IMG: Voice of the Faithful group in front of a cathedral or church
As a grass-roots movement, Voice of the Faithful has proved that power in the church can come from the pews as well as the pope

Power in the Pews
Voice Of The Faithful, lay Catholics speaking out

By Julie Scelfo
NEWSWEEK

Jan. 6 issue —   Mary Ann Keyes is a retired preschool teacher and grandmother of four. Steve Krueger is a financial consultant. Maura O’Brien is a lawyer. But when the priest abuse scandal broke in January [2002]*, they joined fellow Roman Catholics to launch Voice of the Faithful [VOTF] and became nothing less than revolutionaries. “I love this church,” says Keyes, 62, who once worked as a missionary in Alaska. “It has always been a central part of my life. But I decided that I’m not going to my grave with the church in the shape that it’s in for my children and grandchildren.”

        AS A GRASS-ROOTS movement, VOTF has proved that power in the church can come from the pews as well as the pope. The most dramatic development was the resignation earlier this month [sic; really Dec '02] of Boston’s embattled cardinal, Bernard Law, after VOTF and 58 Boston-area priests publicly demanded he step down. The revolt is far from over. What began in Wellesley, Mass., as a discussion group in a church basement quickly grew to 25,000 members and 100 chapters from San Francisco to Nashville. VOTF insists it has a baptismal obligation to be active in church life. Members say they will no longer accept the old model of “pay, pray and obey,” and want nothing less than structural reform of the church.

Read the rest at: http://www.msnbc.com/news/850631.asp
Newsweek, "Power in the Pews: Voice Of The Faithful, lay Catholics speaking out;" By Julie Scelfo, January 6, 2003

       The church hierarchy isn’t pleased with VOTF’s high-profile protests. At least 10 bishops—worried that the group is a divisive force—banned VOTF from meeting on church property. The Vatican dismisses VOTF as liberals capitalizing on the scandal to further its own agenda. But VOTF’s leaders are not intimidated: donations keep pouring in, and people from as far away as Ireland and Australia are discovering VOTF’s Web site www.votf.org and starting new chapters. “Our agenda is what we say it is,” says Jim Post, VOTF’s president. “To support survivors, to support priests of integrity and to work on changes to ensure that this never happens again.”
http://www.msnbc.com/news/850631.asp
Newsweek, "Power in the Pews: Voice Of The Faithful, lay Catholics speaking out;" By Julie Scelfo, January 6, 2003
© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.

