“Buildings go - People first, Catholic spokesman says”: Diocese tears down St. Agnes over neighborhood protests

(Note: This is part 3 of a series on the life and death of St. Agnes Parish in Cleveland's Fairfax neighborhood. You can read the other parts at www.leechilcotewrites.com.) 

As white families moved out in the 1940s and 1950s and the Fairfax neighborhood became more diverse, a forward-thinking priest at St. Agnes Parish named Bishop Floyd L. Begin tried to create an interracial church community. Bishop Begin, who was priest at St. Agnes from 1949-1961 before he was called to head up the Diocese of Oakland, worked to stem the tide of middle-class flight from the neighborhood by telling his parishioners that they “can live in a better neighborhood without moving.” He also called on them to stay for moral reasons – according to a Dec. 31, 1951 article in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, he touted the “theory that improving neighborhoods leads eventually to improving cities, states, nations – and human beings.” 

In 1960, seeing church attendance decline as white families moved out to the suburbs and created their own churches, Begin held talks on Catholicism at St. Agnes as a way of attracting new parishioners from the increasingly Black neighborhood. “We want to make non Catholics feel at home,” he told the Plain Dealer on Sept. 10, 1960. Begin used posters, billboards, and radio and newspaper ads to get the word out, and also sent letters to all the ministers in the area. The Plain Dealer covered Begin’s outreach as a notable response to the “changing character” of the neighborhood – the newspaper rarely mentioned segregation, racism and poor housing conditions in its coverage.

Begin, on the other hand, was not shy about talking about race, segregation, and racial justice issues. As the Civil Rights movement was brewing in Cleveland and across the country, he promoted St. Agnes as an integrated parish. His language is dated now, but it was progressive then. “The Catholic must look at the Negro in the light of the doctrine of incarnation and the doctrine of redemption,” the PD reported him saying to his congregation in an Oct. 22, 1960 article. “We are all blood brothers. Children of the same father. God created the whole human race. He must have liked the dark skinned people, because he created them.” 

He added, “Jesus Christ became man to make man a God and the only way he could do it was to become one of us. To exclude any one of the human race from an opportunity to gain eternal salvation is to exclude Christ.” 

In 1954, Bishop Begin stirred up controversy with his support of an interracial group that was seeking a Knights of Columbus charter. His efforts were unsuccessful – the Supreme Council of the Knights of Columbus in New Haven, Connecticut turned down the Cleveland and Ohio group’s request that a charter be issued to an interracial group. Nonetheless, Begin drew national attention for taking a stand in support of integration. After being turned down, he declared, “The only reason they're being kept out is their color. Anyone who denies that is a pussy-footing liar,” according to his April 24, 2977 obituary in the New York Times. 

Instead of shying away from the issue, Begin led the parish to confront the changing demographics of the neighborhood head-on. With the church coffers drying up and attendance waning, Father Begin not only tried to recruit new members from the African American community but also confronted the racism he saw among whites in his community and in his own congregation. “Fr. Begin made controversial statements and delivered provocative sermons,” according to the article in Cleveland Historical. “In one sermon he stated that ‘Adam and Eve were black.’ On another occasion he was overheard commenting, ‘God must have given the Negro something extra in virtue because of the way we whites have treated them.’ He looked to the increasingly Black area between Carnegie and Central as “a vast potential missionary [field] which we have neglected.” 

Begin's “anti-bias” efforts worked, at least in part, because St. Agnes parish was somewhat integrated during the 1950s. In fact, Begin once told the St. Augustine Guild, the Catholic interracial group of the Cleveland Catholic Diocese, that the parish had been integrated since at least 1949. “You may not realize it, but I never mentioned the word ‘white’ or ‘colored’ since I have been here,” the PD reported him saying. “I’m mentioning this to show that people in this parish do not think in this manner. They are a living example of the true unity of the church. I am deeply and profoundly proud of them and all the people of this neighborhood.” Even as Begin was openly anti-racist, the Plain Dealer refused to discuss race or the injustices of racism, segregation and income inequality in the neighborhood, evincing common attitudes of the time, stating, “Shortly after the bishop became pastor, the parish became a changing neighborhood. Parishioners who had lived there many years moved to the suburbs, and newcomers, many non-Catholics, moved in.” 

