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	Lapsed Catholics Take Notice By Michael Graham Boston Herald April 17, 2008 http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view.bg?articleid=1087611 Growing up as an evangelical in rural South Carolina, I've heard plenty of rabid denunciations of the Catholic church and the corrupt scheming of its untrustworthy pope. But to hear these angry rantings from Catholics, I had to come to Boston. My good friend and colleague, Margery Eagan, is in a righteous rage over the positive media coverage Pope Benedict XVI is receiving on his first - and likely only - trip to America. Watching his warm reception in Washington, many local Catholics are surly and sulking. Much to Margery's chagrin, Americans - particularly Catholics - seem to like the guy. Among church-going Catholics familiar with "B16" (that's hip lingo from the Catholic blogosphere) 74 percent of those polled by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life say he's doing a good job. That's not as high as Pope John Paul II, but it's up there with Billy Graham. Which leaves angry Boston Catholics to play the role of Bob Dole. "Where's the outrage?" Or perhaps more accurately - "What about us?" "Don't they remember the priestly sex abuse scandal?" many local Catholics complain. "Has everyone forgotten what the church did to us?" That's the part that throws me off. "The church" did this. When it comes to perv priests preying on young parishioners, I'm absolutely on the "outrage" bandwagon. What these sickos did to trusting young congregants is evil on too many levels to be counted. And the behavior of church leaders like Cardinal Bernard Law is even worse. They cannot offer the defense of a diseased mind, but instead knowingly sent predators to molest young Catholics in parishes across America. This is one of the worst sins - and in my opinion, worst crimes - of any public person in my lifetime. So if you're organizing an angry mob to drag Cardinal Law out of his ivory tower, hand me a pitchfork and let's go. But what I'm hearing from Bostonians is more than a denunciation of bad people who happen to be Catholic. They are angry with the church itself. There are 1 billion Catholics, but fewer than 5,000 priests who have committed these heinous acts in the past 25 years - a smaller percentage than among public school teachers, for example. And yet Boston Catholics blame their faith for failing them. As one of my radio listeners put it, "I have a 6-year-old and will NOT allow my son to be a part of the Catholic church because I do not trust any priest . . . The church will never look out for my child." How does this make sense? "They have forgotten that, at the heart of the Christian faith lies the sinner," says Catholic writer and philosopher Michael Novak. "It shouldn't come as a shock that there are sinners in the highest levels of our church, there always have been. Sex scandals involving the clergy were part of what led to the Reformation." When I spoke to Novak, he had just returned from the ceremony on the White House lawn honoring Pope Benedict. He was genuinely surprised to hear about Boston's angst over the papal visit. "I've heard nothing but positive comments since he arrived," he told me. As for the anger, Novak believes that many of the Catholics complaining most loudly about the church are those who had already abandoned much of its theology and teachings. They were already "former" Catholics in denial, and are using the clergy sex scandal as an excuse to blame their departure on the church itself. And what about our complaints that Pope Benedict owes the Diocese of Boston a visit? "That's what those of us who are not Bostonians find charming about Boston. It does tend to see itself as the center of the universe," Novak said. I think he was trying to be nice.
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