By David O'reilly
Philadelphia Inquirer
April 2, 2010
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/world_us/20100402_Phila__protest_of_clergy_sex_abuse_is_small.html?posted=y&viewAll=y
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| On her way to Thursday Mass on Logan Circle, Emelita Suarez (right) stopped to talk to protester Sister Maureen Paul Turlish. Photo by MICHAEL S. WIRTZ |
Despite an intensifying crisis over clergy sex abuse in Catholic Europe, with calls for Pope Benedict XVI to dismiss bishops or even resign as pontiff, a sex-abuse protest outside Philadelphia's Catholic cathedral Thursday drew only a few demonstrators.
"If people are angry, it certainly didn't show in this," said protest organizer Marita Green, motioning toward the four other demonstrators. They held signs reading "Stop the Hiding" and "Hold Sexual Predators and their Enablers Accountable."
The occasion was the Archdiocese of Philadelphia's Holy Thursday Chrism Mass at the Cathedral Basilica of SS. Peter and Paul, where hundreds of priests gather annually to renew their ordination promises. Catholic tradition holds that Christ inaugurated the priesthood the day before he died.
"I sent 200 e-mails to our membership," said Green, Philadelphia-area president of Voice of the Faithful, a Catholic group that grew out of the American clergy sex-abuse scandals early in the decade.
"If you talk to people, they feel indignant about what's going on," she said. "But as for putting their bodies where their feelings are, I don't know."
With more protest signs than demonstrators, the five Voice of the Faithful demonstrators gave their extras to several women nearby picketing for women's ordination. A fixture outside the Chrism Masses for two decades, the latter group swelled to about 25 by the time the Mass ended about 11:45 a.m.
"We're no longer in mourning," said Regina Bannen, a Temple University professor.
"We have women here who have been ordained," she said, and pointed out fellow protester Eileen DiFranco.
In 2006, DiFranco, a public school nurse in Philadelphia, was ordained by the organization Roman Catholic Womenpriests - an act the Catholic Church does not recognize.
Most people attending the elaborate Mass, at which holy oil, or chrism, is consecrated for sacramental use throughout the year, ignored the demonstrators. A few, however, stopped to engage them.
"Don't you have anything better to do?" asked the driver of a van.
"Are you going to Mass?" a man in a black antiabortion T-shirt shouted at them from the cathedral steps.
"You can't blame Pope Benedict," Emelita Suarez told Sister Maureen Paul Turlish, one of the demonstrators.
"It's not a matter of blame," said Turlish, "but the pope is the only one with the authority to change the structures [of the Catholic Church] that led to abuse."
One man stopped before the group. "I agree with you completely. Stand up for what is right," he said, and headed quickly inside.
In his homily, Cardinal Justin Rigali acknowledged recent revelations that clergy abuse of minors was more widespread in Ireland, Germany, France, and Italy than church leaders previously acknowledged.
"Recent reports in Europe of sexual abuse by clergy have reminded us of those terrible sins" and the suffering of victims, Rigali said from the pulpit.
" 'If one part of Christ's church suffers, all suffer,' " he added, repeating the words of St. Paul.
After Mass, Mary Hansbury, a scholar of early Christianity who lives in Philadelphia, said she was disappointed Rigali mentioned European abuse victims without acknowledging the many victims in Philadelphia.
"It is so revelatory of the denial here," Hansbury said. "Such denial."
But Bishop Timothy Senior, vicar for administration for the Philadelphia Archdiocese, said afterward that Rigali's remarks were a direct reference to "the very, very painful memories" of the abuse victims in the archdiocese.
The scandal rising in Europe, he said, is "a reminder of our need to be vigilant within the church."
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