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	Easter Attendance Wasn't Diminished By Allan Benner Welland Tribune April 10, 2010 http://www.wellandtribune.ca/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2529346 The scandal the Catholic church is facing has done little to dissuade the faithful, at least not in south Niagara. Clergy from local Catholic churches contacted byThe Tribunesaid services during Easter weekend were better attended than usual -- despite recent reports of priests in Europe sexually abusing children. As a priest, Rev. James Mulligan from St. Kevin church said the scandal "kind of takes the wind out of you." "It's discouraging," he said. But he said it didn't seem to have an impact on the numbers of people who chose to attended the most important Christian services of the year. Abuse scandals of this nature are not new in North America where similar reports of sexual abuse arose more than a decade ago, he said. But it is new to Europe, he added. "All of the sudden, Ireland and Germany and Austria, the Netherlands and these places, this thing is now rearing its ugly head." Still, it's an issue the church must deal with if it's to rebuild confidence amongst parishioners, Mulligan said. "We have to go through this as a universal church. There's something wrong with our church culture." He said the church needs to learn from society the importance of transparency and accountability and communications. "It seems to me some of the criticisms I read and hear about what's going on is the very poor communications in Rome." While he's sure the bishops that covered up sexual abuse reports in 1975 thought they were doing the right thing, it illustrates a serious problem within the culture of the church, he said. "It's not just the sin of persons, but there's something about the culture and the institution itself we have to admit we need to work on that. We have to do something with it." It's an issue Mulligan addressed during his homilies over the weekend. He spoke about the sins of the world, the billions of dollars spent on weapons of war while someone dies of hunger every four second, abortions and the plight of First Nations people living in poverty. "I talked instances of sin that I think are very clear in the world. In terms of our community, the Catholic church around the world, there are also institutional weaknesses we have to recognize." At St. Therese of Lisieux in Port Colborne, Rev. William Derousie said the scandal didn't seem to have an impact on weekend services. In fact, he said he was impressed with the attendance. "I think this Easter we had more people than we've had at any other time. Our services were very, very well attended." Derousie said the scandal isn't something he's been very concerned about. He said he's been too busy to give it much thought, "but it is something I intend to stop and think about." Rev. Deacon John Shalala said attendance was also higher than usual during weekend services at St. Alexander church in Pelham. But the weather over the weekend might have helped lure more people out the door to church services, he said. "People do look at the weather, and if it looks good, out they go." Shalala said he hadn't heard parishioners at the church talking about the European matter, either. But he agreed with Mulligan that the scandal does raise a number of issues that the Catholic church needs to deal with on a global basis.
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