Catholicism

Then Peter came up and said to [Jesus], "Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?" Jesus said to him, "I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times seven." -- Gospel of Matthew In the wake of months of shocking revelations that hundreds of priests sexually abused minors in cases dating back decades, and the equally unsettling realization that many a bishop turned a blind eye, the leadership of the U.S. Roman Catholic Church came under intense pressure to respond swiftly and decisively.

I ALMOST wiped off the black smudge from my forehead immediately following the Ash Wednesday service several weeks ago. Almost. I had just read about the Boston priest scandal and my stomach sank with disgust. Like most new moms I know, I immediately thought about my little prince, my 8-month-old son, and about how outraged I would be upon learning that a trusted priest, a family friend, had abused him in any way. Each morning I sit with my paper and coffee and read about the most recent charge of pedophilia, I experience the same kind of nausea I did when Bill Clinton admitted on national television that he did have inappropriate relations with "that woman ... Ms. Lewinsky."

The uniformly parked rows of minivans in the lot of St. Louis Roman Catholic Church in Clarksville on a Sunday morning hint at who's driving the worship inside - the well-educated, well-to-do, family-oriented faithful. Inside, seats are full, and a few dozen people stand in the back, far fewer than the hundreds without seats when it's not summer. A constant din of baby chatter, punctuated by the occasional squeal, accompanies the strum of folk guitar. St. Louis, a parish of more than 14,000 people that is witnessing explosive growth, is a microcosm of the U.S. Catholic Church.

WASHINGTON - Ever since the Know Nothing Party of the 1850s sought power with a message of virulent anti-Catholicism, religious prejudice has been a factor in presidential politics. Anti-Catholic bias was a major element in the defeat of New York's Democratic Gov. Alfred E. Smith, a Catholic, by Republican Herbert Hoover in 1928. In 1960, the prejudice was overcome by Sen. John F. Kennedy in his narrow victory over Vice President Richard M. Nixon. Since then, Catholicism has not been a bar to election at any political level.

The Goughs, the Mattinglys, the Mudds, the Abells. Their names grace mailboxes, businesses, church rolls and community newspapers throughout Southern Maryland. Nearly 640 miles away, the same names permeate the "Holy Land," a tri-county region in central Kentucky where thousands of Roman Catholic Marylanders from Charles, Prince George's and St. Mary's counties settled after the Revolutionary War. Yesterday, 600 people with those surnames and scores more in common came to Leonardtown from around the country for the National Reunion of Descendants of Maryland to Kentucky, a biennial event held in one state or the other since 1990.

Lebanon's unhappy existence as a separate state began in 1920 with the breakup of the Turkish Empire. It has rarely since then been at peace or in control of its territory. With its ethnic factions usually at odds, the tiny country - about one-third the size of Maryland - has been a cat's-paw for the rivalries of its neighbors. Until 1941 Lebanon was administered by France under a League of Nations mandate. Nominally independent since then, it has been partially occupied at various times by Syria, Israel and guerrillas from the Palestine Liberation Organization.

ADULT Roman Catholics with sharp memories can recall the priests and nuns of their childhood offering advice on confessing sins -- "going into the box," as the phrase went. Be specific, be contrite, and promise to sin no more. Of those three standards for true repentance, Pope John Paul II, in his March 12 plea for divine forgiveness for sins committed by his church during the past 2,000 years, met only one. He was contrite. On specific sins, the pope offered the incense of smoky generalities.

IT IS NOT widely noticed that the weaknesses and insufficiencies of bumper-sticker political exegesis seem often to influence just the people we'd think absolutely immune from that kind of reductionism. But not only is it happening, in the case of one highbrow pundit it is actually being encouraged. So George W. Bush headed for South Carolina after his defeat in New Hampshire and delivered a speech at Bob Jones University. Now there is only one legitimate question to raise here. It is: Does George W. Bush himself incline to those idiosyncratic views of life that distinguish Bob Jones U. from other fundamentalist Christian colleges?

Cheap shot at Catholic schools I take great exception to Neil Herrmanns comments about Catholic education in his letter on public funding for Catholic schools (". . . but offends citizens who dont support religion," Feb. 3). Religion is not a dead subject, as the writer states, but a living part of a human being. We dont teach dogma, but values and ethics and how to live a good life, no matter what ones beliefs. We produce students who fight hatred and intolerance. Our science courses are up-to-date, relevant and teach modern methods and scientific reasoning.

Memories of Bishop MurphyFor half a century it was my privilege to know Philip Francis Murphy, who died Sept. 2 ("Bishop Murphy, advocate for justice, dies at age 66," Sept. 3) after 40 years as a priest and 23 years as auxiliary bishop of Baltimore.If Christ was the winning face of God, Bishop Murphy was the beguiling face of Catholicism -- a structured religion whose officials too often seem cold and legalistic.We first met in our teens as fellow students at St. Charles Minor Seminary in Catonsville.