  * COMMENT: "But when the priest abuse scandal broke in January ..." This is only true in a certain sense. For centuries the clergy's sex-abuse of minors had been a problem in various religions. Most religions prefer to forget the children, and to protect the clergymen.
  The 1960s and 1970s "loosening up" of sexual morals in Western and some other countries had many harmful effects, but it did have a beneficial effect of helping victims to overcome false shame, so there was an increase in the percentage reporting the crimes to the police and to the Church authorities.
  Televised proceedings from Newfoundland in 1988 seem to have been the change-over from reports of isolated instances to a slowly-accelerating news coverage of a stream of convictions, compensation cases, exposures of "hush-ups," etc. The James Porter cases in 1992 led to the U.S. R.C. bishops adopting a reform package (again) in 1993. Missionary nuns were added to the victims' categories at least by 1994. That was also the year that an Irish Government fell because of the cover-up of Father Brendan Smith's child abuse, involving the Attorney General's Office.
  By then, generally, police and courts around the world were less willing to hush up the offences.
  The growth of the Internet from around 1995 meant that more of the public, and the news media itself, could instantly get news and comment from all over the world, so could form an opinion of the global nature of the crimes. This helped the responsible sections of the news media, at last, to report the massive number and scope of offences, and to comprehend the consistent pattern of "hush money" and transfers. The British, Irish and Australian governments in recent years have held formal inquiries into aspects of Church child sex-abuse. Victims were approaching television and other news media. In the mid-1990s Father John Geoghan's first group of court cases cost the U.S. Catholics millions in compensation.
  The Dallas Archdiocese was shown in the 1998 trial of Father Rudolph Kos to have misled the authorities while Fr Kos was a wanted fugitive, saying that his whereabouts were unknown, while at the same time paying substantial personal expenses to him! Also in 1998, in Australia, the "whistleblower" R.C. priest Morrie Crocker was found dead.
  In the U.S., "To the consternation of San Francisco Archbishop William Levada, a sometimes contentious crowd that nearly filled 550-seat St. Mary of the Angels Church on Tuesday night loudly applauded calls for the jailing of Bishop G. Patrick Ziemann and his former top financial aide." The bishop had discovered financial irregularities by the aide, a priest, and keeping silence about the $30 million had entered into a homosexual relationship with him! -- The Press Democrat, Sonoma County, California, Feb. 2, 2000
  The heat increased in 2001, with the stories of priests raping and seducing nuns in the mission fields appearing in Catholic newspapers, culminating in the European Parliament condemning the Vatican for this, as reported on April 6, 2001.
  In England and Wales every R.C. religious house and parish was supposed to appoint a sex-abuse preventive officer, it was reported on April 18, 2001. The Australian parliamentary inquiry into child migration gave its report of "Quite exceptional depravity" of sex-abusing Brothers in August 2001.
  The case of Christopher Reardon (convicted August 17, 2001) revealed that Boston Cardinal Bernard Law's attorneys had encouraged various parishioners to withhold information from investigators.
  The Phoenix, Boston, of October 4 - 11, 2001, was among news media that could prepare thoughtful summaries of the consistent nature of the U.S. R.C. sex-abuse practice, and the repeated transfers of repeat offenders. Quotations included: "Still, thousands of children were repeatedly placed in harm's way," "Church officials will say anything to get themselves off the hook," and "They knew priests were doing unspeakable things to kids."
  This summary has not included some landmark television and radio programmes and newspaper exposes, including the excellent Boston Globe internet "Spotlight" on the abuse, nor covered other Churches' crimes. Enough has been included to suggest that the R.C. "priest abuse scandal" did not break in January 2002, but has been building up for some years, getting worse.
  Yet, yes, something "broke" in January 2002. It was the patience of some Boston and other U.S. Catholics. When Father John Geoghan (already dealt with in the mid-1990s at the cost of millions) returned to court, and was gaoled, more cases were launched against him! Some of the leading Catholics realised that something more than mere grumbling was required to stop the Church's leaders letting criminals loose on children and teenagers.
  One group of Catholics started picketing the cathedral, and following Cardinal Law around calling him to account during his engagements. Another group, Voice of the Faithful, is featured in the newsitem above. First one newspaper, then two others, called for him to resign. Donations decreased, and some were diverted to a Catholic charities group not controlled by the Cardinal. His own finance committee defied his directives, and late in 2002 a few dozen Boston priests signed a letter calling on him to resign.
  Cardinal Law himself had realised his position was hopeless months earlier. His April 2002 resignation (revealed around Dec 14 2002) had been declined, but it was finally accepted on Dec 13 2002. He ought to have been at least suspended when this newsitem appeared, based on court documents: -- Fr Paul Shanley said he kept a promise to keep silent about a cardinal abusing him in a seminary, and it was alleged there had been a hierarchy conspiracy to allow Fr Shanley to have access to youth since 1967. -- The Weekend Australian, Roy Eccleston, April 20-21 2002, p 16. If the Vatican had been doing its duty, Cardinal Law would have been removed from office years earlier, because of the large number of sinful clergy he and his predecessor kept transferring. In fact, it would appear he ought to be defrocked.
  For an overview since 1947 see: www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/minilist.htm
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40% U.S. nuns abused sexually! ^ ^  VOTF  Books  Overview  READINGS 8  v v  Clinch, but no punishment!


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