By Dennis Able

“I don’t care about Catholics,” said the man in the Roman collar. “I care about people.”

Speaking was Father James Kavanaugh, author of “A Modern Priest Looks at His Outdated Church,” who is currently on a publicity tour for his publishers. His book, a spokesman, said has sold 100,000 copies since June 20, the largest two-month sales figure in the history of Simon and Schuster.

“I don’t believe in a God who can damn a man eternally to hell,” Kavanaugh told the Atlanta Press Club last week. “I could care less about whether a man takes a drink or the state permits gambling.”

The author said he was upset by the Church’s “preoccupation with sex,’ adding he could no longer in conscience sit in a confessional and tell “poor and guilt-ridden women that they can’t use the pill.”

The speaker said his book on the church came in response to thousands of sympathetic letters resulting from an article, “I Am a Priest-I Want To Marry,” which was published anonymously in Saturday Evening Post.

Kavanaugh said, despite the fact that he has criticized celibacy, the Church’s teaching on birth control and prohibition of the remarriage of divorcees he has not been officially censured by Church leaders.

In fact, he said he was given a year’s leave of absence to write his book and he corresponds frequently with his bishop.

“Not exactly ‘cordially yours’, Kavanaugh, “but we do write.’ He said the possibility of excommunication, however, doesn’t bother him. “No one can excommunicate me from my God; I fear no adversary.”

“I can’t get too excited about ecumenism,” he said. “To me, it’s a case of the in-groups talking to the in-group, talking to the in-group. I want to talk to the out-group!” Asked whether he preferred Protestant methods, he replied: “Dear God, we’ve got hang-ups of our own, but I’m not gonna take on all those!”

He said he understands the import of the changes he suggests and that nobody would be more disappointed than he if everything changed tomorrow according to his guidelines.

But, he said also that it is hard to be patient. “Change has to take place very quickly today,” he said. “This is the world where six months ago, nobody knew my name. Now they know my mother’s.”

During the question-answer period at the press club luncheon, Father Noel Burtenshaw, chancellor, suggested that he would be more effective working within the church through channels.

Kavanaugh replied, “Perhaps, Father, but I think there are more of my kind than there are of yours.”

The priest said one of his paramount concerns is the complexion of the Catholic Church tomorrow and, of course, the changes he advocates: “The hope of the church is men like Archbishop Hallinan. The future of religion is in the hands of the young—and they’re not impressed by tradition.”