest shortage.

FutureChurch will keep these important discussions alive as we work “to participate in the formulating and expressing the Sensus Fidelium (the Spirit inspired beliefs of the faithful)
through open, prayerful and enlightened dialogue with other Catholics locally and globally.”

Thanks to the commitment, trust and generosity of people like you, FutureChurch has grown
in fifteen short years from an all-volunteer, ad hoc committee of Catholics concerned about loss
of Eucharist to a nationally respected voice advocating for renewal of our Church in the spirit
of Vatican II.

We now have 3 full-time and 2 part-time paid staff supplemented by many, many wonderful volunteers. Their commitment, energy and dedication – and willingness to work in a basement
amidst washing machines and furnaces, without windows and coping with chronic water leaks – have made our work possible.

We can only move forward in our work to renew our Church with your help. We ask
you to be especially generous, responding to our Pentecost appeal and then digging a little deeper to help us with the extraordinary costs that having to move will add to our budget.

We, all the members of the FutureChurch Leadership Council and staff, are grateful to you for
your faithful support and for your commitment to our mission and to our Church.

With trust and hope in the Spirit who is working to make all things new.

Sincerely,

Arline Nosse J. Gerard Sheehan Chris Schenk csj

Co-Chairs, Leadership Council Executive Director

P.S. Please be as generous as possible. We really do need your help.

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Thanks Catholic Bloggers

2006-05-15T17:25:00.000-07:00

Some fellow bloggers like our Questions:

http://www.bettnet.com/blog/index.php/weblog/questions_for_bishop_richard_lennon/

http://mydomesticchurch.blogspot.com/2006/05/bishop-lennon.html

http://slatts.blogspot.com/2006/05/questions-for-bishop-richard-lennon.html

http://carrietomko.blogspot.com/2006/05/three-questions-for-bishop-lennon.html

http://catholic-mom.blogspot.com/

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1631669/posts

http://www.cleveland.com/forums/religion/

Questions for Bishop Richard Lennon

2006-05-13T08:10:00.000-07:00

Three Questions for Bishop Richard Lennon from Hopeful Cleveland Catholics

1) After years of silence and just days before his ad limina visit with Pope John Paul II, Bishop Anthony Pilla issued a statement condemning the heretical group Futurechurch and stating, in pertinent part, "it is not appropriate for the activities and meetings of 'Future Church' to be held in church related institutions and/or parish facilities."

Sadly, Bishop Pilla had no intent of enforcing this statement which was never enforced and the national headquarters of Futurechurch remains on diocese of Cleveland property. Note addresses shared by Futurechurch and St. Mark Church:

________________________________

From http://www.futurechurch.org/ :

FutureChurch 15800 Montrose Avenue Cleveland, Ohio 44111 USA Phone: 216.228.0869 Fax: 216.228.4872 E-mail: info@futurechurch.org

_______________________________

From http://www.cleveland.catholicnet.com/parish/stmark/veland.catholicnet.com/parish/stmark/

St. Mark Church 15800 Montrose Avenue Cleveland, Ohio 44111 E-mail:
________________________________

Bishop Lennon, will you have the courage to remove Futurechurch from diocesan property and remove from our Seminary those teachers who support Futurechurch?

---

2) Homosexual Rainbow Gay Pride Symbols continue to be displayed on the Diocese of Cleveland website.

http://www.dioceseofcleveland.org/gayandlesbianfamilyministry/mission/index.htm

http://www.dioceseofcleveland.org/gayandlesbianfamilyministry/other_support/index.htm

http://www.dioceseofcleveland.org/gayandlesbianfamilyministry/other_support/index.htm

Bishop Lennon, will you remove these Homosexual Rainbow Gay Pride Symbols from our diocesan website?

3) As reported by the Cardinal Newman Society,

http://www.cardinalnewmansociety.org/Publications/CHEA/CHEA_2005_02_18.htm ,

John Carroll University in its newly revised "Community Standards Manual," refers its students to a pro-abortion counseling center:

The manual recommends either the University Counseling Center or the Cleveland RapeCrisis Center to students who may have suffered a sexual offense. But last year Cardinal Newman Society disclosed the latter Center's membershipin the Freedom of Choice Cleveland Coalition, which advocates abortionrights. The Cleveland Rape Crisis Center was the originally designatedrecipient of funds raised from last year's performance of The VaginaMonologues, but protests convinced university officials to redirect thefunds to another charity. Apparently the Center was not worthy offunding, but it is entrusted with counseling John Carroll's students whomay be pregnant as a result of rape or incest.

On April 10, a sanctioned John Carroll University homosexual student organization presented on campus the play, "Queer Monolouges."

It is also of great concern that seminary students for the Diocese of Cleveland take classes at John Carroll University.

A couple years ago, one such seminary student penned the following cry for help:

As a seminarian and student at John Carroll University, I feel it my moral
obligation to bring to your attention the following advertisement and activity
taking place at John Carroll the Jesuit University in Cleveland, OH. I will send
you a photo copy of the advertisement when I can gain access to a scanner. Until
that time I will give you the text of the advertisement that has been hung all
over the university (Student dorms, academic buildings etc.)

ALLIES JCU's

Gay/Straight AlliancePresents life partners Sean Donovan and Thomas Ferrara--One of the first gay male couples married in the state of Massachusetts" Picture of
protesters next to sign entitled "Gay Marriage is
our Right!" and holding a sign "I support Trans equality!" New members are welcome! Wednesday September 22 AD 258 at 9PM

I and many others have had enough of this garbage. It has gone too far
and is an abomination. This is a Catholic institution. Please call and email our
President (Father Glynn), Sister Mary Ann Flannery(Head of Communications Dept.) and Bishop Pilla to stop this outrage.

John Paul II, in his document "Ex Corde Ecclesiae" called for the return of a Catholic identity to Catholic universities and colleges and, in the spirit of their Catholic tradition, the certification of those professors.

Bishop Lennon, John Carroll University is a hotbed of dissent and anti-Catholicism. What do you intend to do about John Carroll University and will you continue to let our seminarians take classes there?

Bishop Lennon, you are in our thoughts and prayers. Get to work!