Reacting to a drop in attendance and collections partly attributed to the priest sex-abuse scandal, the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago has been spurred to seek ways to motivate and mobilize the faithful.
“We’ve already started an evangelization program, and we’ve done pilot projects in the parishes,” archdiocese spokesman Jim Dwyer said Sunday.
But outside the church doors, not everyone is convinced there is a problem.
Jean McCormick, of Joliet, who was visiting St. Gertrude Church in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood on Sunday, said the decline is nothing more than a temporary, cyclical downturn.
“I think people are just looking within themselves and questioning everything,” she said. Eventually, they will return to the fold, McCormick said.
Churchgoers at thriving Old St. Pat’s in the Loop see a separation between the sex scandal and their own church.
“I think with us it’s very much our own local church. When we’re supporting the church, we’re supporting this church,” said Harry Sheehy, 71, of the West Loop. “I think the archdiocese would have to go to hell in a handbasket before we wouldn’t support this church.”
The archdiocese last week reported a 5.8 percent decline in attendance at weekly mass and a 2.9 percent decline in revenue, even though per-capita offerings actually increased in the last fiscal year.
Some church officials said the priest scandals of the last two years have taken a toll, and Dwyer acknowledged that the church must convince Catholics it is serious about reform.
He said Cardinal Francis George has taken steps toward “healing, reconciliation and renewal.”
“We certainly understand how those who are angered would be angered,” Dwyer said. “The irony is that the Archdiocese of Chicago has a good record, but we understand there are still misgivings across the board [and that] we must remain vigilant.”
Rather than focus strictly on calming anger, the archdiocese is making a broader, evangelizing effort to reach out to “lapsed Catholics” to increase attendance at mass, Dwyer said.
“A lot of Catholics leave the church because of divorce or other reasons and think they would not be welcomed back,” he said. “Our message is, `If you haven’t seen what the church is like lately, check it out.'”
Getting that message out can be a challenge, as St. Gertrude officials have discovered.
“We went to one particular block and gave a letter to everyone on that block that said, `Hey, if you’re Catholic, come check us out,'” pastoral associate Peter Buttitta said.
“We didn’t get a response,” he said.
“We’ll try something else,” he added.
Buttitta said attendance at St. Gertrude has not been badly hurt by the sex-abuse scandal. He credited a quick response by his pastor, Rev. Bill Kenneally, who addressed the scandal soon after it began to gather national attention in January 2002, when many church officials were seen as slow to respond.
If there is any anger among those who attend Old St. Pat’s, it is not apparent in collections. “We’re not down, but we’re not up,” Rev. Jack Wall, pastor, said.
Judi Black, of Deerfield, said the clergy-abuse scandal has had no effect on her giving to Old St. Pat’s.
“It’s very open here. People talk about [the scandal], but I don’t think it has had any impact at all here,” she said. “For the few who were involved in that, there are tens of thousands who are doing great work.”
Buttitta said collections at St. Gertrude have not dropped but are short of increased parish goals. Although attendance has remained steady, some parishioners have used the offering plate to show their displeasure with the church hierarchy’s response to the abuse cases, he said.
“We got slips of paper and wooden nickels from people who said, `There will be real money when there’s real accountability,'” he said.
McCormick, a social worker at Joliet West High School, pointed instead at the economy and said she believes there will be more money in the baskets when working people have more of it to spare.
“There’s still a lot downsizing,” she said. At Joliet West, “we see middle-class families unemployed, even homeless.”
Dwyer agreed that the economy may have much to do with donation shortages and said the archdiocese’s report, released Thursday, may already be out of date.
“This is for the fiscal year that ended in July, [and] the economy has picked up like gangbusters,” he said. “We’ve gotten indications that some collections are starting to pick up.
“But we can’t deny that church attendance needs to be increased. [Cardinal George] is always asking pastors to help encourage evangelization, to bring new people into the church and bring people back into the church.”
Buttitta said the way to do that is to restore trust.
“A scandal like this is as bad as it gets, but our response is what counts,” he said.
