Speaking before a Robsham audience on November 27 were, from left, Professor Tiziana Dearing (social work), Sean Barry ’21, Stephanie Sanchez MSW’18, and Professor Stephen Pope (theology). Ambassador R. Nicholas Burns ’78, H’02, moderated. Image: Lee Pellegrini

Taking to the stage in a crowded Robsham Theater on Tuesday, November 27, R. Nicholas Burns ’78, H’02, made a promise all too easy to keep. “This is going to be a difficult conversation,” said the veteran U.S. diplomat and moderator of this forum convened in the wake of new revelations about clergy sexual abuse in the United States. The pre-announced topic was “Why I Remain a Catholic: Belief in a Time of Turmoil,” but, before finally making their way to that question, the panelists laid bare feelings of betrayal and disillusionment.

Approximately 500 people—young-adult, middle-aged, and older—turned out for the discussion, which was sponsored by Boston College’s Church in the 21st Century Center (C21). The full 90 minutes was also streamed on Facebook, with around 2,800 people watching on screen in real time or within the next couple of days.

For both speakers and audience, there was a palpable sense of ecclesiastical déjà vu. In 2002, C21 had come into being under disturbingly similar circumstances, following an outbreak of abuse scandals in the Archdiocese of Boston. The center remains “a catalyst and a resource for the renewal of our Catholic Church,” its director, Karen Kiefer ’82, said in her greeting.

Sixteen years later, developments have once again “taken a serious toll on the Catholic community in our country, leaving too many Catholics hurt, angry, and questioning their continued involvement in the Church,” said University President William P. Leahy, SJ, under whose leadership C21 was founded. The Jesuit was referring to a Pennsylvania grand jury report last summer that identified more than 300 priests credibly accused of sexually abusing more than 1,000 minors in six Catholic dioceses (in cases mostly decades old), as well as alleged sexual misconduct by disgraced ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, former archbishop of Washington, D.C. This past fall saw a jarring spectacle of disharmony between U.S. bishops and the Vatican over how to act in response to the scandals.

Fr. Leahy added in his introductory remarks: “Certainly our faith and sense of what it means to be a Catholic and part of the Church does not depend on one person or one event, but they have been and continue to be shaped by family, prayer, sacraments, relationships, and service of others.”

Burns—a professor of diplomacy and international relations at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a former U.S. ambassador to Greece and NATO—followed. Recalling the “shock and sense of disbelief and anger” in 2002, he said Catholicism is back “in crisis,” but that people have gathered in Robsham “because the Church is worth saving.”

He cited the Church’s global works of disaster relief and “conflict mediation,” as well as its “very powerful voice for the 65 million refugees and internally displaced people in the world today.” He then presented the four panelists: Tiziana Dearing, a professor at Boston College’s School of Social Work; Sean Barry ’21, a midshipman in the U.S. Navy ROTC; Stephanie Sanchez, MSW’18, in the midst of wrapping up a second master’s at the University’s School of Theology and Ministry; and Boston College theology professor Stephen Pope.

With the four seated on tall director’s chairs against a maroon-curtain backdrop, Burns posed his first question from the podium: How has a decade and a half of abuse scandals affected you as a Catholic? The first response, by Dearing, indicated one way she and undoubtedly many others are processing the revelations—by putting noticeable daylight between the institutional Church and their faith convictions.

“It tattered my relationship with the institution of the Church,” said Dearing, referring especially to the nationwide cascade of scandals during the aughts. (In the aftermath of those revelations, in 2007 at age 36, she was appointed the first woman to direct Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Boston.) “And it is a relationship that is tattered now, but that’s different than my faith,” she clarified. “And it didn’t affect my faith.”

Barry followed, saying he has lived practically his entire life with a “Church in scandal. And it’s disheartening.” The sophomore, who also serves as Grand Knight of the Boston College Knights of Columbus, admitted to feelings of “rage” over accounts of child molestation by clergy, but said his faith has matured with his realization that the Church can make shameful mistakes even as it nurtures values such as mercy and reconciliation. “Because my faith is not the Church,” he said.

In a similar vein, Sanchez said the latest tribulations have “added some fuel to the fire” of her faith and to her determination to study theology. She now reflects more searchingly on “why we are serving. Why do we go about loving every day, to follow Christ, and live in that love? And if that means we have to grow and change along with the Church, then that’s what we’re called to do.”

Less willing to distance his faith from the institution was the theology professor, Pope. “I think there are layers of deception, misplaced loyalty, hidden suffering that we’re just beginning to hear about,” he said, alluding in part to coverups by bishops. “So I have to say I do find it shaking my faith. Not in the sense that I’m going to abandon the Catholic Church. It’s shaking in that I continually have to wrestle with the hypocrisy of the Church . . . because my faith is very ecclesial. It’s very churchy in the sense that I do believe in my heart that the Church was founded by Jesus.”

From there, the discussion turned a corner into issues of transparency, reform, and accountability—inescapably arriving at the singular question of women in the Church. The audience listened closely, punctuating remarks on stage with frequent applause and “ahh’s.”

“Gosh, there are a lot of good and holy women who are ready to step up. And our Church has silenced them or put them down and said, ‘You stay there’. And I’m really tired of it. I really am,” Sanchez said, speaking more quickly as applause mounted. “I love being a Catholic woman. I love it,” Sanchez underscored. “But that also means I’m ready. . . . Let’s get women in the room. I would be happy to be in the room.”

Undergraduate volunteers had been reaching into rows to collect index cards with penciled questions from the audience. Burns conveyed a sampling of those, including this one: “My 14-year-old son talks about becoming a priest. I’m struggling with how to react to that.”
After the panel’s two lay men alluded to their vocational discernments (including Pope’s high-school thoughts of becoming a Jesuit), Dearing added her perspective as a women in a Church that limits ordination to men. “I’ve been praying really hard the last three or four minutes about whether or not to say what I’m about to say,” she said, her voice catching. “When I was in high school, I wanted to be a priest too.”

There was brief silence, then strong applause. Dearing wiped away a tear and said no more on the subject.

Not until the closing moments did Burns explicitly raise the why-I-remain-a-Catholic question, although, in a way, the conversation had been orbiting it all along. Taking quick turns, panelists spoke of drawing hope from “people who care” about the Church and its mission to serve God and neighbor, especially at the parish level (Pope); of turning away from “anger and rage” (Barry); and of realizing more clearly than ever that the sacraments, community, and Mass are “how I know God” (Dearing).

By then, the audience was applauding every utterance.

“This Church is my home. This is my place,” said Sanchez, mentioning the “great gift of faith” she received growing up in a Hispanic family. “And I’m not going anywhere, even though we are terribly broken now.” The graduate student chooses to side with hope, she said—”because I also know that Jesus isn’t going anywhere.”

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