It appears Bishop Begin had no illusions that his work would solve the massive problems that existed in Hough and Fairfax, where whites had been exploiting Blacks by renting out homes for exorbitant prices at least since the 1940s. The end of World War II led to overcrowding across Northeast Ohio, but especially in the city of Cleveland, where most people still lived. (The population of Cleveland peaked at 914,808 in 1950 and has been declining ever since.) With pressure for housing as soldiers returned from the war, the federal government built highways and guaranteed mortgages that gave middle-class whites incentives to move out of the city, even as it denied those mortgages to Blacks. Meanwhile, banks redlined majority Black areas like Fairfax, making it harder to get a loan there (redlining is the practice of denying services or providing inferior services because of the racial composition of an area). Landlords took advantage of the poor who remained in the neighborhoods. Whites, fearing the racial changes taking place in Fairfax and elsewhere, fled the neighborhood in droves, compounding the problem of segregation and leaving a disinvested community behind, but also vibrant Black businesses and a thriving middle-class Black neighborhood. 

In addition to redlining, Blacks faced poor housing conditions because racist policies kept them out of other areas. It wasn't until the 1950s and 1960s that suburbs like Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights became integrated. Begin felt a bigger effort was needed, one that would create new housing for the poor in the inner city using federal aid. “Our efforts helped, but the area was too far gone physically for much to be done without city and federal aid," he commented. "At first, city officials shied away from the suggestion of the council that we rebuild or conserve the area. They thought the job was too big. They gave us a bit of lip service - that was all.” Begin saw the proposed University-Euclid urban renewal project as one answer. Unfortunately, that project led to the demolition of the Black-owned businesses at E. 105th and Euclid, the area known as Doan’s Corners that was once home to theaters, an ice-skating rink, and jazz clubs galore. 

In an interview when Begin was called to be the first bishop of Oakland, he said, “Hough will always be my home,” recollecting that he grew up there in the 1900s when the streets were unpaved and there were chickens in people’s yards. The neighborhood was changing then, he said – Poles, Lithuanians, Italians, Slovenians, and other immigrants were coming from Europe. “The neighborhood became American in the sense that people accepted each other,” Begin commented. “Even the few Negroes who lived here were accepted.”

After Begin left, the church was staffed by the Trinitarian Fathers, an order within the Catholic Church that provides support to inner-city churches. On Sept. 27, 1966, St. Agnes marked 50 years. “Worshippers at St. Agnes Church yesterday were turned backwards in their thoughts to the priest and people who built the soaring Romanesque church 50 years ago – and forward to the parish’s new tasks in the inner city,” the PD wrote. But the church didn't have the money to maintain its massive building. In an April 14, 1973 article, Mary Jayne Woge of the Plain Dealer reported, “St. Agnes Catholic Church at 8000 Euclid Avenue in Hough is on Diocesan charity. Its massive Romanesque sanctuary, posh rectory and other ornamented buildings are window dressing for an operation that is as poor as a church mouse. On Sundays, 150 persons – three-fourths of them black – attend mass in the echoing auditorium built with a Hollywood flourish to accommodate 1,500. After the riots in the mid 1960s, the church was orphaned by 2,000 of its members, and its income dropped dramatically.” (Note: today, many churches would be happy with an average Sunday attendance of 150 people, but of course this paled in comparison to St. Agnes' heyday, when there were five services and attendance probably numbered in the thousands.)  The Rev. George Huber of Holy Trinity Fathers told the PD, “We rattle around in the building.” He also remarked on how the church’s fine finishes were a contradiction to the surrounding neighborhood. His rectory office was wood paneled, with leaded glass windows and green marble fireplace. “I feel guilty working in a place like this,” he said. “A guy who’s hitchhiking, needs some help and rings the doorbell thinks I’m a liar when I say I can’t do much for him.” 

