Santa Cruz Sentinel from Santa Cruz, California • Page 71

NS Here's to you, Class of 2002 Plenty to look forward to despite economic change. EDITORIAL, PAGE F2 Santa Ckuz Sentinel Editor: Marin Vaislicra. '129-2-158 1-. 1 i 1 I 1 Local leader confronts 'moral guilt' 1 35 i 11IHIIH il 3 jj1 fit. By JEANENE HARLICK SENTINEL STAFF WRITER In May, allegations of sexual misconduct against the Rev.

Mike Marini first came to light. In 1985, Gary Crabtree, then in his mid-30s, accused Marini, who was counseling him, of plying him with drugs and "encouraging and causing him" to take part in sexual activities. Marini was at Resurrection Church in Aptos at the time, and later served at Holy Cross Church in Santa Cruz. The case was later settled. Marini in a Sentinel story acknowledged the sexual encounter, but denied he coerced Crabtree with drugs and called the act consensual.

The issue of gay priests is a collateral issue suddenly front and center in the still-unfolding sex-abuse scandal that is testing the foundation of the Roman Catholic Church. Marini says he realized he was gay at age 14; he was ordained as a priest at 41. He says he had a few sexual encounters before his ordination, and preferred not to comment on his sexual activity after ordination. After years of guilt, he says he came to terms with his homosexuality in his 30s, and no longer feels it's wrong to be gay. While at Holy Cross, Marini started the church's gay and lesbian faith community.

The group has been sanctioned by Bishop Sylvester Ryan of the Monterey diocese. The Sentinel sat down with Marini after the allegations surfaced in May. How do you feel about your activity with Crabtree in retrospect? A I have no question of my moral guilt here. There's a process and there's a decision the decision is the important thing and I made the wrong decision. What has been the hardest thing about the revelation of the incident? A I am in more pain about what this is doing for my mother than what it's doing for myself.

(At this point Marini became emotional and couldn't continue.) Has anything good come out of all this? A I am thankful that I could really come out with this article and be part of a wonderful group of (gay people). We're not saints, but we're no worse than our heterosexual brothers and sisters. I think gay people deserve to know that somebody in the church is willing to affirm them, and in public. What was it like growing up gay and Catholic? Please see MARINI on Page F4 Chris Fahrenbach speaks Inside Holy Cross Church's gay, lesbian communityPage F4 Shmuel ThalerSenlinel The Rev. Mike Marini reflects on a tumultuous period for the Catholic Church.

Gay priests bracing for backlash 'I've done everything I can to serve the church faithfully. Why would people now say there must be something wrong with me because I'm The Rev. Ralph Parthie, Franciscan priest By BRUCE NOLAN THE NEW YORK TIMES As the Rev. Ralph Parthie, a Franciscan priest, followed reports from the U.S. cardinals' meeting at the Vatican last month, part of what he read left him hurt, angry and demoralized.

There was the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop Wilton Gregory of Belleville, 111., explaining that it was "a struggle to make sure that the Catholic priesthood is not dominated by homosexual men." A few weeks earlier, the Vatican's own spokesman, Joaquin Navarro-Vails, had volunteered that gay men "just cannot be ordained" and suggested their ordinations might even be invalid. "I've done everything I can to serve the church faithfully," Parthie says. "Why would people now say there must be something wrong with me because I'm gay?" IThis is one of the collateral issues suddenly hoisted into full view by the sex-abuse scandal that has roiled the Roman Catholic Church since January. And it will have to be dealt with even if Unfortunately, the questions are surfacing in a near-perfect vacuum of reliable data.

Though the phenomenon of homosexuality in the priesthood has been growing in plain sight for at least three decades, no one has any figures that define the number of gay men among the nation's 45,000 priests. Not until 2000 did an observer with impeccable insider credentials, the Rev. Donald Cozzens, a Cleveland seminary rector and author of "The Changing Face of the Priesthood," assert that "the priesthood is or is becoming a gay profession." His insight, "seldom contested by those who know the priesthood well," was viewed in many quarters as recognition of the elephant in the living room. At Notre Dame, Williams thinks 20 percent to 25 percent of the men studying to be priests are gay and striving, like their straight brothers, to live chaste lives. Other estimates of a gay presence in seminary life are usually higher.

Cozzens guessed 50 percent, based on his experience. Religious orders generally are thought to draw more gay men than the corps of diocesan priests because of their tighter sense of brotherhood. Please see BACKLASH on Page F4 bishops soon develop a national policy on dealing with priests who molest minors, the topic that leads the agenda as they gather in Dallas next month. The majority of abuse cases uncovered so far involve priests engaging in sex with teenage boys. Does the presence of gay men in the priesthood necessarily lead to the sexual abuse of children and teen-agers? Is the priesthood on the way to becoming a gay profession? Is that good, bad or neutral? Is the abuse crisis evidence of a collapse in moral standards that lets gay men into the seminary, as Catholic conservatives believe, or is it evidence that the church needs to address sexuality more openly even rethink its sexual doctrines, as some liberals believe? Among gay priests and seminarians, meanwhile, there is a palpable fear they will become targets "scapegoats" is their word blamed for the crisis and perhaps swept out of seminaries or driven deeper into closeted lives of secrecy.

