Voice of the Faithful 10th Year Conference

See full details for Voice of the Faithful's 10th Year Conference taking place Sept. 14-15, 2012, in Boston, Massachusetts. See you in September in Boston!

Election for Board of Trustees

The election to name four new members to the VOTF Board of Trustees will be conducted June 1-10, 2012. Members who are registered with National VOTF and who have paid their dues during the current fiscal year are eligible to vote. Balloting will be conducted as in previous elections, via email with a "key" that links to a secure electronic voting web site. 

To read about the five candidates and see details about the election, please visit the Election web page.

Nominations Open for 2012 Priest of Integrity and Catherine of Siena Awards

VOTF members and affiliates are invited to submit names for the 2012 national Priest of Integrity Award and for the St. Catherine of Siena Distinguished Lay Person Award. Both awards will be presented at the Voice of the Faithful 10th Year Conference in September.

The Priest of Integrity Award honors a priest whose actions exemplify the gospel imperatives of honesty, openness, courage and compassion. For details, please see the nomination instructions. Note that deadline for submissions is June 30.

The Catherine of Siena Distinguished Lay Person Award deadline is sooner: June 15. This award honors a lay person who has exhibited the faith, courage, and aptitude for unprecedented action, and the outspokenness of Catherine in his/her own arena in the past few years. Please follow these nomination instructions when submitting a name.

For more information on our 10th Year Conference, visit the Conference pages.

In Ireland -- A Call for an Open Church

Long active in Voice of the Faithful® in Ireland, Sean O’Conaill has this tag line at the bottom of his e-mails, “Now this Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom,” from 2 Cor. 3:17. This Scripture must have been on Sean’s mind as he attended “Towards an Assembly of the Irish Catholic Church” with about 1,000 other Catholics at Dublin’s Regency Hotel on Monday. The Irish Association of Catholic Priests sponsored the event, and Sean called it an “epochal watershed in Ireland,” where speakers rallied attendees around a more accessible Church open to dialogue. Here’s how Sean described the event... 

Help Us Support the Sisters

Voice of the Faithful has joined a coalition of church reform organizations who are supporting the Nun Justice Project, an initiative through which anyone can show encouragement to women religious in the wake of the Vatican's recent mandate for reform of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious. Nun Justice Project initiatives and activities are being promoted primarily through the Nun Justice Project websiteYou can help support the sisters by writing to the Apostolic Nuncioattending or sponsoring a vigilpraying now and during Pentecost weeksigning an online petitionVisit Nun Justice Project often to check the initiative's progress.

Child Protection & Survivor Support New Web Pages

You may not yet have visited the new Web pages for our Child Protection & Survivor Support programs and activities. So, by way of introduction, follow this link to CPSS' News & Events area. While you're at the new site, also visit CPSS' Forum for Victims/Survivors, Friends, and Supporters, where you can post stories and words of encouragement for healing and affirmation.

Voice Matters, Spring 2012, VOTF's Newsletter for Members Worldwide

Voice of the Faithful® has published its spring 2012 issue of Voice Matters, VOTF's semiannual newsletter for its members worldwide. This issue includes an interview with new VOTF president Mark Mullaney, an update on VOTF's bishop selection initiative activities, a run-down of VOTF's 10th Year Conference that takes place in Boston this September, and a story about SNAP's efforts to fend off attempts by courts in Kansas City and St. Louis to require SNAP to disclose confidential information about sexual abuse victims. You can read the spring 2012 issue of Voice Matters by clicking here.