however, i think that this decrease began before the scandal became evident. but it certainly has complicated our life and as we struggle to regain the trust of our people and to make our catholic parishes and schools and agencies the very safest place possible for our young people. because even this week a philadelphia priest was accused, as you know, of sexually abusing a teenage boy, and the archdiocese accused of failing to intervene. many people looking at the church say it s hardly surprising that attendance is down. uh-huh. well, certainly the sex abuse scandal has been a very painful episode in our history. and but it s only a chapter in our history. it s not the whole history of the church and one of the things
time for the church and particularly for us catholics, we have it in our dna. i think it s a time when people are open to the message or the gospel and turn to the church with that hunger for god in the midst of so much materialism and actually the word lent is an old english word that means springtime. and hopefully, leapt for us will be a spiritual springtime, a time when people will be able to put aside some op @&hc% material things that stand in the way of nurturing our interior life and growing closer to the lord and closer to one another. cardinal sean o malley, archbishop of boston, thank you so much for joining us. one final piece of news on the matter in philadelphia, this afternoon, cardinal justin
formerly we had catholic who s would never miss mass. and now we have many who come once a month or ten times a year. or for the big holidays. but we re trying to instill in people a sense of discipleship that expresses itself in the community and jesus didn t come so that we could have the warp fuzzies. he came to establish a people, a church, a community of faith where we have responsibilities to god and to one another. can i ask how damaging have been the litany of sex scandals involving members of the catholic church? i m certain that people who were at an arm s length were pushed to two arms lengths by the terrible scandal. we don t see a dramatic decrease as a result of the scandal.
today as i m sure you know is ash wednesday, the beginning of the 40 days of lent. but while many catholics will bear the mark of the cross on their foreheads recent the number attending church services has been in serious decline for daks. now the catholic church is embracing all modern means to attract the lapsed back to the fold launching a new ad campaign called catholics come home. with over 1 billion in our family sharing in the sacramentes and if youness of the christian faith, jesus starred our church when he said to peter the first pope, you are a rock and upon this rockial build my church. so if you ve been away from the catholic church, we invite to you take another look as the catholics come home.org today. we re delighted the archbishop of boston cardinal