Render Unto Rome

by Jason Berry

  Griffin, who is retired, refused to make any comment when I called him. But Griffin’s hiring of Smith, after the explosive media coverage, is all the more striking because Griffin was a lawyer. Signaling his trust in Smith despite the messy compensation package, Griffin obviously did not think he would get indicted.

  Charlie Feliciano had another take. The diocese’s internal dynamics reminded him of the mafia. On June 5, 2005, he filed suit on behalf of thirty-seven Cleveland parishioners as plaintiffs in state court against Pilla, Smith, and Zgoznik, accusing them of defrauding the diocese, seeking $1 million in restitution, and demanding that Ohio’s attorney general conduct a full investigation of the diocese “as a charitable trust.”75

  The court dismissed the suit on the grounds that Feliciano’s clients “must claim that they personally have a particular interest in the substance of the trust.” But, tellingly, Judge Stuart A. Friedman opined: “The Court finds that it does have jurisdiction over allegations of fiscal mismanagement, even when the alleged misconduct relates to the operation of a hierarchical church, so long as matters of faith, dogma and religious practice are not impinged.”76 Disappointed, Feliciano had nonetheless magnified the ties between Pilla, Zgoznik, and Smith, who was then at work in Columbus.

  In January 2006 Bishop Pilla, age seventy-three, two years shy of mandatory retirement, decided to retire. “It’s time for a change,” his statement said.77

  Sister Chris Schenk flew to Rome in late March, leading a pilgrimage of thirty-one women on a tour of ancient Christian sites. A second-century fresco in the catacomb of Saint Priscilla depicts a woman breaking bread, the Eucharist, with six other women. “We would like to talk to our leaders,” she said in an NPR interview, “and tell them of our experience—how we can begin to re-institute that wonderful balanced leadership we had in the first three centuries of both women and men leading the communities.”78

  Still in Rome, on April 4, 2006, she heard the news: Pope Benedict had appointed Bishop Richard Lennon of Boston to take Pilla’s place. Schenk had gotten an earful on Lennon in late February at a conference in Boston, where she met Peter Borré and others in the vigil movement. When a reporter called Borré for comment on Lennon’s new position, he blurted out, “God help the people of Cleveland.” To the best of his knowledge the quote never ran.

  CHAPTER 10

  PROSECUTION AND SUPPRESSION

  For a second time, Richard Lennon assumed control of a diocese damaged by dishonest bishops, concealed sex offenders, and mismanaged money. Lennon’s mentor Cardinal Law had left financial craters, and although Archbishop Seán O’Malley was now himself a cardinal, Boston’s debt hole had grown steadily deeper. In Cleveland, Lennon found a different milieu. Despite the abuse scandal and overhanging financial questions, many people thought fondly of Pilla for his pastoral warmth and Church in the City agenda. Retired in his hometown, Bishop Pilla was still saying Masses as the FBI investigated Joe Smith, Anton Zgoznik, and the web of diocesan finances.

  Despite the agonizing inner-city poverty and issues of deferred maintenance in Lennon’s new diocese, Cleveland Catholic Charities had a budget of $92 million, nearly three times Boston’s. The programs afforded a bishop access to media photo ops and events to meet donors and politicians to establish his presence. Dick Lennon was an introvert. Although he made public appearances, he typically got to his desk before dawn, toiling some nights till eleven. His formal manner was often brusque; the thick Boston accent held few hints of joy. At a meeting for clergy dialogue he spoke for nearly three hours, leaving a brief window for priests’ comments. Most priests had found Pilla warm and approachable. Lennon was cold, though he gave Cleveland his workaholic best.

  Lennon arrived as a virtuous counterweight to the sleazy, unfolding narrative about church finances. On August 16, 2006, a federal grand jury indicted Anton Zgoznik and Joseph Smith (who then resigned as CFO of the Columbus diocese) on an array of counts for money laundering, mail fraud, and filing false income tax returns. A pivotal charge centered on a 1996 agreement in which Father John Wright, identified in the indictment only as “the then Financial and Legal Secretary,” agreed to pay Smith $270,000 above his salary, as a bonus for staying on the job. The bill of particulars stated:

  The understanding was that the payment would be in lieu of any additional raises for the next five years, other than cost-of-living increases. ZGOZNIK participated in the arrangement by helping to urge the Financial and Legal Secretary to agree to the payment and by helping transfer the Diocese funds under the arrangement.1

  An attorney for Wright said he had been “duped” and “unfortunately placed his trust in individuals that [sic] abused that trust,” reported the Plain Dealer. “He didn’t give Smith a raise and then say, ‘Go put it in a secret fund and don’t tell anybody about it.’ ”

  Zgoznik’s companies got $17.5 million from the diocese between 1996 and 2003, prosecutors said. In return, Zgoznik paid $784,000 to companies owned by Smith. Those payments were kickbacks, prosecutors said.2

  Reading the account, Charlie Feliciano shook his head. Father Wright, who idolized Joe Smith and played golf with him and Anton, needed urging by Anton to embrace Joe’s sweetheart deal? Wright officiated at Anton’s wedding; he baptized his baby boy. Although Feliciano was glad to see the wheels of justice finally turn, the indictment was odd in its reliance on the passive voice. A special investments account “was set up” using the diocese’s not-for-profit tax ID. The only check signers were Joe Smith—and Father Wright.

