BishopAccountability.org
	Catholics' Clout in Connecticut Diminished, but Nowhere near Gone By Daniela Altimari The Hartford Courant March 15, 2009 http://www.courant.com/news/local/hc-catholic-clout-0315.artmar15,0,991335.story With just a few days' notice, the state's Roman Catholic leaders summoned a crowd of about 4,000 outraged Catholics to the state Capitol on a rainy Wednesday to protest what they consider legislative meddling in church affairs. It was an impressive display of muscle — and a surprising one. Though still a powerful cultural and political force, declining numbers, internal scandals and a flock increasingly less apt to heed the hierarchy have sharply eroded the church's sway over public life. Bishops in recent years have found themselves on the losing side of several key battles, from same-sex civil unions to state funding for embryonic stem cell research. This one was a clear win: The proposal had been pulled well before the first bus rolled into Hartford. What's less clear is whether the huge turnout signals anything other than anger over a bill that was unlikely to pass anyway. "It certainly was a hearkening back to the days of popular Catholic influence in Connecticut, but whether it signifies anything more than that is unlikely," said Mark Silk, professor at Trinity College and director of the school's Leonard Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life. "By a curious set of circumstances, you got actual legislation that was really obnoxious to the church on a pretty broad spectrum." It's unlikely that church leaders could muster a similar outcry on any other issue today, be it opposing the death penalty, pushing for immigration reform or advocating greater restrictions on teens seeking abortions, Silk said. "When you're talking about Catholics in Connecticut, you're talking about people who have a very wide range of views," Silk said. "They are just much less with the full program than they used to be." A priest still comes to the Capitol to administer ashes to Catholic lawmakers on Ash Wednesday, and the church employs a lobbyist to promote its legislative agenda and block the bills it opposes. But the controversy over Senate Bill 1098 exposed a growing divide between Connecticut's Catholic hierarchy and its political leadership in what remains one of the most heavily Catholic states in the nation. "There's a feeling that you can ignore the church, or treat [its] public policy statements as irrelevant," said the Rev. Richard Ryscavage, director of the Center for Faith and Public Life at Fairfield University. "I'm not saying everyone has to agree with the Catholic Church, but you do have to take their positions seriously and take them as honest contributions to public life." Ryscavage worked with bishops throughout the nation before coming to Connecticut several years ago. He said he was surprised by the lack of access the state's Catholic leaders have to its political power base. "Requests for meetings have been turned down and [the bishops] are treated with disrespect," he said. "There is a building awareness within the church that this is not right." While some lawmakers view the church as out of step with Connecticut's blue-state values on a broad swath of social issues, others blame the disconnect on the liberal political establishment. Many politicians, especially Democrats, have a deep discomfort with religion, Ryscavage said. "They look at religion as a private thing … a hobby, like collecting buttons," he said. Among some Catholics, this bill rekindled lingering anxiety. This was, after all, a state dominated by Congregationalists who did not always welcome Catholic newcomers. "In New England, historically, there were a lot of tensions between Catholics and Yankee establishment," said Silk. "Those memories can resurface." But this is also a state where Catholic politicians held the reins of power for decades, and rarely if ever took on the church. That began to change, in Connecticut and throughout the Northeast, in the wake of the priest sex abuse scandals. Suddenly, lawmakers who were once deferential to the church were proposing bills that directly challenged its authority. In Connecticut, lawmakers doubled the civil statute of limitations for suing for childhood sex abuse and con- sidered, but didn't pass, a measure that would have required priests to report cases of sexual abuse that they heard about during confession if a child's safety was in jeopardy. "The sex abuse controversies left a great wound in the side of the church as an organization and that has allowed people to press some of these issues with more assertiveness that they might have 20 to 30 years ago," said Kevin Sullivan, a former lieutenant governor and top Senate Democrat. But Sullivan and other observers don't believe the church's diminished clout is due solely to the scandals. Part of it is simply a story of numbers: Over the past 18 years, the percentage of state residents who identify themselves as Catholic has fallen — from 50 percent of the population in 1990 to 38 percent last year — according to a study released Monday by researchers at Trinity College. It's also due to changes within the flock. Church members are far less likely to walk in line with the hierarchy, particularly on social issues. Polls have repeatedly shown that a majority of Catholics favor divorce, birth control and abortion rights. And even on gay marriage, opinions of rank-and-file Catholics are far more diverse than the church's official line would suggest, particularly among younger members of the flock. "The Catholic community is not monolithic," said Rep. Patricia Dillon, a Democrat from New Haven and a Catholic. The hierarchy "emphasizes the whole issue of sex a bit too much," Dillon said. On social issues like gay marriage and abortion, "Catholics might agree with the bishops, but it's not something they get too passionate about." Besides, she added, most of the Catholics she knows are more focused on doing good works, such as running a soup kitchen, than weighing in on social issues. The failed bill, which would have radically changed the way churches are governed, was brought to lawmakers by a group of Catholics who wanted to give the laity more control over parish business. However it touched a nerve with a broad swath of Catholic voters of every political stripe, not just the relatively small cadre of social conservatives who generally speak out on such matters. The lawmakers who proposed the bill "were out of bounds," said Sandra Jarvis, a stay-at-home mother from Newtown who traveled to Hartford Wednesday to register her disapproval. "They are completely ignorant about the Catholic Church." Michael Culhane, executive director of the Connecticut Catholic Conference, called the proposal a "direct, frontal attack on the structure of the Catholic Church." "There has always been a concern as to how the issues important to the church have been addressed," Culhane added. "To some, there is disrespect for the Catholic Church and the issues that are important to its basic moral teachings. And, he noted, Bill 1098 singled out Catholics — "no other denominational organization was touched." Peter Wolfgang, a Roman Catholic who leads the Family Institute of Connecticut, said it took a bill "this bad, this crazy, this unconstitutional" to reveal the level of disdain that Catholics face from some political leaders. Lawmakers "are finally facing the outrage of the Catholic population," he said. The public outcry forced Rep. Michael Lawlor, D- East Haven, and Sen. Andrew McDonald, D- Stamford, powerful lawmakers and outspoken gay rights advocates, to pull the church governance bill and McDonald issued a statement expressing his regret that some Catholics were offended. For the Catholic Church it was a rare taste of victory. The church was a leading voice against gay marriage in Connecticut, but it lost that battle last fall when the state Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. "It's like getting Al Capone on tax evasion," said Wolfgang during an interview in the Legislative Office Building shortly before Wednesday's rally. "When you're for the sanctity of human life, the traditional definition of marriage and religious liberty, in a building as crazy as this one, you take your victories where you can find them." House Speaker Christopher Donovan, D- Meriden, expressed opposition to the bill at a hastily called press conference earlier this week, but said he does not believe it typifies an "anti-Catholic" sentiment at the Capitol. He noted that the church is a key partner on a number of legislative initiatives, including health care reform. To House Republican leader Lawrence Cafero, Bill 1098 was one more example of lawmakers' willingness to single out the Catholic Church. He also cited the battle over the Plan B emergency contraceptive and the measure that would have required priests to report sexual abuse even if they learned about it during confession. "This has happened over and over and over again," said Cafero, of Norwalk, "but this bill was the straw that broke the camel's back."
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.