By June 1973, the diocese, facing a cash crunch, abruptly announced it was closing St. Agnes School. Attendance had dropped by half and the diocese believed that Catholic schools in the city could only survive if there was a smaller number. They said nothing about the school, but many feared it was next. Parents organized a protest and 30 people gathered on the sidewalk outside the doors. The 231 students and their families who went there were only given one week’s notice before being transferred to nearby Catholic schools like St. Adelbert and St. Thomas Acquinas. According to a PD article, $100,000 of St. Agnes’ school budget was subsidized by the parish or the diocese because many parents were too poor to pay the full cost of the yearly tuition, which at the time was $270. Additionally, enrollment was down, and the church hadn’t been able to raise enough funds to subsidize the school and keep it affordable for families as they had in the past. 

In a June 16, 1973 article with the headline, “Catholics face worst fiscal dilemma,” Woge reported, “The high cost of administering the word of God through parochial education has embroiled the venerable, once prosperous Catholic Diocese of Cleveland in financial trouble,” calling it “probably the worst cash dilemma in the mostly glittering 135 year history of Roman Catholicism here.” According to diocesan officials, the diocese had overspent on its income and was using $500,000-700,000 more than anticipated that fiscal year. Moreover, its reserves were depleted and it had borrowed as much money as it could. The diocese’s plan was to balance its books by closing St. Agnes school, and it was hinted that the church would be next. “Churches of negligible spiritual service to the communities around them may be sold,” Woge wrote. “Insurance costs are higher for inner city churches and schools than those in the suburbs.” (Imagine tearing down a church that was lauded as an ecclesiastical work of art when it was first built because it cost too much to insure! Yet this was likely the reality in the 1970s, when arson and other types of vandalism were rampant in Cleveland. Ironically, insurance in the area was probably higher due to redlining practices by insurance companies, too.) 

St. Agnes school didn’t go down without a fight. The Black parents who protested said the diocese was disinvesting in the church as well as the community. “As one mother at the meeting said yesterday, ‘It’s still going to be on our backs,’” the PD reported. Another parent commented that they do not want their children transferred to other Catholic schools. “I do not want my children going to a school where they are not welcome,” they said. “The schools in my area are white and they are definitely not welcome." And in a June 19, 1973 article headlined “Churchmen score school fund cuts in black parishes,” Woge wrote that a group of inner city pastors, minister and lay people were protesting the cutbacks, decrying what they called “the growing self-centeredness on the part of the diocese with regard to the abandonment of its already slender commitment to the inner city.” The group called the cutbacks “a morally uninformed act of political expediency” and in a letter, said they were “appalled” and found it “difficult to comprehend why it is that – in times of financial crisis which demand substantial cutbacks in funding – those parishes and schools serving the black community are the ones required not only to justify their existence but also to feel the heaviest effects of said crisis.” The letter railed against the lack of notice or help given to parents and said that Catholic Charities is “geared predominantly towards white middle class needs and services.” Black leaders called for changes such as including educational centers in parishes where schools were closed, a black auxiliary bishop, a vicar to be appointed to serve the needs of minority groups, an office of black affairs at the diocesan level, and a special task force to investigate inequitable distribution of funds between the suburbs and the city. 

The diocese responded by stubbornly doubling down on their commitment to the suburbs, saying there were needs there, too. The most reverend William M. Cosgrove, auxiliary bishop, commented that he “understands the pain that must be theirs … I am also aware that although the needs among the poor are extreme, there are similar problems in meeting the needs of the near poor and even the middle class.” He said he’d “exhaust every effort” to maintain services to the inner-city parishes but that “he is painfully limited by the resources available to him to do so.” He also called for public funding of private Catholic schools, a dream that was realized a decade later in the 1980s when this was pushed through the Ohio Statehouse, and that ultimately kept a number of Catholic schools afloat. However, it was too late for St. Agnes, whose fate was already decided. 

