CANADA
The Cape Breton Post
Published on May 23, 2012
Staff ~ The Cape Breton Post
Retired religious studies professor Charles MacDonald presented a series of talks earlier this year on the troubled state of the Roman Catholic Church and how the Church might be resuscitated.
In a recent letter to the editor, Pat Bates quoted MacDonald as describing the Church of yesterday in this way: “Power rested with the pastors in their glebe houses and the bishop in his residence. The lay people were passive — in their place — the pews.”
The pendulum has swung, and the obsequious parishioner of yesteryear is increasing rare, due in no small part to an ever-widening picture of the repugnant actions of some of those former worthies.
Locally, anxiety among parishioners was originally borne out of ever-increasing sexual abuse allegations — and convictions — against priests.
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