PROVIDENCE, R.I.: Frank Ferri made peace with God years ago. Last month, Ferri defeated the Roman Catholic Church.
The openly gay state representative led the fight to legalize same-sex marriage in what may be the most Catholic state in the nation’s most Catholic region.
In early May, Rhode Island became the sixth and final New England state to allow gay couples to marry. The Democratic-dominated Legislature, led by an openly gay House speaker, overcame years of successful lobbying by the Catholic Church.
“They put the fear of God into people,” Ferri said, claiming that “the influence of the church” had been the primary stumbling block as every other neighboring state, and many people across the country, started embracing gay marriage.
Ferri’s victory marked the Catholic Church’s most significant political defeat in an area where more than 40 percent of the population is Catholic.
Perhaps more problematic for the church is that state-by-state setbacks on gay marriage illustrate a widening divide between the church hierarchy and its members that may be undermining Catholic influence in American politics.
Church ‘out of touch’
The disconnect plays out in polling.
In March, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that a majority of Catholics, 60 percent, felt the church was out of touch with the views of Catholics in America today.
A CBS News/New York Times poll in February found that 78 percent of Catholics said they were more likely to follow their own conscience than the church’s teachings on difficult moral questions.
That poll highlighted several areas where most Catholics break with church teachings: 62 percent of American Catholics think same-sex marriages should be legal, 74 percent think abortion ought to be available in at least some instances and 61 percent favor the death penalty.
At Vatican, newly selected Pope Francis, while a bishop in Argentina, angered other church leaders by supporting civil unions for gay couples ahead of that country’s vote to legalize gay marriage.
He has taken no such position as pope.
Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, a member of one of the most storied Catholic families in American politics, said she’s encouraged by Francis’ early leadership. But she said the church’s political influence will continue to wane unless it adapts.
“Gay marriage is part of a larger refusal on the part of the church to listen to, and to understand, the people in the pews,” said Townsend, who regularly attends church and wrote the book, Failing America’s Faithful: How Today’s Churches Are Mixing God With Politics and Losing Their Way.
Church officials in Washington, Boston and Providence declined to be interviewed for this report.
Aggressive lobbying
The church for decades has employed aggressive lobbying efforts on a range of political issues, and Catholic leaders have used the power of the pulpit and substantial financial resources to maintain clout. But the church — and its primary voice in America, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops — has had little success influencing the gay marriage debate.
As for Ferri, he said he’s at peace with God, regardless of the warnings of the church. A faithful member of his church choir for decades, he recalled sitting alone at the altar while struggling with his homosexuality years ago.
“I got a message from God: ‘You’re going to be OK. Be who you are,’ ” he said during a recent interview in his small office in the Statehouse.
Noting that a church lobbyist would be pushing abortion-related legislation later that day, Ferri said the Catholic Church will always have some political influence in Rhode Island.
“They just picked the wrong battle this time. And I think it hurt them,” he said.