Far From the Turbulence of Scandal, but Tied Into It

If a crisis exists in the Roman Catholic Church, you wouldn’t know it at Sacred Heart, a sturdy red-brick edifice three blocks off Main Street.

The cavernous sanctuary is filled with worshipers on weekends, the parish fish fry was a smashing success, and so many youngsters have signed up to be altar servers that some have to wait three months.

Few in this heartland congregation, which makes up 40% of the town, dwell on the widespread scandal about pedophile priests and ecclesiastical cover-ups now convulsing the outside world. “People just don’t talk about it because they don’t want to talk about it,” said Kathy Kuriger, 63, a former nun. “It’s ugly.”

But when the subject comes up, most parishioners admit they’re disappointed or angry about revelations that some church authorities have protected predator priests over the years. Like many Catholics in the U.S., they are appalled that their spiritual leaders shuffled wayward clerics from parish to parish, without a word to churchgoers or to law enforcement.

“If this were a teacher, you’d be down to the police station,” said Janice Kraus, 72, mother of 16 and a Sacred Heart parishioner for 54 years. “Are [priests] any better than anyone else?”

The scandal continues to grow almost daily. Last week, Pope John Paul II used his pre-Easter message to priests to denounce the “grave scandal”--his first public response this year to the crop of sexual abuse allegations.

To the faithful here, the priests’ sins are further proof that no soul is exempt from the temptations abounding in society today.

“The easy access to the Internet and the poor morals on TV--I feel that’s starting to wear people down,” said Linda Becker, 55, director of religious education at the Sacred Heart School. “I’m an easy one to forgive . . . but I feel the modern world has gotten to the priests.”

Halfway between Dubuque and Cedar Rapids, this rural community of 3,600 people and three stoplights is a far cry from Sunset Boulevard decadence.

Cars parked outside brick buildings on Main Street are left unlocked, keys in the ignition. Citizens form exercise groups in warm weather to walk through tree-lined streets of ranch homes. Coffee shop talk centers on the latest farm distress sale and whether the new highway bypass will hurt business.

There is no movie theater, but there are 12 Christian congregations--testament to how churches act as the town’s social glue. “Everyone here, in one form or another, has a spiritual link,” said Nancy Keedy, 46, executive director of the Monticello Chamber of Commerce.

Catholics have seen their share of priestly lapses over the years in northeastern Iowa, where Irish, German and Bohemian Catholics settled during the 1800s to worship, and to farm the rolling hills.

There was Father Ralph, the stern principal of Cascade High School, one town over, who ran away with a nun during the 1960s. Father Timothy of Dubuque landed in jail six years ago for molesting several altar boys; he’s now in a halfway house in Maryland. Father Michael of Marion was removed two years ago after he made inappropriate overtures to someone posing as a 13-year-old boy in an Internet chat room; the priest died in a car crash last year.

Worries over sex have even infiltrated the nearby New Melleray Abbey, where 18 Trappist monks live their vows of poverty and chastity in bucolic seclusion. The monastery has adopted a sexual harassment policy regarding its 21 lay employees. The monks, whose average age is 70, were briefed on the rules last week.

“No sexual innuendoes, no dirty jokes, no touching,” said Abbott Brendan Freeman. “Like our lawyer said, this is life in modern America.”

But life at Sacred Heart reflects little of the current turmoil.

With a membership of 1,500, it is the dominant faith in town. The parish sold 1,200 dinners at its annual fish-fry earlier this month. Its elementary and preschool classes enroll 170 youngsters.

“It’s not affecting anyone directly here,” Keedy said of the sex scandals. She has two children at Sacred Heart’s school.

“The [parishioners] are aware that it’s going on, and it makes them want to protect our kids more. . . . But that’s not something you’re going to hear when you go out and have coffee in the morning.”

Some here suggest that it’s time to let priests marry. Despite the crisis, however, many expressed confidence that the church would rebound.

“It’s not comfortable. You certainly wish it didn’t happen,” 69-year-old Mel Manternach, a semiretired farmer, said over the old-timers’ weekly coffee and doughnuts in the church basement. “But the church will survive and will be better off afterward.”

The scandal hasn’t prompted any parents to yank children from altar duty, parish workers said.

Four of Jinggy Cigrand’s kids are on the current roster of 79, and she hasn’t thought twice about letting them serve. Calling reports of errant clerics “isolated incidents,” the 43-year-old Cigrand added: “I don’t think it’s affecting our faith or our trust in our parish priest.”

Msgr. Neil W. Tobin said he doesn’t worry whether parishioners bolt or stop contributing toward the parish’s $500,000 annual budget.

An old-fashioned cleric trained in Rome, Tobin said he has zero tolerance for those who use their pastoral position to seduce minors.

“We’re Midwesterners,” said Tobin, 69, who is set to retire in July. “We’re realists. We realize that some people have been injured by sin. We certainly know the mercy of God. But such people can’t prey on others. They have to be held accountable. They have to be charged like anyone else.”

Tobin criticized church authorities for coddling offenders. “They were too kind, generous and as a result, it has blown up.”

He blamed Vatican II and 1960s liberalism for prompting church leaders to use therapy, not conservative theology, to address errant priests. He also said the dwindling number of seminary students has prompted church authorities to look the other way, even if they know a recruit is gay.

The Dubuque archdiocese, which includes Sacred Heart, faces a severe shortage of priests. Currently there are 134 clergy ministering to 215,000 members in 212 parishes--requiring some priests to pull double duty. Retirements are expected to deplete the ranks of clerics to fewer than 100 within four years, said Vicar General James Barta, second-in-charge of the archdiocese.

Barta said the archdiocese will revisit its policy on sexual abuse by priests in May with its pastoral council, a group of lay and ordained representatives. While written guidelines call for swift removal of an offender, they don’t require church officials to call police--something that might change.

“It’s no longer something that can be dealt with for a very long time at the internal level,” Barta said. “It used to be we might work with the person and see what should be done. But we probably wouldn’t let much time go by now. People, including priests . . . want to know if there are any cases, that they’ve been acted on.”

City Atty. Doug Herman, who attends Sacred Heart and sits on its school board, said the scandals haven’t hurt his confidence in the parish but have “certainly shaken my faith in church leadership.”

“If you look at the Catholic Church as a business,” said the 35-year-old Herman, “you need parishioners. . . . You could make non-Catholics look elsewhere.”

Penny Sue Rees, the daughter of a Baptist minister, has been taking classes to prepare for her conversion at Sacred Heart. Rees, 41, said one of the reasons she left her old faith was the hypocrisy she saw among family members and others who were on good behavior at church but drank, swore and were abusive at home.

Now with disclosures that some priests betrayed their calling, she’s having second thoughts. She said she will keep her appointment to be confirmed on Easter, but doesn’t know whether she’ll continue to attend the church.

“Maybe I won’t,” she said. “It’s going to depend a lot on how the Catholic Church deals with this.”