A Feisty But Loyal Flock
American Catholics take dissent seriously
Julia Roberts is a lifelong Roman Catholic who learned the rules early. "In religion class they said, 'It's not a buffet; you can't select what you believe,'" says the 26-year-old paralegal at the U.S. Department of Justice. But as an adult she has come to think that birth control is a responsible moral choice. "I don't want to deny what I believe. I struggle with that because I don't want to be a hypocrite."
Among America's 67 million Catholics there is a distinct minority who feel that Pope John Paul II's traditionalist ideas and hard line on social issues put the church back on track, giving it structure and clear guidance. But the pope's teachings made keeping the faith more difficult for the many so-called cafeteria Catholics, who embrace some but not all of the church's tenets. According to a recent Gallup Poll, 78 percent of American Catholics support allowing Catholics to use birth control, 63 percent think priests should be able to marry, and 55 percent think women should be ordained as priests. Last week Gallup reported that more Catholics than non-Catholics believe that homosexual behavior, divorce, and stem-cell and human-embryo research are morally acceptable. "The paradox," says David Gibson, author of The Coming Catholic Church, "is that while [the pope] was enormously popular, he did not necessarily change behavior" of the lay people in America.
But he had an enormous influence on the clergy. The seminarians at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary outside Philadelphia, like many who found their vocation during the 26 years of John Paul II's pontificate, "are drawn to the fact that the pope had the conviction to say, 'This is not an open question,' " says the rector, Joseph Prior. Dean Hoge, a Catholic University of America sociologist who has studied priests' attitudes for decades, notes that "John Paul II priests" are generally more traditionalist and often at odds with the more liberal clergy ordained during the 1960s and 1970s. "The result," says the Rev. Robert Silva, president of the National Federation of Priests' Councils, "has been a growing gulf between the clergy ordained since 1985 and the laity" who, in the post-Vatican II years, had grown used to having more autonomy within their parishes.
The pope took a Vatican-down approach to church governance. Not a man to mince doctrine, John Paul II delivered more encyclicals than any pope in history, over time declaring the church's opposition to birth control, premarital sex, in vitro fertilization, abortion, euthanasia, stem-cell research, homosexuality, and the death penalty. Priests, he said, were to be male and celibate. On his second visit to the United States, he declared it a "grave error" for Catholics to think of themselves as faithful if they dismissed church teachings, and he warned bishops that dissent was unacceptable, both in parishioners and among the clergy. "He was adamant that if a priest had spoken about the ordination of women or waffled on issues of abortion and contraception, he should not start looking for red robes," says Lawrence Cunningham, a professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame. During the 1980s the Vatican removed several American priests for disagreeing on social issues.
Going their way. Despite the Vatican's long-distance grip on the American church, "all religion is local," says Gibson. "Catholicism happens in the pews." And even people sitting side by side have different takes on what the church should be. Some, like Matthew Lickona, author of Swimming With Scapulars, a memoir on his devout Catholicism, believe "obedience is a primary virtue. If we are created beings, we are under the authority of the one who created us. The church proclaims it and I accept it." Yet a wholly different logic is espoused by Linda Pieczynski, spokesperson for the Catholic group Call to Action. "If the great majority of the faithful do not accept a church teaching, it must not be an authentic church teaching," she says. The spectrum of opinions within the church is broad, and in that cacophony, Gibson notes, "the middle ground gets lost." Perhaps ironically it was anger over the sexual abuse of children by priests that brought common cause to American Catholics.
For the clergy, the liberal-conservative divide is just as wide. A 2001 survey conducted by Hoge found that the newest generation of American clergy was as conservative as the pre-Vatican II priests, who said mass in Latin. Says Silva: "I've been a priest for 40 years, and when I find myself being younger than the young, that's astonishing. I'm the rebel, and the young are the stodgy ones." Priests who were ordained in the post-Vatican II era often took an innovative approach to the liturgy, were inclined to go out without their collars, and thought "the laity should be invited to take part in decision making," says Hoge, coauthor of Evolving Visions of the Priesthood. "That no longer prevails. Many of today's seminarians have gone back to wearing the robes and deliver the liturgy by the book. "
What's next for a church that requires adherence from its members even if they disagree? "There is a tremendous disconnect in where the priests are and where the people are," says Pieczynski. Still, most Catholic critics won't consider leaving the church. To give it up would be to forfeit a part of their identity. "My Catholic education and the influences of priests and sisters growing up made me a well-read, questioning individual. How can I leave a church that has given me that legacy?" Pieczynski asks.
Others point out the strengths of the American church, such as its commitment to social justice. Through this prism, dissent can be "a sign that we take our faith seriously," says the Rev. Daniel McLellan, a Franciscan priest and president of Washington Theological Union. And as Notre Dame's Cunningham points out, the church is still vibrant, with large numbers of Catholics going to mass and otherwise participating in their parishes.
Now American Catholics are considering what they want in the next pope. Many say he should concentrate on the critical shortage of priests. Some look for bold change. "We've had a pope for a generation who has stressed the vital centrality of an all-male, celibate priesthood," says Gibson. "The reality is that it hasn't worked." But Nathan Malavolti, who will be ordained as a Franciscan priest in November, is trusting the College of Cardinals to elect the right man--"a shepherd that can keep all these people in the fold. That's my prayer."
A Question Of Trust
During John Paul's II papacy, confidence in religious leaders dipped among Roman Catholics and the general population.
Percentage of people with a great deal of confidence in those running organized religion
[Chart data are incomplete.]
U.S. Catholics 29 percent
U.S. general population 24 percent
[chart labels]
1978 '80 '82 '83 '84 '86 '87 '88 '90 '91 '93 '94 '96 '98 '00 '02 '04
0 10 20 30 40 50 pct.
Sources: Pew Research Center for the People and the Press; National Opinion Research Center; USN&WR
This story appears in the April 18, 2005 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.