The school was set on fire and burned down not long after it closed. After the fire on Nov. 25, 1973, the diocese tore it down. Soon afterwards, on March 2, 1974, the PD published an article about St. Agnes Church getting broken into and vandalized. During the 1970s, arson and vandalism of city properties was an epidemic, and it was hitting St. Agnes hard. Thieves stole a hanging altar lamp valued at $2,000 as well as 10 large ornate brass candlesticks, each of which was valued at $500. The thieves borrowed a 10 foot stepladder in the church to steal the objects. They stole the keys from the church before entering at night. They also left a pile of refuse on the ground, which they apparently intended to burn. The theft was part of a rash of such burglaries, the PD said. The article cited windows stolen from a church and a 60 year old ornate bronze cross studded with semi precious gems that was stolen from Trinity Episcopal Cathedral on Sept. 17, 1973. 

Two years later, on Oct. 20, 1975, the PD published an article with the headline, “Buildings go - People first, Catholic spokesman says.” The shortsighted argument htat Diocesan leaders made the was that by tearing down the building, they were saving money so they could help more people. “The diocese, which has about 90 churches in Cleveland, is getting rid of the old buildings to serve the needs of people better, they said,” the reporter wrote. The Rev. John L. Fiala, diocesan secretary for parish life and development and a close aide to Bishop James A. Hickey, said the church “was not in the business of restoration of old buildings, and exists to deal with the needs of people.” It was hard to see how the Catholic Diocese could serve the needs of people in the Fairfax neighborhood by tearing down a landmark church, but that was their logic, anyway. 

The move, especially the decision to sell items in the buildings at auction, stirred up controversy. In several articles in the PD, a reporter interviewed people who were buying church pews, religious artifacts and other items for their private residences. A restaurant owner in Little Italy also bought some items for his eatery. the church sold these ecclesiastical treasures for pennies on the dollar, so the sale was quite popular. Someone even tried to buy the altar, but a church spokesperson said it was one of the few items that wasn't for sale. “Some persons have charged the diocese with not showing proper respect for the past and for attempting to make a profit from the moves,” the PD wrote. “Others have said it appears the diocese is attempting to escape from the problems of Cleveland’s east side and ignore black neighborhoods.” The warning of Monsignor Gilbert from 1934 comes to mind: “Let Cleveland go up there with them,” he said of the white men leaving the city for the suburbs, arguing that those who had the resources to deal with Cleveland’s problems should step up and help deal with them and that by abandoning the city they were causing it harm. Fiala went on to complain about the high maintenance costs of St. Agnes, essentially arguing that it was cheaper to tear it down. 

Notably, in its reporting, The Plain Dealer consistently failed to challenge the diocese’s arguments that because the surrounding neighborhoods were predominantly Black, the church was no longer sustainable. “All four of the parishes (to be closed) are in former ethnic neighborhoods settled mostly by Irish, German or Italians who built churches soon after their arrival,” the article states. “The three doomed churches are attended mostly by black persons, and in each case fewer than 100 come to mass in the massive cathedral-like structures. Father Fiala said there are about 10,000 black Catholics in Cleveland, and he emphasized that the distribution of the buildings does not mean that the diocese is not concerned with ministering in the black neighborhoods.”

How was the diocese going to serve Black neighborhoods by closing churches, one wonders? And if it had to be closed, why couldn’t St. Agnes be repurposed for another congregation or group of people? That question was never answered in the reporting I read. With the original parishioners mostly gone, the only answer given was tearing it down, perhaps not unlike a village being burned by its fleeing inhabitants. According to a PD article, Father Fiala said, “One black member of St. Agnes said to me when we were discussing tearing down the building, ‘This is not a black church, it is a European church.’” He said the woman said, ‘It’s beautiful but blacks would never feel at home here, and it would not meet the needs of the black neighborhood.” Yet this argument belies the fact that St. Agnes had attracted many Black parishioners during the previous decades. 

In the end, Fiala said much of the negative reaction to tearing down the buildings came from former parishioners who no longer went there anyway, ignoring the protests by Black leaders in Cleveland. “It’s a nostalgic reaction,” Fiala said. Nostalgic indeed. And with that, one of Cleveland’s great historic churches was summarily wiped off the map. After the church was torn down. worshippers gathered in the rectory before ultimately merging with Our Lady of Fatima in Hough. The rectory stood for a long time but was finally torn down in 2009 to make way for a CVS Pharmacy. Nothing remains of the original St. Agnes today, save the bell tower and the stories that are carried in the hearts and memories of people who went there.