Church Leaders Should Be Proactive

The nation’s eight Catholic cardinals went to Washington recently for an unprecedented lobbying effort. They were joined by 50 bishops and others who hoped to help win an override of President Clinton’s veto of a bill banning late-term abortions.

Votes in both chambers of Congress to overturn the veto are expected soon.

Frankly, the presence of the clergy in Washington startled me, and brought to mind the reason I left my church, never to return, many years ago.

What drove me from it then was the absence of courage on the part of church leaders. Most of them were frightened little men and women who were content to pray that the situation would improve.

I attended church regularly until I was 17. By then, I discovered that the church was generally irrelevant. I visited several houses of worship, searching for one that possessed the courageous leadership necessary to fight against the encroaching depravity - drugs and crime - that was seeping into my East Bronx neighborhood.

I found that most churches opened their doors on Sundays, led the congregation in song and prayer, baptized the kids, performed marriages, passed the collection plates, then locked their doors tight.

When a woman was mugged or a man was robbed in the shadow of the church building, the minister seldom spoke of it. After one such incident, I fled the spineless leadership of organized religion.

I believed church leadership should be proactive. I still believe that the clergy could be far more effective if it ventured into the streets and alleys where drugs and crime proliferate. A few do, but they walk alone for the most part.

If the church intends to have an impact on teenage pregnancy, for example, it must go where the teenagers are. If the trouble they see takes place in the halls of Congress, it must be there, inspiring and cajoling congressional leaders to do the right thing.

A couple of years ago, I was privileged to have breakfast with Philadelphia’s Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua. We discussed many issues affecting Philadelphia and the church. We found agreement in some areas, disagreement in others. He promised to be proactive on issues of major concern to the community and kindly invited me to call if I had concerns about his positions.

Bevilacqua has often lived up to his promise. I salute his active stand against late-term abortions and his going to Congress to exert his influence on the travesty of the cruel destruction of fetuses.

The cardinal is appalled that in late term-abortions, the fetus is partially removed, legs first, through the birth canal. An incision is made in the skull base and the brain is drained through a suction tube. Finally, the skull collapses.

Going to the seat of power in Washington, on behalf of defenseless fetuses as the clergy did, was a rare act of commitment. After meeting with the cardinal for an hour, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., announced he is “reconsidering” his vote last spring in support of certain late-term abortions.

Even if Specter is merely playing religious politics, Bevilacqua and the others are making a valiant effort. Had that type of leadership existed in my old neighborhood in New York City, the church would have seemed far more relevant and kept many more of its young congregants, like me.

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