The Rev. Pat Williams, rector of Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans, says he has heard these concerns in open forums with some of his 150 seminarians. So has the Rev. Canice Connors, the head of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, the umbrella organization of Catholic men's religious orders in the United States. Last month Connors wrote the heads of Jesuits, Franciscans, Dominicans and other religious orders acknowledging the possibility that voices might soon urge that the priesthood be closed to gay men.

He pledged "to challenge any movement" to diminish the presence of gay men in the life of the church. "Is it a perilous moment?" Parthie asks. "Yeah, I'd say so." Someday, the U.S. will win the World Cup no joke have bad news for everyone else: the United States will win the World Cup. Maybe not this year, but the triumph is closer than the rest of the world This will be shocking.

It is one thing for us to flaunt our military and economic power, to spread McDonald's and Madonna around the world. It's quite another to trespass on everyone else's special preserve. thinks. We are becoming a soccer-playing and, to a lesser extent, soccer-loving country. We may not convert others to our vocabulary ing) boys when they're 12 or 13 and breed them for (professional) soccer like thoroughbreds." They're put under contract and trained.

Ramsay is more diplomatic. Despite gains, America isn't yet a soccer culture, he says. In Brazil and elsewhere, pickup games are common; here, they're rare. Soccer elsewhere is a here, it's more a "hobby." I am undaunted. It's true that the U.S.

team sometimes looks bleak; it finished last in the 1998 Cup. It's, also true that most Americans aren't fans. In 2001, attendance at Major League Soccer games averaged 14,638 down 16 percent from 1996. But games aren't won or lost in the bleachers. Regardless of whether the United States does well or poorly this year, we've attained a critical mass in players and enthusiasm.

We will intrude increasingly on everyone else's game and. sooner or later, take the Cup. Just wait. cer is the world's passion and obsession. In 1998, about 1 billion people watched the World Cup final.

For all 64 games, viewership was reckoned at 33 billion. Here, Americans are (supposedly) indifferent and incompetent. The trouble is that we're already defying stereotypes. From 1954 to 1986, the United States didn't qualify for the World Cup. Since 1990, we've consistently qualified.

On the eve of this Cup, the United States was ranked 13th in the world, just after Germany and England. Better is to come. I recall exactly when I knew the United States would win the World Cup. It was a clear fall morning in the mid-1990s. We were taking our younger son, then 6, to join the local league.

We drove to Julius West Middle School, a few miles from our home. There, on the school's grounds, were several dozen small soccer fields (20 yards by 40 yards). Teams played four vs. four. They came and went all day.

It was kickball without sport. I thought I knew the answer: basketball. "Soccer," he said. Ditto for many of his teammates. They love the game.

These are athletic kids. Some are big, muscular and speedy. I have long expected a couple of football coaches to interrupt one of our games, handcuff the biggest players and read them their rights: "Son, this is THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. At your weight and speed, you may not play soccer. The Constitution requires you to play football." Until that happens, American soccer must improve.

It's being fed by more players, more talent and more commitment as well as more immigrants who mix their soccer traditions with ours. To think the United States can win the World Cup is widely viewed as a lunatic notion. The soccer expert in our family the 15-year-old says: "Dad, you don't know what you're talking about. In most countries, they take (promis our soccer is their "football" but we're going to beat them at their own game. This will be shocking.

It is one thing for us to flaunt our military and economic power, to spread McDonald's and Madonna around the bases chaotic and charming. Not much skill. But there were lots of bodies. At Julius West, I realized that arithmetic favored American soccer power. Six-year-olds were starting soccer by the thousands.

Soccer is now the second most popular team sport among 6- to 17-year-olds. In 2001, there were 7.7 million players, says a survey by the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association. Only basketball, at 11.3 million, was higher. (Both sports were judged by playing time of at least 25 days a year.) Street-skating was third, at 7.5 million, and baseball a distant fourth at 4.7 million. Three decades ago, soccer was so far outside the mainstream that it wasn't even a trickle.

"I came here in 1967 from England as a 21-year-old," says Graham Ramsay, now director of education and training for the Maryland State Youth Soccer Association. "The game here was then very much an ethnic game you'd meet Germans, Italians, the whole bit." No more. Soccer is now so American that "soccer Moms" are pop sociology. Before long, Americans will forget that there ever was a time without soccer and claim to have invented the game. And it's more than numbers.

Our younger son long ago ditched soccer for hockey. But the older, 15, remains an avid player. When he was 10, 1 asked him to name his favorite ROBERT J. SAMUELSON The Washington Fast world. It's quite another to trespass on everyone else's special preserve.

After religion or before it soc-.