By Carol Eisenberg
Newsday
December 14, 2002

All the heartache and hard work of organizing a Catholic lay movement had come down to this:

Sheila Peiffer's eyes welled with tears Sunday as she stood at the altar at Maria Regina Roman Catholic Church in Seaford, looking out over a sea of faces belonging to 700 Catholics who had traveled from every corner of Long Island to pray for their scandal-torn church.

"I can't tell you what a source of joy it is to be gathered in communion with all of you," said the 50-year-old Southampton mother whose righteous indignation over her church's protection of abusive priests had led her to help organize Voice of the Faithful of Long Island, a group seeking greater lay involvement.

This week's emotional Mass was another step in what many believe is a historic journey by lay Catholics to fulfill the vision of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) to take responsibility for their church at a time of unrelenting revelations of sexual abuse and a cover-up by the church hierarchy.

"This is the biggest phenomenon to hit the church since the Reformation, because it's not just about sexual abuse by priests or the cover-up," said Anthony Massimini, a theologian and former cleric who worked as a scribe during the first session of Vatican II and now advises the Boston-based Voice of the Faithful. "It's about the challenge to the church in the post-modern era to do what the Second Vatican Council called for: to catch up to our times, to be spiritually mature... The old form of leadership is dying, and the Spirit is raising up a new form of church structure, participation and leadership."

Whether or not a new church is being birthed - and many disagree with Massimini's conclusions - there is no question that a grassroots movement of lay Catholics has taken hold. What began in a church basement in Wellesley, Mass., in February, with a couple dozen parishioners venting anger and bewilderment, has grown into a national organization with more than 25,000 members, with offshoots in Long Island, Queens, Brooklyn and Manhattan. The group was among those pressing for Boston Cardinal Bernard Law's resignation, which was accepted yesterday by Pope John Paul II.

"I think this is a historic moment in church history where the American church may have something very important to offer to the universal church," said Melissa Ford Gradel, a 37-year-old mother of two who helped organize a chapter in downtown Brooklyn. "We want a change in the culture of secrecy and superiority from our leaders. We want the ability to participate in the temporal matters of the church involving the management of people and money. And we want an open and adult dialogue."

By large pluralities, Catholics in the pews echo Gradel's sentiments. A nationwide survey released this week by Le Moyne College in Syracuse and Zogby International, a Utica polling firm, found that 78 percent of American Catholics see a greater need for shared authority with the laity. Fully 81 percent want greater openness from the hierarchy in financial and administrative matters.

"Catholics are not giving up on their faith or on their bishops' leadership," said pollster John Zogby. ". . .But the next frontier is more transparency on financial and administrative matters in the church."

Yet, how lay people acting outside the structures of a cleric-dominated institution might achieve such changes is murky at best. Moreover, many conservative groups take a dim view of Voice of the Faithful, echoing the concerns of some bishops that the group is filled with dissenters who want to exploit the current scandal to cast out church teachings on sexuality and birth control. The group denies such characterizations, saying it includes conservative as well as liberal Catholics who simply want a bigger role in the management of the church's temporal affairs.

Nonetheless, like at least seven other bishops around the nation, Thomas Daily of Brooklyn and William Murphy of Rockville Centre have forbidden Voice of the Faithful from meeting on church property, although Murphy allowed the Mass to take place, reportedly telling the pastor, Msgr. Peter Pflomm, "I won't stop you."

Murphy said in a recent interview on Telecare that he objects to the group both because of what it says - and what it doesn't say. "It says it wants to 'keep the faith and change the church,' and I don't know what that means," he said, "because the church has a divinely mandated structure, and that's something that I'm not free to change, nor is anyone else."

Murphy said he is also bothered by the group's failure to explicitly endorse all church teachings - although both the Long Island and national groups have issued statements accepting the church's teaching authority.

Those who turned out for the special Mass at Maria Regina looked like anything but rebels. They worshiped reverently and were dressed conservatively. Many had gray hair; a few leaned on canes or sat in wheelchairs. They included deacons, lectors, Eucharistic ministers, religious educators and a few employees of the chancery in Rockville Centre.

Flanked by dozens of nuns and about 10 priests, they prayed for healing - first and foremost for the hundreds of victims of sex abuse by priests but also for the church itself.

They prayed, too, for the fulfillment of the promise of Vatican II, which called the laity to fuller participation in the life of the church.

When Pope John XXIII convened the council on Oct. 11, 1962, he promised to throw open the windows of the church to let in fresh air. While Vatican II is best remembered for changes in the Mass - directing priests, for instance, to face parishioners and allowing the use of local languages, including English, instead of Latin - it also re-envisioned the whole idea of the church as "the people of God."

"It is the literal teaching of the Second Vatican Council that the laity have a right, a responsibility and, at times, an obligation to make their views known to the hierarchy," Massimini said. "And it's literally part of the canon law of the church that the laity may participate in the governance and administration of the church."

But despite the creation of some new machinery, such as parish councils, in the post-Vatican II church, many believe that vision is far from fully realized. That long-simmering disappointment is also feeding the new activism.

"It's a little like yeast," said James Post, president of the national Voice. "Once begun, the strength of this movement is organic."

In fact, that process began in this country more than 150 years before Vatican II. Determined to fashion a church in tune with the new republic, 18th century Catholics established a lay trustee system in such urban centers as New York and Philadelphia. Lay people managed the business affairs of their parishes and, in many cases, hired and fired priests - which put them at increasing odds with the church hierarchy.

"The bishops got their backs up, and they stamped it out," said Russell Shaw, Washington correspondent for Our Sunday Visitor, a national Catholic newspaper. He also worked as the press secretary for the U.S. bishops for 18 years.

The sole exception was in Charleston, S.C., where an unusual Irish-born prelate named John England put in place a constitution that called for annual conventions of laity and clergy to handle the church's temporal affairs, with final authority vested in the bishop - "but with the bishop under strong moral as well as quasi-legal pressure to accept decisions by the joint governing boards," Shaw said.

The system worked well for two decades, until England's death. His successor scrapped the model.

"With all our current conflict," Shaw said, "we could do a lot worse than to go back and look at what was going on in Charleston, S.C., and find out whether we might learn something that would be applicable today."

In any case, Shaw believes there's no going back to the old-time model of pray, pay and obey.

"I think the revelations have brought about a fundamental change in the way a lay Catholic thinks about his relationship to the church and the church's leaders," he said. "Something has changed, and I think it's changed permanently. We're not ever going to go back to the way things were."

GRAPHIC: Photos by Thomas A. Ferrara - 1) Dick and Peggy Lee walk in a candlelight vigil for victims of priest sexual abuse after a special Mass Sunday at Maria Regina Roman Catholic Church in Seaford. 2) Sheila Peiffer, an organizer behind Long Island's Voice of the Faithful, leads last Sunday's vigil at Maria Regina Church in Seaford for victims and survivors of priest sexual abuse. The group wants a more involved laity. Newsday Photos / John Paraskevas - 3-4) About 600 Catholics attended a Sept. 12 meeting for the Voice of the Faithful at the Wyandanch Youth Center.