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COPYRIGHT 2002 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
In 1993, when the head of the Boston Archdiocese, Cardinal Bernard Law, appointed Father Walter Cuenin the pastor of Our Lady Help of Christians, a Catholic parish in Newton, Massachusetts, the church's spire was corroded, the Celtic cross that topped the spire was badly tarnished, and the shabbiness of the interior was mercifully muted by poor lighting. Today, after a four-million-dollar renovation, the soaring, twenty-five-foot reredos is sparkling white, the intricate patterns of grapes and vines winding about the church's Moorish arches have been faithfully restored, and the crowning cross is a glistening gold. But the changes at Our Lady's, as the parish is popularly known, are more than cosmetic.
As Catholics in other parts of the United States drift away from an institution that many find increasingly irrelevant to their lives, Our Lady's congregation has grown, from about ten thousand faithful but somewhat unenthusiastic parishioners a decade ago to more than twelve thousand active members today. A parish in which a former pastor plastered parishioners' windows with impossible-to-remove stickers if they parked in a reserved space, and where a curate once called parish children "termites," now attracts Catholics from a broad variety of parishes. They come to hear Father Cuenin's challenging sermons about contemporary life and to participate in a dynamic religious community. Some five hundred parishioners are active in programs that help, among others, teen-agers who are searching for a committed faith, women who are suffering as a result of divorce, abortion, or a family loss, and elderly people who are confined to their homes. When Father Cuenin came to the parish, he insisted on being called by his baptismal name--Walter--thereby announcing his egalitarian vision of a Church in which the laity would have a prominent role. He also replaced two priest assistants who were not happy about the new direction with lay pastoral associates.
On a crisp morning last May, the Saturday before Pentecost, Father Cuenin, dressed in a sweatshirt and a pair of khaki shorts, sat in the kitchen of the rectory drinking coffee and reading the papers. A story in the Globe reported that Cardinal Law had declared his support for a new set of procedures to deal with sexual abuse by priests, a policy shift that was being described as a national model. The Herald also had a story about the Cardinal: "AIDE ADMITS LAW MADE MOLESTER PRIEST A VICAR."
Father Cuenin is a squarely built, muscular man of fifty-six. He wears his light-brown hair, graying at the temples, in a military cut--his father was a Marine Corps officer--and his head and neck seem fashioned from the same sturdy log. He is not a man to raise his voice for emphasis; he registers his points otherwise. He glanced toward the ceiling with a Jack Nicholson look of incredulity. "National model?" he said sardonically. "This is Boston, the epicenter--where it all began. Who do we think we're kidding here, folks?"
The Archdiocese of Boston was in well-publicized disarray. In January, the Globe reported that a local parish priest, Father John Geoghan, had been accused of abusing a hundred and thirty boys, one as young as four, over a period of three decades. Cardinal Law, the senior American Catholic prelate and a once frequent visitor to the White House, had been under pressure from many lay Catholics to resign because of his role in transferring Father Geoghan and other pedophile priests from one parish to another, even after their crimes were known.
"Catholicism isn't lived out in Rome, or in some proclamation from chancery offices here in Boston," Father Cuenin continued. "It's lived out in parishes, by real people. And here in a parish, while the issue right now is sexual misconduct, it's the arrogant abuse of power that fuels both the fury people feel and the determination they have for reform. Let's be clear: this is a Church I love, and it's also a Church that drives me nuts. Priests have been forced to remain silent about the supposedly unassailable prohibitions on birth control, second marriages, the ordination of married men and women. How can you arbitrarily close off such issues to the modern mind?
"Laypeople have been treated like so many immature children, incapable of having a real voice in a Church that has proved itself pitifully inadequate in running and policing itself," he went on. "You can only shrug it off for so long."
In Boston, the most Catholic of American cities, the pedophilia scandal has inspired an unprecedented revolt among laity and clergy, who have both made it clear that they want a greater voice in Church affairs. Newton, an affluent suburb just over the city line and eight miles or so from the center of Boston, has become, in effect, American Catholicism's Gdansk shipyard. Father Cuenin, who is one of the prime movers behind an upstart group of clergymen, the Boston Priests' Forum, and is also an unapologetic backer of a range of new lay initiatives, might be considered the movement's Lech Walesa.
During the eight-o'clock Mass at Our Lady's on the morning of Pentecost, Father Cuenin stood in the main aisle, dressed in a blazing-red chasuble, which signifies the fire of the Holy Spirit that descended upon the Apostles fifty days after Easter. He was in the middle of his homily when he grinned like a little boy about to share an important secret. Referring to one of the liberalizing reforms instituted nearly forty years ago by the Second Vatican Council, under the leadership of Pope John XXIII, he said,...
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