Last week that rare and awful punishment, an interdict, brooded like a judgment over a Roman Catholic parish in Cleveland. Closed was Holy Redeemer Church. Cut off from the sacraments of marriage, of Holy Communion, of penance, of ordination, were its 1,100 Italian families: no baptisms, no confirmations, no parochial school. Only one sacrament was left in Holy Redeemer parish: Extreme Unction, which the Church gives to all its children—good, bad, or indifferent—who are about to die.
The interdict, first in Cleveland's history,* was imposed by able Archbishop Joseph Schrembs. Reason: the people of Holy Redeemer parish had caused "public scandal," made...
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