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CNN Live Sunday

Catholic Church Considers Breaking With Traditions

Aired March 17, 2002 - 17:19   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: While today has been cause for celebration for many Catholics, some of the serious issues facing the church are probably never far from mind. Among those the accusations of sexual misconduct against priests, which has called into question some age-old church traditions. Here is CNN Boston bureau chief Bill Delaney with more on that.

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BILL DELANEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): How Catholics raise their voices now changing in diocese around the country, including among the two million in the archdiocese of Boston. Nearly all copies of the archdiocese newspaper, "The Pilot," gone, sold out by its usual weekend distribution days, though 100,000 were printed instead of the usual 25,000.

(on camera): Because for the first time since the Catholic church turned over to local district attorneys the names of more than 90 priests accused of sexual misconduct with the young in recent decades. "The Pilot" has called for much more open discussion of issues like priestly celibacy, ordaining women, gay priests. The editorial not condemning traditional church policy, but not defending it either.

(voice-over): At Boston's Holy Cross Cathedral Sunday the controversy within the church obvious outside it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Good morning. Would you like to show your support for the cardinal by wearing (UNINTELLIGIBLE)?

DELANEY: Support for the status quo, and anger about it.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Information on how to report child abuse.

DELANEY: Plenty of discontent; hardly any copies of "The Pilot" where there would usually be more than enough.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I saw part of "The Pilot," I saw it online, actually. It's a time for dialogue, it's a time for openness, and I think it's the right thing to have an open dialogue on these issues.

DELANEY: Dialogue, though, not to be confused with imminent change. The priests celebrating mass at Holy Cross, Boston's embattled archbishop, Bernard Cardinal Law, officially publisher of "The Pilot" said Friday the newspaper's editorial caused confusion, he said, stressing, "it did not question celibacy." And church spokesman discouraged linking priests' sexuality with sexual scandal.

REV. CHRISTOPHER COYNE, BOSTON ARCHDIOCESE: I think to focus only on the areas in which we have fallen down is to lose sight of all the good that not only the hierarchy but priests and lay do in the church.

DELANEY: All the issues taken up in "The Pilot" likely to be addressed in months to come by a new 15-member Blue Ribbon church panel on clergy sexual abuse, which met in Boston this weekend for the first time. Change, though church critics wonder, how much new questioning is likely to really change how things have been done in the Catholic church for more than 1,000 years.

Bill Delaney, CNN, Boston.

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