MASSACHUSETTS
WGBH
By EDGAR B. HERWICK III
According to the 2010 Religion Census, a study conducted every 10 years, 45 percent of Massachusetts residents consider themselves Catholic, making the Bay State one of the most heavily Catholic states in the US. This fact would surely surprise William Bradford, and the rest of the Mayflower pilgrims who first established the Commonwealth.
From parades to politics, Catholicism is such an integral part of the cultural fabric here in Massachusetts that it’s hard to believe that it hasn’t always been that way. And yet, as Boston College history professor James O’Toole explains: “In the very early years of Massachusetts, Catholics were few in number and not particularly welcome.”
Not welcomed is one way to put it. Illegal would be another. Consider Massachusetts’ so-called anti-priest laws, established in the 1640s. O’Toole explains: “If a priest came in he’d be ordered out of the colony. If he came back, he’d be put in jail for a while and thrown out of the colony again and if he came back a third time he’d be hanged.” …
Today, Boston remains an influential center for American Catholicism – for good and for bad. America’s first and only Catholic president, JFK, is from here. But the archdiocese was also the center of clergy sex abuse scandal that the church continues to grapple with. O’Toole says that two centuries on, for Chevrus’ successor, Cardinal Sean O’Malley, the job may be very different, but that doesn’t mean it’s any easier.
“Cardinal O’Malley’s challenge is now that the church has grown into this big institution. How to maintain an institution of that size, so that it actually connect to people.”
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