Mainers critical of church in survey

By JOHN RICHARDSON, Portland Press Herald Writer

Copyright © 2002 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

E-mail this story to a friend

Nearly three out of four Mainers believe leaders of the Roman Catholic Church have mishandled allegations of priests sexually abusing children, according to a statewide poll conducted last week.

The assessment was only slightly less critical among Catholics interviewed for the survey, with 69 percent of those participants saying the church has handled the incidents either fairly poorly or very poorly. In addition, four out of 10 of the Catholics surveyed said their confidence or faith in the church has been affected by the sex-abuse allegations.

The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram contracted Critical Insights of Portland to conduct the poll last week. The company interviewed 400 Mainers, including 97 Catholics. Poll results and follow-up interviews reveal deep concerns among Mainers about the scandal.

"I think that it's a terrible, terrible shame. It just must be awfully hard on all the people," said Willine Twombly, a 78-year-old former teacher from Standish. "It disgusts me no end."

Accusations of parish priests molesting children and adolescents have surfaced almost daily as victims, now adults, come forward to church leaders and civil authorities. The reports have rocked the church in the United States and worldwide, with priests facing accusations throughout Europe as well.

The church has been aware of such allegations for years. The current crisis was fueled by the Boston trial of a defrocked priest, John Geoghan, accused of molesting more than 130 children over 30 years. The Boston Archdiocese acknowledged moving Geoghan from parish to parish despite years of evidence that he was a threat to children.

In countless other cases around the country, church leaders paid cash settlements to victims, convinced them to keep quiet about the abuse and then transferred the priests to other parishes.

The revelations have forced church leaders to remove priests and issue repeated apologies to victims. In Maine and some other states, church officials also have turned over secret files of past allegations to civil authorities, who are now investigating the potential for criminal charges.

Some results of last week's Maine poll are slightly more critical of the church than the sentiments measured in a nationwide CNN/Time poll conducted two weeks earlier.

In both polls, citizens were asked to rank church leaders' handling of the allegations. Twenty-two percent of Mainers said the church has handled the situations fairly well or very well, compared with 29 percent of the national survey participants. In Maine, 74 percent rated the responses as fairly poor or very poor, compared with 64 percent nationally.

The poll of Mainers has a margin of error of 4.9 percentage points. Other results of the Maine poll:

Catholics are only slightly less critical than respondents overall, with 69 percent saying church leaders have handled the allegations fairly poorly or very poorly.

Only 18 percent of all respondents - Catholic and non-Catholic - said they have some confidence or a great deal of confidence that church leaders are committed to openly addressing sex-abuse issues.

Catholics are somewhat more optimistic, with 38 percent saying they have some confidence or a great deal of confidence that the issue will be dealt with openly.

Forty percent of the Catholics surveyed said the abuse allegations have affected their confidence or faith in the church, and 60 percent said they did not.

Growing up in Catholic churches and schools, Joseph Shaw of Windham said he had heard of similar allegations years ago. Now a member of a Baptist church, Shaw participated in the telephone survey and said Catholic leaders have clearly mishandled the problem.

"When they had the problem, they'd move the problem so that people don't know about it," he said. But, Shaw said, he is confident that things are changing now.

"Shipping (abusive priests) to some other parish has been going on for a long time, but I don't think that'll happen again," Shaw said. "And with all the press and everything, if something happens, people will report it a lot quicker now."

Brian Rand of Buxton plans to become a Catholic, like his fiancee. He is one of the 22 percent of Mainers who said church leaders are handling the problem very well.

"They claim to have taken care of the situation and removed (child abusers) from power," Rand said. "And they put safeguards in place to keep it from happening again, they believe."

The 25-year-old also said he has had no second thoughts about joining the church because the problems are with individual priests, not the institution.

Willine Twombly, the retired teacher, was one of the majority who said the church has handled the problem poorly. But she also said that church leaders weren't the only ones who mishandled the issue years ago.

"I think that they were very, very lax back in the beginning. But it's like it is in so many places," she said. Issues such as sexual abuse were kept quiet everywhere in society in the past, she said.

"I think perhaps they are getting down to (handling it better), because they are kind of forced to," Twombly said. "Hopefully, it will be better."

Staff Writer John Richardson can be contacted at 791-6324 or at:

jrichardson@pressherald.com

To top of page