Church in Crisis

By Nell Trainor

As accusations of the sex abuse issues in the Catholic Church become more prominent, some people may have begun to lose hope in the Church, according to several studies regarding church attendance in America.

Ann McCarthy, of Holden Massachusetts, grew up in a strict Catholic household and attended church every Sunday.

Now, McCarthy only goes to church for major holidays, funerals, and weddings.

“These scandals have been going on for years now have definitely impacted my church attendance. I think it has done the same for a lot of other people too and I would not be surprised if the church got wiped away in 25 years or so,” McCarthy said.

As far as attendance in Church, McCarthy is not the only one who has strayed away from attending Mass in recent years.

According to newsgallup.com, in 1955, 75 percent of Catholics reported attending church in the past seven days. From 2005 to 2008 this number dropped to 45 percent and from 2008 to 2017 it dropped to 39 percent.

Massimo Faggioli, Professor of Historical Theology at Villanova University, compares the 2002 sex abuse scandals in the church to the ones being faced now.

“Back then this was a problem between the U.S. and the church. What we’ve seen recently has become an instrument of fight for the Catholic Church. The fight today is global,” Faggioli says.

 According to a Boston Globe and Philadelphia Inquirer examination of court records, media reports, and interviews with church officials, victims, and attorneys, more than 130 U.S. bishops, or nearly one-third of those still living, have been accused during their careers of failing to adequately respond to sexual misconduct in their dioceses.

“These cases can be solved by investigating. There is not one bishop who is 100 percent sure that they have not done something wrong. There is something more to do than jailing,” Faggioli said.

“We are in a crisis that will take years to find answers further than just who committed these crimes,” Faggioli said.

Faggioli compares this crisis to an illness.

“The problem with the U.S. church is that it is seriously ill and the doctors have made no consensus on the illness,” Faggioli said

National Catholic Reporter, Jesuit Father Thomas Reese said that the bishops have done everything wrong in their situation.

“It was a mess from the very beginning. They listened to their lawyers rather than the spirit. In 1985 the Bishops told me that they had this under control and look where we are now,” Reese said.

Reese, chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom in Washington D.C. said that there needs to be a system to make bishops accountable for their crimes.

“The Vatican needs a Department of Justice. Any bishop that doesn't adhere to the rules that were established in 2002 ought to be fired,” Reese said.

Reese says that it is too difficult for Pope Francis to keep track of the thousands of Bishops who work for him. He said if there is a Department of Justice it will give Pope Francis more control.

According to a new Pew Research Center survey, the confidence in the way Pope Francis is handling the issue has significantly dropped among U.S. Catholics.

According to pewresearch.org, in 2014, 54 percent of American Catholics gave Pope Francis “excellent” or “good” marks for his handling of the church’s sex abuse scandal. However,  in a Pew Research Center poll conducted in September 2018 – shortly after recent reports about sex scandals in the U.S. Catholic Church – the share of Catholics saying this had dropped to 31 percent.

“(Pope Francis) doesn’t have a system in place for checking on the thousands of priests that work for him,” Reese said.

Bill Schoen, a parishioner at Christ the King Church in Worcester, Massachusetts, still continues to attend church every Sunday.

“You know I’ve been around for a long time, long enough to see all of these scandals brought to light. I still continue to keep a strong faith because at the end of the day it's all about your own personal relationship with God,” Schoen said.

Patricia Gibbons, another parishioner at Christ the King Church in Worcester, Massachusetts said she was upset that this is the way people are losing their faith due to the abuse scandal.

“There is more to the church than the disheartening actions of those who run it. The holy spirit should allow us all in to help us through the difficult times that we are facing instead of running from it. Without us there will be no place for reform,” Gibbons said.