WASHINGTON
Seattle Times
By Lornet Turnbull
Seattle Times staff reporter
In November, the priest at Assumption Catholic Church in North Seattle mailed a letter of welcome to parishioners, including members long dormant — those divorced and remarried, gay, tired or simply disillusioned.
“We are living in exciting times,” Father Oliver Duggan told them. “Our church, which so many had written off as not relevant in this time and age, has suddenly come to life.”
For this he credited Pope Francis for not only inspiring his own pastoral work but for breathing new life into the Roman Catholic Church. While the new pontiff hasn’t changed church teachings, the father wrote, “he has been applying those teachings in a loving and caring way.”
A year after Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio stepped onto the balcony at St. Peter’s Basilica to present himself to the world as Pope Francis, Duggan’s words stand as testament for many — Catholics and non-Catholics — who believe this “people’s pope” has shifted the tone and softened the image of the 1.2 billion-member church. …
“A PR pope”
Yet for all the good feelings Francis’ papacy is generating — from within the halls of the nation’s Catholic schools to Catholic-run charities — some say the pope has failed to fully address some of the deep conflicts within the church.
The new pope, they say, has rarely spoken out about priest sex abuse, and three months after Francis created a commission of experts to study the best ways to protect children, no members have been appointed and no action taken.
In an interview with an Italian daily last week, Francis struck back, insisting that despite its transparency and responsibility, the church has repeatedly been criticized.
While his polling numbers far surpass those of the church he leads, in some cases reaching levels that would make him the envy of politicians, none of it appears to be bringing members back to the pews, according to a recent Pew Research Center report.
Locally, the Archdiocese of Seattle said it had no statistics to “verify a papal bump.”
John Schuster is a former priest who lives in Port Orchard and heads the local chapter of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP); he still meets with victims today.
“He’s pretty much a PR pope,” Schuster said. “His hype and all his nice words are not matching his actions. He’s starting to show cracks in his message … and people are going to hold him accountable.”
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