What's up in church? Laity changing

ST. PETERSBURG -- The Catholic Church sex abuse scandal has not diminished the faith of those in the pews but instead has galvanized them to wrest a modicum of control from the denomination's leadership.

To what extent it will be successful is another matter, because control ultimately rests with a cadre of powerful civil servants in the Vatican.

Those are the observations of Monika K. Hellwig, a retired Georgetown University professor, who will be in St. Petersburg on Friday to speak on the topic, "Whatever is happening in the Catholic Church?"

During her lecture, Hellwig will examine the conditions that led to the current scandal and talk about what can be done. Specifically, she'll take a historical look at the structure of the church and focus heavily on what she refers to as "the awakened laity." Hellwig, whose lecture is being sponsored by the Center for Spiritual Life at Eckerd College, also will speak about what Protestants can learn from the current crisis in the Catholic Church.

During a telephone interview this week, Hellwig talked about ordinary church members and their reaction to the clergy scandal.

"I get the impression that people's faith and their belonging to the Catholic Church has not been affected, but their relationship to the hierarchy is much influenced," she said.

"The laity, in some places, they have withheld money and they have decided where the money is going to go."

She specifically mentioned Voice of the Faithful, a lay group that was formed in Boston after the clergy sexual abuse and coverup became public. Chapters across the United States now are collecting money parishioners normally would have given to the church and distributing funds directly to preferred causes.

In Boston, Catholic Charities recently accepted money from the group despite being forbidden to do so by the bishop administrator of the archdiocese.

That was a momentous action, Hellwig said.

"This is a very significant thing happening in the contemporary Catholic Church," she said of the lay movement.

"They are asserting themselves, saying that we are our church and we don't like some of our organization now, so from the grass roots we are going to change things. But they have no intention of seceding from the Catholic Church."

Besides clergy abuse, the church is wrestling with other issues, Hellwig said.

"Both in the Catholic community at large and in the clergy, we do have a certain continuum with people at both extremes. The people who would like the church to look the same as before the Second Vatican Council tend to be politically conservative, and they tend to be conservative on all church values," she said.

"Especially, they want to keep faith as an individual matter and not a community affair. They like liturgies quiet. They prefer not to have too much singing in church. They would like kneelers. A lot of our churches have abandoned kneelers. They would like the altar against the back of the church and very mysterious. Some of them would like the liturgy to go back to Latin. They are fierce about abortion, contraception, homosexuality, but they don't think it's such a moral issue that the country should go to war."

At the other extreme are those like the women who celebrate their own eucharist, although the church does not ordain females. Those in this group, Hellwig said, are passionately involved in social justice issues and tend to be tolerant about people who have abortions. They also are welcoming to homosexuals in their community.

The sex abuse scandal, however, has brought about a unique collaboration between these two extremes, Hellwig said.

While some changes are possible at the lower levels in the church, many are dependent on Rome. "No matter what happens in the American church, it is very difficult to influence that. But some of the ways the diocese relates to Catholic charities, the Catholic educational system, Catholic hospitals, some of those can be radically changed," the former professor said.

"What is not going to be resolved so easily is the reshaping of the structures, because of the stranglehold of the curia (the Vatican bureaucracy). There is a strong, self-perpetuating, very uniform civil service," she said.

If you go

Monika K. Hellwig, president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities and a retired Georgetown University professor, will speak on "Whatever is happening in the Catholic Church?" Friday at 7:30 p.m. in Lewis House at Eckerd College, 4200 54th Ave. S in St. Petersburg. Free.

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