CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Vatican has overruled the shuttering of 13 Northeast Ohio parishes by the Cleveland Catholic Diocese, according to the Associated Press, quoting a lawyer who fought the closings.

The news service reported that attorney Peter Borre said the Vatican's Congregation of the Clergy ruled last week that Cleveland Bishop Richard Lennon had failed to follow procedure in the closings that were announced in March 2009.

Robert Tayek, a spokesman for the diocese, said rulings arrived from the Vatican late this afternoon and had not yet been reviewed by the bishop.

Lennon ordered the closing of 50 parishes -- many in inner-city neighborhoods -- in a downsizing that he said was prompted in part by a population shift to the suburbs and a shortage of priests. More than a dozen of the affected churches appealed to the Vatican and have been awaiting word on their appeals.

Those churches include St. Adalbert, St. Barbara, St. Casimir, St. Emeric, St. Patrick, St. Peter and St. Wendelin, all in Cleveland; St. James in Lakewood, St. Margaret Mary in South Euclid; St. Mary in Beford; and St. John the Baptist, St. Martha and St. Mary in Akron.

The rulings announced today could be appealed to the Vatican's supreme court.