  Every indictment has a narrative strategy. Prosecutors develop a story line for judge and jury as the investigation settles on its targets. The prosecutors choose the key witnesses, and documents, to build a case. If necessary, some witnesses get immunity. Successful testimony typically comes from people who were victims, witnessed crimes or the steps that led to crimes, or had a role in such acts and are eager to avoid prison. If Father John Wright was “duped,” why was Pilla passive about Joe Smith’s heading down the road to manage diocesan finances in Columbus after being sacked in Cleveland?

  Catholic Charities and the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland Foundation issued a joint statement that funds were “being properly managed to benefit children, the elderly, people who are poor and so many other important ministries.” Financial reports were posted. The diocese announced full cooperation with the U.S. Attorney and said it was “taking steps to recover lost funds … Any suggestion that the Diocese of Cleveland or its leadership approved or knew of the conduct alleged in the indictment at issue is flatly wrong and inaccurate.”3

  LENNON’S AGENDA TAKES SHAPE

  On January 30, 2007, Bishop Lennon, his spokesman, and a nun on his staff met with the FutureChurch founders Father Lou Trivison and Sister Chris Schenk, along with two of their colleagues. They wanted to strike a dialogue for preserving parishes and foster cordial ties without conflict or censure from the bishop. In Pilla’s final year, the diocese had forced FutureChurch to vacate rented space at St. Mark parish; the group moved to a storefront office in the inner-ring town of Lakewood.

  Bishop Lennon listened, nodding occasionally as Sister Chris cited a national study which found that 40 percent of merged parishes lost members, while churches that stayed open with “parish directors” did better.4 When she was done, Lennon noted that he’d been in Cleveland for eight months; why hadn’t he seen them before? Unsure whether it was a threat or a compliment, she took the question as rhetorical. The priest shortage, he said, was not the problem. “It’s all about demographics and finances.” (In Boston, with its soaring debt, he had told Father Josoma’s group it was not about money. In Cleveland, it was.)

  Schenk and her colleague Emily Hoag pointed out that the diocese’s Vibrant Parish Life Committee had cited the priest shortage in its statement. Lennon reiterated: the problem was not the priest shortage—42 percent of Cleveland’s parishes were in the red; that was a problem. When two priests were serving ten thousand people in the suburbs, and f
ourteen worked in a small radius in the city with far fewer parishioners, he had to assess the assignments. Schenk replied that urban parishes anchor neighborhoods; they could keep on with pastoral life coordinators, trained laypeople and religious sisters. Lennon gave an example of three urban parishes that agreed to merge. For that, said the bishop, “People thanked me.” In contrast, he continued, another parish had spent down its savings to $218,000. How wise was that?

  Three years prior to Lennon’s arrival, the diocese had embarked on a process called Vibrant Parish Life, in which groups in small geographic areas met to assess their strengths and needs. In Boston, clustering had been the first step to closures, merged parishes, then Suppression. Like a dutiful debater, Lennon cited data, rebutting his visitors in a respectful manner that was nothing if not resolute. Schenk took comfort that he had refrained from criticizing FutureChurch for being at variance with church teaching, as Pilla had done in the swamps of scandal. Still, she couldn’t shake the impression that Lennon was rehearsing his talking points for later consumption. Sometimes, said Lennon, it took someone coming in from another place to have a fresh vision. In Boston he had closed or merged sixty-two parishes, with only a 2 percent drop in Mass attendance! Some Catholics in Boston had thanked him.

  Not the ones I’ve spoken with, thought Sister Chris.

  Lennon ended the meeting, saying the hour they had requested was up.

  Several days later the Cleveland Catholic Diocese released a financial statement. In 2006 the diocese reported revenues of $269.2 million, up $6.4 million from the preceding year. The diocese was in the black. Collection baskets had yielded $106.1 million, a 2 percent increase and “the highest since 2002 when the church first began to feel the impact of the clergy sex abuse scandal,” reported David Briggs in the Plain Dealer. The parochial schools, however, had a $26 million deficit. Spread across the parishes, from affluent to poor, church expenses had risen by 3.8 percent, while revenues lagged at 2.4 percent. Nevertheless, compared with Boston’s financial disaster, and the New Orleans archdiocese’s free fall after Hurricane Katrina, when 80 percent of the city flooded, Cleveland was in decent shape. Briggs scrutinized problem areas:

  The more than 20 percent jump in parishes operating in the red shows the wealth was not evenly shared. Many parishes in cities or inner-ring suburbs trying to hold on to their elementary schools face a particularly difficult road. The mixed financial results come as the diocese is going through an extensive process … in which all parishes will be placed in a cluster with up to five other churches.

