MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press
By Bob Shaw
bshaw@pioneerpress.com
Everyone tries to sound so casual.
“People will ask how it’s going,” said Tim Marx, chief executive of Catholic Charities of St. Paul and Minneapolis. “They are asking the question without asking The Question.”
The Question is how he and other Catholics are coping with the scandal from hell, the revelations of the decades of priests abusing children and the church covering it up. They are asking about the crisis that is partly responsible for a 9 percent drop in 10 years in the number of Minnesotans who are registered Catholic.
The Question hasn’t changed. But lately, some of the answers have.
Many Minnesota Catholics are optimistic that the church is bouncing back. There may be more accusations to come — just last week, an affidavit was filed from a former official in the Twin Cities archdiocese accusing its leaders of covering up abuse cases and blaming victims — but some Catholics think the worst of them have been exposed.
“I don’t want to say we won’t see these things again, but I think it is changing,” said Bob Kennedy, chairman of the Department of Catholic Studies at St. Thomas University.
“We are coming back stronger. That is the nature of any kind of trial — you are stronger when you come out the other side,” said Joseph Grodahl of Richfield, a law school student who converted to Catholicism in 2009.
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