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BOSTON CATHOLICS LOSE THEIR RELIGION
By A J Nseir
The majority of Catholics have lost faith in their institution as a result of the sexual abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church in the past year.
The Boston Globe conducted two polls that reveal Catholics are dissatisfied with their local leadership, but have yet to lose their faith in the Catholic religion itself.
Timothy Riley, native of Boston, installs in-ground pools for Holmes Pools in Wilmington, MA, said faithful Catholics will stick by their beliefs.
“I believe that Catholics who turned their backs on the Church due to the corruption in the Boston Archdiocese are very wrong in their actions,” Riley said. “Obviously there were figures in the clergy and the archdiocese’s hierarchy who should not have been there, but that is no reason to throw out or disrespect the entire religion.”
Those who have lost trust in their leaders but still hold strong to their beliefs have formed a new voice for Catholics.
The Voice of the Faithful began in the basement of the St. Evangelist in Wellesley, MA. and grew into a 25,000 member national organization. Driven by a motivational motto, “Keep the faith, change the church,” this group gives the laity a greater influence in the policies of the Church.
These Catholics, centrally located in Greater Boston, have one main goal. They want stricter policies regarding priests accused and convicted of sexual abuse.
Members of the Voice of the Faithful are a melting pot of religious leaders as well as faithful Catholics. In addition to Cardinal Bernard F. Law’s former spokesman, there are several parish council members, religious education professors, Eucharistic ministers and lectors.
One man, whose popularity continues to drop with the Voice of the Faithful, is Cardinal Bernard F. Law, of the Boston Archdiocese. The Boston Globe poll shows that 65 percent feel Law should resign as archbishop of Boston, and 71 percent feel that he has done poor job of handling occurrences of sexual abuse.
“Opinion toward Cardinal Law continues to erode, and the more people know, the more they believe he needs to leave,” said Gerry Chervinsky, a pollster for The Boston Globe. “Clearly, people think he’s done a poor job handling the issue…and they believe the archdiocese would be better off with somebody else in charge.”
Attempting to separate themselves from Law as much as possible, the all-volunteer Voice of the Faithful raise money independently as a non-profit organization.
Nobel Peace Prize winner and president of the group, Dr. James E. Muller, said he wants to see a chapter of the Voice of the Faithful in every parish.
“Every diocese, every nation, and the world too, and that organization would be a counterbalance to the power of the hierarchy, it would have a permanent role, a bit like congress,” Muller said in a recent Boston Globe article.
Now a nationwide organization, this influential group was once a small group of upstarts who wore red jackets to the Archdiocese of Boston convocation. They did so at this gathering of parish leaders to demonstrate their sorrow for the victims of sexually abusive priests. Under the tutelage of Boston University management professor James E. Post, the Voice of the Faithful is now attempting to exert financial pressure on the Church.
VOTF’s Internet site (www.votf.com) has helped to move it out of the basement and into the Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center in Boston. On July 20 they will hold a convention which they hope will draw 5,000 supporters from across the country.
Activists are nothing new to the Catholics Church, but this group is the first that has affected those who are normally neutral bystanders.
While the VOTF lacks the acceptance of the Boston Archdiocese, they do have the support of the Boston College theology department, and its chairman, Stephen J. Pope.
“I love the Catholic Church, but our fatal flaw has been passivity of the laity,” Pope said in a recent Boston Globe article. “This event is finally getting laypeople off the stick, and that is valuable.”
The Vatican and the American Bishops disapprove of structural change within the Church regarding sexually abusive priests. Instead the institution wants to keep its current policy concerning problematic priests, removal and prosecution.
Although most Catholics in Boston have lost confidence in their leaders, the polls show they still practice their religious beliefs. Of those surveyed by The Boston Globe, 92 percent said their Catholic faith remains the same, and 82 percent said their attendance has also been stable.
Adam Feigan, a head camp-counselor from Wilton, Connecticut said the priests and the Catholic Church have different problems.
“I think what the priests did was horrible, not because their priests, but because their old men. It's problem that they have within themselves, not the church,” Feigan said. “It hasn’t shaken my beliefs, because I felt the church was corrupt all along.”
Riley said he feels Catholics should separate the mischievous priests from the Church itself.
“No one is asking them to condone or ignore the awful things that occurred,” Riley said. “But good and true Catholics should be able to see past them and remain un-phased in their faith.”