Bishops’ Response Received Warily

In adopting a final plan last week to deal with sexually abusive priests, the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops seemed certain they had turned a corner on the debilitating scandal. But in parishes throughout Southern California on Sunday, many parishioners called it only the first step in a long road to recovery.

“I don’t think the church is past the worst of the scandal,” said Kevin Kane, a parishioner for 15 years at St. Monica Church in Santa Monica. “The rooting out of the problem and the healing of the betrayal of trust will take many years.”

Kane’s remarks underscored the acute concerns that many Catholics still have: While a uniform national plan may now be in place to protect children and to deal with priests accused of sexually molesting them, measures are still lacking to hold bishops accountable or to force changes in the clerical culture of secrecy that allowed abuses to go uncorrected for decades.

The many good priests who have been smeared by the actions of a few are still despondent and a severe crisis of trust in the church hierarchy has emerged among many priests and laity alike.

“The church has not necessarily turned the corner on the crisis, but it has taken an important first step,” said Father Jarlath Cunnane, pastor of St. Thomas the Apostle Church in the Pico-Union district of Los Angeles. “There is still the work of healing and reconciliation that has to take place.”

At the same time, visits to six Southern California parishes Sunday also turned up forgiving attitudes toward fallible priests. Some parishioners expressed suspicion of false abuse claims aimed at financial profit. Others advocated an end to priestly celibacy -- or, as 36-year-old auto worker Amado Jimenez put it, allowing priests to live “normal lives [so] they wouldn’t have to live secret lives.”

And parishioners, one after another, declared that the scandals had not affected their faith at all.

“I’m not going to change my faith and what I believe because of a few bad priests, like I wouldn’t change who I am because of a few bad African Americans,” said Naiyma Huston, a parishioner at Holy Name of Jesus Church in South-Central Los Angeles.

“We come here looking for God, not because of priests,” said Vicente Rodriguez, 52, a construction worker and parishioner at St. Thomas the Apostle.

However, it appeared that many parishioners were no longer paying such close attention to the scandal, which ignited an international furor in January with disclosures that Boston church leaders had knowingly reassigned sexually abusive priests to several parishes.

On Sunday, many parishioners approached were unaware that the nation’s Roman Catholic bishops had met last week in Washington to hammer out revisions for a final sex-abuse policy. The lack of awareness seemed particularly evident in largely immigrant churches, such as St. Thomas the Apostle and Dolores Mission Church, in part because the Spanish-language news media have not scrutinized the scandal as closely, Cunnane said.

The bishops met to revise their earlier plan, adopted in Dallas, because the Vatican had demanded clearer due-process protections for accused priests. Under the final plan adopted last week, an accused priest would face judgment by a church tribunal made up of canon lawyers serving as judges. If found guilty, the priest would be permanently removed from the ministry and possibly defrocked.

Before the Vatican intervention, the policy, as adopted in Dallas, had pretty much left the process in the hands of the bishops. That had caused great anxiety among priests, but many seem to be cautiously backing the tribunal system as a more objective process.

“We’ve all had to live with the reality that we are just an 800-number phone call away from the possibility of having to deal with a very serious allegation,” said Our Lady of the Assumption Pastor Tom Welbers, referring to the Los Angeles Archdiocese’s sex-abuse hotline number. “A lot of priests were feeling very uncertain as to whether there would be arbitrary action taken as a result of allegations.”

Still, many priests are still depressed about the scandals. Just recently, Cunnane said, a stranger accosted him at a fast-food restaurant and began spewing expletives at him about priests and sex abuse.

“We’ve all lost something through this,” he said. “There’s been a certain loss of public reputation ... and the rebuilding of that will take time.”

Many say that major changes in the way the church governs itself are still needed. At St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Rowland Heights, parishioners criticized everything from secrecy and poor management to a lack of genuine consultation and collaboration between the laity and clergy.

At Holy Family Church in South Pasadena, parishioner and lawyer Bob Carlson, 72, called on the church to be “much more open, much more willing to debate and discuss and explain the various doctrines people are concerned about.”

In short, many say, the church’s work in moving toward redemption has only just begun.

“Broken trust doesn’t get fixed with a few Band-Aids,” said Catherine Morris, 68, a parishioner at Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights and member of the Los Angeles Catholic Worker. “Serious work has to be done. Credibility will have to be earned.”

*

Times staff writers Denise M. Bonilla, Hanah Cho, Akilah Johnson, Zeke Minaya, Hilda Munoz and Joy L. Woodson contributed to this report.