PORTLAND – Maine’s top Catholic, Bishop Richard J. Malone, will be among those overseeing the celebration Friday when the class of 04 graduates from St. Dominic Regional High School in Auburn.

It will be his first St. Dom’s graduation; he replaced Bishop Joseph Gerry two months ago.

Malone takes over as several controversial issues have ignited or continue to smolder: gay marriage, child sexual abuse by priests, and giving communion to abortion-rights politicians.

Malone spoke with the Sun Journal about those issues and more, including his current priority of realigning parishes in light of a priest shortage in the Maine diocese.

Question: What is your position on gay marriage?

Answer: It’s no surprise that the constant tradition of the Catholic church is that marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman, that kind of a sacred covenant. … Maybe with exceptions here and there, if you look back through human history as far as we can go that’s what marriage has been. … I want to uphold the fundamental and traditional notion of marriage as the union of a man and a woman. I don’t believe that the relationship between partners of the same sex can be called marriage. Obviously the Supreme Court in Massachusetts has called it that, but I cannot as a Christian.

Q: What would you say to the Catholic gays hoping to have gay marriage legalized in Maine?

A: I would say to any Catholic gay person that they ought to know that the church loves them and wants them to be among its membership. That’s a very important thing. Sometimes people think because the church has a problem with gay marriage, that we are hateful to gay people. That’s not the point. We love the homosexual members of the church, but our hope is they will live their relationship according to the Christian understanding of chastity. While we don’t accept gay marriage, we welcome gay people.

Q: Would you give communion to presidential candidate John Kerry, who is a supporter of abortion rights?

A: It’s not that simple. … It is morally wrong for a Catholic politician to promote the pro-choice position, but there are many things that are wrong. I would ask any Catholic politician to look seriously into his or her conscience. The thing is, I don’t think the moment of giving Holy Communion is the moment for that kind of confrontation. Other bishops have taken different positions on that. … If you started to do that around abortion you’d have to do it around a whole lot of things. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not soft on abortion. I am completely opposed to abortion under any circumstances. … Do I think a bishop has a responsibility to challenge Catholic politicians? Absolutely, but not at the communion rail.

… The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has a task force thinking this whole thing of Catholic politicians and abortion through. We know this is a serious issue. Many people out in the pew are scandalized when they see a politician strongly pro-choice walk up the aisle and receive communion. I get letters all the time, from teenagers, elderly, young adults, doctors, lawyers, housewives.

Q: Is sexual abuse by priests behind us? How will you deal with this issue?

A: I pray to God that we are beyond the peak of the crisis, but we’re not done dealing with it. There’s a serious need to continue to reach out to victims of sexual abuse by clergy or church personnel. I continue to offer my own self to any victim who wishes to come in. I do have appointments set up with a couple of them. It has not yet happened, but it’s scheduled.

Secondly, this diocese has strong protocols in place should, God forbid, any one of these kinds of things happen in the future. … If a case comes up, we have to deal with it in a very, very direct way.

The third thing is our commitment to prevention. That ranges from background checks on employees, not only new employees – I had to do one when I came – but current employees and volunteers. Anybody who’s had any contact with minors. … Also we’ve done training for employees and volunteers who work with children to help them understand the signs of sexual abuse. It’s called Protecting God’s Children’ and is under way.

And we’re finalizing a decision on a program with the children. We want to have all of our children in Catholic schools go through (it) … We don’t want to get them all alarmed, but say, “There are certain things someone shouldn’t do to you. If they do, scream! Say stop!'” It will be part of the life of every Catholic school.”

Q: Does Maine have a zero-tolerance policy?

A: We do. We have it across the country.

Q: So now there’s no working priest in Maine with any history of sexual abuse that you know of?

A: That’s correct.

Q: In Maine there are 234,000 Catholics, 135 parishes and 100 priests. How will you handle the priest shortage in Maine?

A: The priest shortage is very real. I’m going to do all I can to try to raise consciousness among our young people that the Lord is calling them to something in life. … I’m convinced the Lord has not stopped calling people, it’s just that we live in a busy, noisy, distracting world. It’s hard for all of us, especially young people, to tune in and (ask) “What might the Lord be calling me to.” … I’m going to work on promoting vocations.

Secondly, there’s a blessing that has come out of the priest shortage. It’s made the church do something it should have done more: recognize and call for the gifts of service of the laity. That’s a good thing. … We should have been doing it anyway. … We have 135 parishes and 44 mission (summer) churches in Maine. We have 100 priests. By 2010 we’ll be down to 60 or 65 priests. We’re ordaining only one man this year, this weekend in Millinocket, in the diocese. … If we’re going to go down to 60 or 65 priests, we cannot have 135 parishes and 44 missions.

Q: How are you going to realign parishes, and how will that impact Lewiston-Auburn area parishes?

A: It’s too soon to know how specific parishes will be impacted; a realignment plan will emerge over the next six months. In addition to the priest shortage, demographics are changing with schools closing in northern Maine as the young move away to areas with jobs. I’ve read that Androscoggin County’s population is growing, but Lewiston’s population is declining, so that’s going to mean something. We’re just putting together the central committee – laity, clergy and religious – to work out an actual plan. By Jan. 6 they’re to have proposals to me. … Generally speaking, we’re not talking about closing parishes, the plan is to merge parishes. We may make three parishes with three pastors into one parish with one pastor, one parish council. They’d still have three campuses.

Q: In Lewiston-Auburn there are several schools tied to parishes. Will you look at merging schools?

A: I haven’t got my hands on the data well enough to make a comment, but obviously we have to look at schools. But don’t forget we opened up a new St. Dominic high school, and it’s doing very well, thanks to Bishop Gerry and others. We’re very proud of that. The diocese has a commitment to Catholic education in Lewiston-Auburn. St. Dominic is a prime example.

Q: What are your top goals as the new bishop of Maine?

A: 1. I really want to restore the trust of the Catholic people. The trust was terribly damaged by the sexual abuse crisis. I know that. Prior to that there was a general sense of trust. We need to restore trust. That will take time.

2. The mission of evangelization, trying to bring the good news of Christ’s love to everybody we can find. That’s the mission of the church, to announce the good news of the gospel of Christ, and to do that very well. That covers so many things.

3. To make an impact on society.

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