By Katharine Seelye
New York Times
May 8, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/09/us/09priest.html
The questions were heartfelt, especially for women of faith, especially so late in life.
"You can still love your God and not go to church," Mary Jo Keating, 71, asserted forcefully to her friends gathered around a table the other day.
And yet a nagging thought poked at her conscience. "Do you have to be a good Catholic or a true Catholic?" Ms. Keating asked. "Can't you just be a Catholic?"
The Rev. Robert J. Bowers, his open, puckish face capped by his gray buzz cut, offered solace, if not a solution. "You are redefining what it means to be Catholic, to be Christian, a religious person, a believer at all," he told Ms. Keating. "The litmus test used to be: Do you go to church every Sunday? Yes. Do you support your pastor? Yes. Do you go to Mass and Communion and confession?"
But now, he said, "there is no litmus test."
As he listens to Catholics discussing the fallout from the clergy sexual abuse scandal, Mr. Bowers finds himself at the intersection of faith and doubt, of lifelong loyalty and a deep sense of betrayal. A former parish priest, he works at the Paulist Center, a Catholic community in downtown Boston that is dedicated to social justice and service to the poor.
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| The Rev. Robert J. Bowers, in charge of outreach and reconciliation at a center in Boston, hugged Julia Sullivan, a former parishioner. |
To follow him for a day is to glimpse the ripple effect that the upheaval in the Roman Catholic Church has had on his own spiritual journey — and to appreciate how much some American Catholics have come to rely on their local religious leaders instead of Rome.
Mr. Bowers, 50, who was ordained as a diocesan priest in 1987, lends a sympathetic ear; he has questions of his own about the church hierarchy.
"Obedience is a two-way street — it involves a great deal of trust, and the trust part is very, very low for me right now," he said. "You can't promise obedience when you feel like you can't trust the person you're supposed to obey."
In the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll, released last week, 58 percent of American Catholics said the pope and the Vatican had done a poor job in responding to the reports of abuse. And 77 percent said someone who did not believe in the authority of the pope could still be a good Catholic.
Many more expressed faith in their local priest, and 77 percent said they were just as involved in their local church's activities as they had been before the latest reports of abuse.
Mr. Bowers and his former parish, St. Catherine of Siena, were collateral damage in the abusive priest scandal, which is now in its third wave after an initial round in the 1980s and a second in 2002.
In 2004, the Archdiocese of Boston faced reduced attendance at Mass and $120 million in legal bills from settlements in the abuse cases. As a result, it shuttered more than 60 parishes, including St. Catherine's. Mr. Bowers, who had been a vocal critic of the church leadership and was exhausted from the fight to keep his parish open, took a sabbatical. He also began to reconsider whether to remain in the priesthood.
In 2005, he took an official leave of absence from the diocese and joined the Paulist Center.
Today, he devotes himself to outreach and reconciliation and once a month serves as head chef for a weekly supper for 200 homeless people (his specialty: macaroni and cheese). But it is not the same as ministering to a parish. "This is a death for me," he said bluntly, "and there seems to be no resurrection."
He finds considerable solace in painting, and he began a recent Wednesday taking a class in suburban Newton. There, his colorful canvases of serene scenes — a beach, a cafe, a sun-splashed home — belie his angst.
Chatting with fellow students, Mr. Bowers lamented that the Vatican was made up of "very, very old men who can't grasp what's happening." Nonetheless, he said, he does not necessarily want Pope Benedict XVI, who is facing accusations that he helped protect abusive priests when he was archbishop of Munich, to resign, unless, of course, he is guilty. He would prefer that the pope stay in place and help Catholics heal.
His own way of healing, Mr. Bowers said later, is to "help people deal with conflict better, help them realize that forgiveness sets them free and that letting go can make them whole again."
"These things," he added, "worked for me — are working for me. It is not settled yet."
Shortly after noon, Mr. Bowers was steering his black Sebring convertible to his downtown office, where lush plants fill his window. He met with Paula Cuozzo, 54, a volunteer at the center and an analyst for an insurance firm, whose faith is also being tested.
"I'm feeling less Roman Catholic, and it's bothering me because I appreciate the idea of the Vatican, Rome and the pope representing the best parts of our tradition," Ms. Cuozzo said.
Mr. Bowers told her that he, too, was learning to distinguish between his Catholic faith and the Catholic leadership, and he encouraged her to articulate her thoughts.
It was advice he would dispense throughout the day, telling those who sought his counsel that expressing feelings "out loud" can help them develop the language to find their way. He helps, he said, by listening, a lesson that he said church leaders had yet to learn.
"We're learning about the truth because people are talking about the truth," he said.
He next spent 45 minutes with a professor and a student from Harvard Law School who specialize in conflict resolution. They discussed a South Shore parish that the archdiocese has been trying to close for several years, a move the parishioners have blocked by occupying the church.
Mr. Bowers then met with five women who had been his parishioners at St. Catherine's. Three are still devoted churchgoers, now in different parishes.
"I have very great faith in the Catholic religion," said Julia Sullivan, 89. "It keeps me going."
Still, the women openly criticized the church hierarchy in ways that they said they never would have 10 years ago, directing particular wrath toward Cardinal Bernard F. Law. He was forced to resign as archbishop of Boston in 2002 for covering up cases of sexually abusive priests, but he was never prosecuted and now serves in Rome.
At the end of the day, Mr. Bowers sat with Stephen Clifford, 42, who told Mr. Bowers long ago that he had been sexually assaulted by his parish priest when he was 14 and by his campus priest when he was 23. He had kept the assaults secret for years, but Mr. Bowers has helped him discuss them.
"I felt that what happened to me proved I was not lovable, and as a result of hiding it, I wasn't allowing myself to be loved," said Mr. Clifford, who works in organizational development.
He has turned away from Catholicism and said he was not interested in returning. When a reporter asked Mr. Bowers if he was trying to bring Mr. Clifford back to the church, he said, "No, God will do that."
Mr. Clifford laughed. "I totally respect that you still believe it," he said, but suggested that this was an unlikely outcome. "Good luck with that God thing," he said.
In the fading light of day in the center's chapel, Mr. Bowers said he remained torn about his future. Some of his family and friends are encouraging him to rejoin the active ministry.
"I have proposed that in different ways to the leadership in the archdiocese, but they say I'd have to leave my reconciliation work," he said. And he does not want to go back to the ministry the way it was.
He chuckled as he recalled certain aspects of his old life as a parish priest. "In almost 20 years, I never paid a bill, I never vacuumed," he said. "Now I do all these things. There's something very humanizing about cleaning the toilet."
With that, he was off to the theater, to see "Young Frankenstein."
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