UNITED STATES
Los Angeles Times
By ALAN ZAREMBO AND MATT PEARCE
Pope Francis in his first trip to the United States has spoken boldly about the need for change — in the way we treat the environment, immigrants and the poorest among us.
With messages that resonated beyond those of his faith, he seemed well aware that the future of Roman Catholicism may depend less on bringing people to church than on bringing the church to the people.
Societal values in the U.S. and elsewhere are changing rapidly. Public opinion on same-sex marriage, for example, now affirmed in this country as a constitutional right, increasingly splits along generational lines.
Polls indicate that more than half of the 72 million Americans who identify as Catholic now reject church views on same-sex marriage and abortion. The ban on divorce is routinely violated.
The pope’s response has not been to change the rules of the church but to change its focus, embracing a standard more human than saintly. …
Andrea Leon-Grossmann was watching the news one day when a story came on about yet another priest accused of molesting a boy.
The case stood out for her: She recognized this priest. She had taken communion from him.
And the alleged victim was in the Los Angeles juvenile detention center where she volunteered as a mentor.
It was not the only time her faith in church leadership would waver.
Leon-Grossmann was born into Catholicism, with two nuns and a priest in her family tree. Growing up in Mexico City, she hewed closely to its teachings. Even after she moved to Los Angeles in 1993 to study art, she attended church each Sunday.
Her religion’s focus on service spoke to her most forcefully. She started volunteering at the jail and joined demonstrations supporting undocumented immigrants.
Yet she was painfully aware of the ways the church seemed to function in opposition to her vision of Catholicism.
During Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign, she said, the Catholic fraternal organization Knights of Columbus came to her church to urge congregants to vote against him — and support Proposition 8, the ballot measure to ban same-sex marriage.
“I couldn’t stand it,” Leon-Grossmann said. “In my faith, God tells me that I need to love everyone.”
She stopped attending church regularly and threw herself into activism.
In 2013, she and other activists brought a petition with more than 10,000 signatures to the residence of Roger Mahony, the L.A. cardinal who had helped conceal sexual abuse by priests. They urged him not to go to Rome to help choose the next pope.
Mahony went. But Leon-Grossmann, a 42-year-old art director, was encouraged by the papal enclave’s outcome.
“Something the pope said that resonated deeply with me this morning: ‘A good Catholic meddles in politics,'” Leon-Grossmann said Thursday. “I completely agree.”
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