Welcome to Parish Voice

Welcome to Parish Voice (PV), an opportunity to bring the Voice of the Faithful to your own community. To date, over 30,000 Catholics in 50 U.S. states and 21 countries have heard our message of hope and renewal and have become Voice of the Faithful members.

• Welcome to Parish Voice
• Starting a Parish Voice Affiliate
• Regional VOTF Groups
• PV Affiliate Web Sites

Through the Parish Voice initiative, parishioners all over America are forming Voice of the Faithful affiliates so that they can begin fulfilling the VOTF mission and goals at the local level with family and friends. It's in our parishes and dioceses that we will foster basic lay involvement in the guidance and governance of the church. And it's in our communities that we can most immediately help the survivors of sexual abuse by priests, support priests of integrity, and work for structural change within our beloved Catholic Church. A group qualifies as an affiliate if its membership agrees by a two-thirds majority with the mission statement and goals of Voice of the Faithful.

Priests and parishioners alike are finding that a PV affiliate is an asset in the parish community. The affiliate offers the pastor another way to reach parishioners and to understand their concerns, and parishioners have found it a healing experience to work with their pastors in meeting the crisis that we face. A PV affiliate also offers parish staff and parish council members a way to be involved that's not limited by the day-to-day requirements of their official parish role.

In this way, affiliates of VOTF are helping parishes rethink their approach to lay involvement, and even very successful parishes are seeing a change for the better. These local improvements have an especially empowering effect within a parish because the changes are also part of the larger VOTF movement. At long last, parishioners can feel a sense of involvement that transcends their own parishes, with Catholic laity from different parishes working together, often for the first time. Affiliates vote to support Voice of the Faithful's mission statement and goals and maintain close contact with national Parish Voice staff, but they also have the independence needed for them to work freely at the parish and diocesan level.