  The clusters will work on plans for shared ministry. The changes could range from staggered Mass times to the closing or mergers of some parishes and schools.5

  On January 16, 2007, the PBS series Frontline aired a documentary by Joe Cultrera, Hand of God, that followed the Boston crisis through the long impact on Cultrera’s family, from his brother’s childhood abuse by a priest through his parents’ despair as the archdiocese closed their parish in Salem. As Bill Sheil watched the film, the reporter-anchorman was mesmerized by a sequence that opens with Lennon, in a Roman collar, smothering the lens with his hands. After watching the film, Sheil secured permission to air the scene on Fox 8, which ended Lennon’s honeymoon with the Cleveland media.

  As Lennon backs away from the camera, a short, bearded guy in a baseball cap enters the viewfinder: Joe Cultrera, with the Boston chancery building in the background. Cultrera tells Lennon, “I’m doing a film here. Doing a film about my family and the church … and need some shots here. This building—it was ten years ago my brother came here to report his abuse. Do you have a problem with me shooting here?”

  “Well, sir, it is private property,” says Lennon, who stands a full head taller than the filmmaker. At this point Lennon is not identified.

  “I did twelve years of Catholic school,” says Cultrera.

  “That does not—”

  “My family put so much money into this church.”

  “No, no, that has nothing to do with it,” replies Lennon, turning away, waving his hands in a dismissive motion.

  Provoked, Cultrera starts mimicking Lennon. “No, that has nothing to do with nothing. It’s always take, take, take.”

  Lennon turns. “Sir,” he says icily, “if you think you’re going to make me feel bad about this, you’re not.”

  “No, I know you guys don’t feel bad. You don’t feel anything.”

  “No, that’s not true. You can say whatever you want. The thing is that this man”—the cameraman—“had been asked to leave.”

  “Then he asked me, and I said, ‘Don’t worry, go ahead and shoot.’ ”

  “As if you have authority,” retorts Lennon.

  “I do have authority.”

  “No, you—”

  “Same as you do. How much money have you put into the church?”

  “That—Sir, that—”

  “My family has paid for the church. All you’ve done is taken.”

  Again, Lennon turns to leave.

  “You’ve got to walk away,” Cultrera calls. “You have no argument!”

  Taking the bait, Lennon turns again. “Sir, you have nothing to say. You’ve paid for nothing. Your family paid for nothing.”

  “We’ve paid with our souls, paid with our cash!” he cries in a near-operatic retort.

  “Nahhh,” sneers Lennon.

  “—paid with our church—”

  “Nice try,” replies the bishop dismissively.

  “You took our church.”

  “Nice try. Nice try. It’s all in your head, sir. You’re just a sad little man. Sad little man.”

  Lennon walks toward the office. Cultrera snaps: “You’re a sad big man. You’re a sadder big man.”6

  The film excerpt then cuts to the home of Cultrera’s parents in Salem, and the family’s realization that the priest who argued with Joe was Bishop Lennon, the architect of Reconfiguration, the man who shut their own parish.

  For the broadcast of the segment in Cleveland, Lennon refused Bill Sheil’s request for an interview. The diocese sent a statement by the bishop:

  I went outside to ask the people to leave this property. The parties involved were never identified and the sole issue in our exchange involved their presence on private property. I was taunted and treated in an extremely unprofessional manner, resulting in the exchange as portrayed in the documentary.

  The camera can be cruel to one caught off guard. Perhaps Lennon had no idea why the cameraman was there. Cultrera, quickening to the chance for spontaneous drama, says, “It was ten years ago my brother came here to report his abuse. Do you have a problem with me shooting here?” Lennon at that point in time had met with some of Boston’s abuse survivors, but as the archdiocesan building looms behind him, the bishop offers not a word of sympathy for Cultrera’s brother. Nor does he try to finesse a new start for the hungry camera. Why not let some guy in a baseball cap film exteriors of a building that TV news has shot countless times? Instead, making it a turf war, Lennon projects his response to protesters bunkered down in Boston churches he wants to sell—it’s private property!—and comes off an insulting bully.

  Several days after that embarrassing clip on Fox 8, it could not have been easy on Lennon as he entered the City Club of Cleveland for a scheduled talk. Eleven years had passed since Pilla condemned regional sprawl, promoting Church in the City. Could Lennon 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 pro
grams 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.