ST. PAUL (MN)
Pioneer Press
BY STEVE SCOTT
Pioneer Press
Nearly 8,000 Roman Catholics overflowed the Roy Wilkins Auditorium in St. Paul last month for a daylong celebration of their most sacred ritual. Four days later, 75 gathered on the steps of the Cathedral of St. Paul to question church teaching on homosexuality.
Some Catholics are irritated that the second event garnered more media attention than the first, a long-planned Eucharistic Congress hosted by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
"It's news when people are attacking the teaching of the Catholic Church, but evidently it isn't news when people are celebrating the teaching of the Catholic Church,'' said Lisa Hambidge, a parishioner from St. Paul. "It just isn't balanced.''
Shocking revelations last month about a priest found responsible for two murders in Hudson, Wis., made the special Eucharistic celebration even more important to area Catholics, said the Rev. Joseph Johnson, an official of the archdiocese who helped plan the Congress.
"Some of their frustration may be, here's one terrible thing that one sick individual in the church did and it's front page every day, and then 8,000 people do something good and it doesn't get noticed,'' he said.