After the Scandal that Shook the Catholic Community, Italian-Americans Respond with Faith

by Stella Fiore

Catholics around the world are celebrating Lent, a period of 40 weekdays from Ash Wednesday to Easter when confession, repentance and forgiveness are three of the primary focuses of homilies, hymns and prayers. Lent encourages all Catholics to evaluate their relationship with the church and during this holy season in America, there is much to consider. The nation-wide sexual abuse scandal has prompted many Catholics to question the role that the church plays in the practice of their faith. While some parishioners have withheld donations or stopped attending mass altogether, there is one group that has weathered the cover-ups and guilty verdicts with a strong sense of faith and a hopeful call to reform.
It is a group whose culture reveres the family, is generally distrustful of authority and has a centuries-long history with the church: Italian-Americans. Surely those with Italian ancestry have reacted with the same shame and anger as the rest of Americans--and the world. Pope John Paul II called the sexual abuse of children "an appalling sin in the eyes of God." Instead of being debilitated by the scandal, however, many Italian-American parishes have faced it with a proverbial grain of salt. How do they retain their spiritual strength when as recently as March 25, 2003, a Brooklyn priest, Rev. Francis X. Nelson of St. Mary Star of the Sea in Carroll Gardens, was sentenced to four months in jail for molesting a 12-year-old Italian-American altar girl? The answer comes in various forms, most springing from a faith that is deeply intertwined with the Italian culture.
According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Italian-Americans comprise 20% of the 65 million Catholics in the U.S. and mass in Italian is given at 125 churches nationwide. Forty-two of those are located in Brooklyn, New York, where the Italian-American response to the scandal is interesting to note.
At Sacred Hearts-St. Stephens, which has been serving the Italian community in Carroll Gardens since 1866, Father Anthony Sansone describes his parish as being "extremely forgiving. They come with a history where clergy were involved with the government and have exerted tremendous power. What they believe--their faith, traditions,the celebration of the sacraments and the church's teachings--are so important that they can bypass these facts involving the clergy. Their reaction has been to be understanding and forgiving, partly because it is such a small percentage of priests. They are not excusing or tolerating it, but faithful people are resolute that they can overcome this and rebuild."
It seems that the ability to view clergy as a human, and therefore fallible, facet of their faith has helped Italian-Americans to see beyond the scandal. "The Italian community can make a distinction between their faith and religious clerics," says Father Guy Massie, an Italian-American priest at St. Andrews in Bay Ridge and a member of the The Virtuous Commission for Sexual Abuse Awareness. "What happened is glaringly incongruent with our beliefs. Baptism calls all people to a state of holiness; priests are called to a greater state of sanctification. But many Catholics place priests on a pedestal, almost to deny their humanity. This is the fault of people, not the fault of faith."
Monsignor Frank Caggiano, formerly of St. Dominick's in Bensonhurst, has also experienced a positive response from Italian-Americans. "The sex abuse scandal has given some people licence to express anger over other issues, such as the layman's or woman's role in the church. Italians have a clean agenda, more direct to the problem at hand. Their reaction has been perceptive, balanced and honest."
A Catholic school teacher expresses one such reaction. "I do work with children and get very angry. It's hard at times to go to confession. But you can't judge all priests by the actions of a few. There are many priests who do good, we just don't hear about it. I continue to go to church because my faith is strong and because priests are human, they have faults. I do feel that they should be punished, just like anyone else, but I pray for guidance and ask God to make me a stronger Catholic. You can't just give up on your religion." A young Italian-American from Glastonbury, Connecticut, Melissa, believes “the church will be able to make it through this, and will come out strong. I want to be there to support the church and not to abandon it now that things are rough.”
Some Italian-Americans aren't as optimistic, and see this crisis as a much-needed catalyst for change. Dennis Costa, Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature at Boston University and a parishioner at St. Paul's in Cambridge, speaks for many in the Boston area, who have dealt with a scandal that erupted in their parishes. "The extent of the scandal is the result of a hierarchical culture of disdain on the part of the hierarchy for the laity. Generally speaking, you have an inbred culture which has always held the laity at arm's length. It's a culture that did anything it could to protect itself. I think the Catholic church has to be humble enough to admit that it has been wrong. The Roman church hasn't admitted that it needs real reform."
In reference to the Italian-American experience with the church, Professor Costa adds: "When Italians arrived on the East coast at the turn of the century, they came to a Catholic piety with an emphasis on self-scrutiny for moral failure especially concerned with sexual matters. The Italian immigrants were used to a much more relaxed attitude towards moral questions." A recent immigrant from Sicily who is a parishioner at St. Stephens in Brooklyn, Salvo Scalia, seems to agree. "This did not touch my faith. I don't go to church for the priests. But the church should learn from this; it should definitely adopt more modern views, including the lifestyle of the priest."
The healing process for the church is a spiritually challenging one, as Cardinal Egan attested to when he said, "Sexual abuse...leaves scars on its victims that long endure." Yet according to a recent Brooklyn Tablet article by Roger Payne, “Diocesan Priests: Lent Offers Hope”, many priests have a positive outlook for the church and their role in it. "'This year, Lent is a season of great hope for the priesthood, that we can start again as a community and as individuals,' says Father Massie. 'For me personally, it is a time of contemplation in light of this crisis on my identity as a disciple of Christ. I have been called to live that discipleship out as a priest. I'll be taking an audit of where I am and where I need to go.'... 'As a community, the Church comes together during this season. The scandal is certainly a reason to pray,' concludes Father Thomas Pettei of St. Raphael in Long Island City. 'I hope everyone will pray that we work together more openly to follow Jesus as closely as we can. Individually, I hope we'll all look to Jesus in prayer this Lenten season to give us the right direction.'"
In the end, the general Italian-American viewpoint has been forgiving. It may be because Italian-Americans are culturally closer to the church than other ethnic groups in America, or because they are less Protestant in their morality, or because it is Lent. Whatever the reason, their response, though in keeping with Catholicism, is not easily felt. According to the New American Bible, "To forgive sin is an exclusive prerogative of God." And the scandal involves acts that are not merely sins, but crimes. The words of a victim, now 16, stresses that most clearly: "You can give Francis Nelson 6 days, 6 months, you can give him 6 years. All I ask is that you see him as a man and not a priest."