SNAP National Conference
Denver – June 12, 2004
Kristine Ward, Vice President
Voice of the Faithful

On behalf of Jim Post, president of Voice of the Faithful, the officers, staff, volunteers and trustees, it is my privilege to bring greetings of high regard to you as you are gathered at your national conference.

It is in your presence here, and at symposiums, conferences and Voice of the Faithful affiliate meetings throughout the country, that we are emboldened by your courage, stirred by your leadership, and humbled by the tender tenacity in your bonds which underpins this journey to justice.

In a union of sorrow, we express to you our profound sympathy upon the loss of Patrick McSorley and Jim Kelly as well as all of those for whom the burden of surviving survival has ended in death.

From the time you were one survivor connected to only one other survivor, and then four or five survivors gathered in a small room, and then hundreds of survivors building into thousands until that day in Dallas – when you boldly spoke truth to power - through to this day - you have been – each in your own individual way – pioneers of new frontiers – guides to each other, to us, and to society at large.

The due north of your inner compass is truth.

You are – each one – a capsule of conviction – and together you are pillars of truth, integrity, and righteousness.

We who have not known in our own bodies, minds, and spirits what you have known - cannot truly understand what you endured, what you live with, what you dread the next hour will bring, what you dare to hope for in the future. We do not know the terrors of your experience or the haunting power that images, scents and sensations can trigger in your lives.

We do know this: as Voice of the Faithful, we are a people provoked from passivity because of your fortitude and courage. We are a people intent upon listening because of your willingness to be open to us. We are people of a movement kindled in recognition of what was taken from you – and a movement pledged in a framed, stated and committed goal to support you. It is not a goal that comes with an every two year review clause.

We know in the core of our beings - who you are to us: you are our brothers and sisters, you are the kids we met in kindergarten, - our First Communion partners, our classmates, our teammates. We served with you, sang in the choir with you, took SATs with you, graduated with you, and walked into the future with you.

When into that future came the revelations of your shattered children., you led us to the place where together we must find answers, instruments and paths to right the unrightable wrongs.

In no way do we believe this to be an impossible dream.

We, as Voice of the Faithful, accept the responsibility that knowledge brings. We pledge to you we will become better listeners, better advocates, and better at bearing witness.

We are committed to the long march. We will be with you not only in 2004,but in 2005, 2006, and 2026. We pledge to you that we will never abandon you.

With the telling of your stories a new clarity of sight came to many lay Catholics. The landscape of our Church looks different to us.

As bishops and eparchs and the papal nuncio make their way here to a place that they have designated as one of retreat, we come to this place to sound not the retreat but to proclaim a rallying cry of both alarm and advance.

It is with intense distress, that we active and mainstream Catholics we see the landscape from February 27th to the present pock marked with signposts of retrenchment by the bishops from the principles and spirit of the Dallas Charter.

What the world came to know on February 27th with the release of the John Jay Study was the official count of the threshold minimums - 10, 667 allegations of sexual abuse by clergy, 4,365 perpetrators, $572 million spent on settlements and legal fees. – threshold minimums of a scandal that should have been gouged out at the first flicker of its existence.

In the accompanying report, the nature and scope study, that has come to be known by its principal author’s name, Bob Bennett and his National Review Board colleagues lifted a veil upon the inner sanctum of the hierarchy and told us the smoke of satan had entered the Church.

Many Catholics believed the bishops expression of taking responsibility which they stated in the Preamble to the Charter declaring that they would deal with the problem, “strongly, consistently, and effectively in the future” and that they would “ in full collaboration with our people, continue to work to restore the bonds of trust that unite us.”

On February 27th with the release of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice Study and the Bennett Report, one of the first disturbing signs was planted when we heard Bishop Wilton Gregory declare in the name of the body of bishops that the clergy sexual abuse scandal was history.

The scandal will never be history as long as any survivor lives. The scandal will never be history as long as there is ache in any heart for one who committed suicide. The scandal will never be history as longas any child is in danger of sexual abuse by clergy. The scandal can never be history if promises are broken, principles are cast aside, and intent is manipulated into disregard, indifference or demolition of the Charter and Norms.

What is history if it is not both evidence and memory. For the history of this time to be a true and fair recording of the evidence, secrecy must exterminated, documents must be produced, survivors must be searched for, accountability must be achieved. History, it seems, is a long way off. While fully engaged in the battle to seek the evidence, Voice of the Faithful holds hallowed the need to build the repositories of memory of this time. Your stories and those that are still cocooned by fear and repression must have a worthy archive. What is past is prologue.

If Bishop Gregory’s declaration that the scandal is history were an isolated, misinterpreted phrase or a public relations slogan it would provide worry enough but there are hallmarks in these days that are harbingers of regression.

The second sign is the action of the 50 member Administrative Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to defer action on a new round of audits until November.

Bishops of the Administrative Committee knew that putting off discussion on the audits until November would make compliance audits this year impossible and smother the audit process in its infancy.

The Charter’s language is clear. Article 9 calls for an annual public report. A public report cannot be constructed from hopes and desires or wishes. It must be constructed from facts. Facts are obtained through a deliberate and conscientious seeking of the truth.

If the deferring action had been taken by a small group of bishops thinking only of streamlining a retreat agenda that would be cause enough for alarm, but the Administrative Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishop is a powerful and representative committee of the bishops. This committee is the gatekeeper of the agendas for the twice yearly meetings of the bishops. It is composed of the officers of the conference, 35 chairs of the standings committees, and representatives of all of the 13 regions of the country. An action of this committee is the most direct speaking of the majority thought of all of the bishops short of a full conference vote.

The third signpost is the appointment of Cardinal Law as the archpriest of St. Mary Major Basilica in Rome. While the Vatican may quibble about what parapet of privilege an archpriest occupies, without question in the minds of in the pew Catholics – and we believe all people of goodwill – this appointment is an arch mistake.

Now another sign has been posted. Cardinal Avery Dulles has called for a reconsideration of zero tolerance. The keynote of the Dallas Charter is labeled an “extreme response.”

To Voice of the Faithful these do not look like signs that lead to accountability.

They do not look like signposts to a place where children are given preeminent value and protection.

They do not look like signs that we are the reaching for a summit point of the highest moral reckoning where diligence reaps the reward and not good solider loyalty.

We gather one year shy of the twenty year mark of Father Tom Doyle first sounding the alert to all bishops of this country about the clergy sexual abuse scandal. His is a voice that is without parallel in the raising of an alarm and a steady ringing of the bells of conscience. We are a better people, a better church, and a better society because of him.

Now new voices are emerging. One is that of Justice Anne Burke, a woman of indomitable strength and solid good sense, at the helm of the National Review Board. It is Justice Burke and her colleagues who sent he signal of the Administrative Committee’s action. It brokered a meeting with the bishops’ Ad Hoc Committee on Sexual Abuse. Finally, the issue of the compliance audits became an agenda item at this June meeting of the bishops. Now we are brought to a place of both crisis and opportunity.

There are no guarantees that an agenda item will be transformed into an avenue of audit action.

Voice of the Faithful raises its voice and calls upon the bishops of the United States in the June 19th deliberations and going forward:

• to approve and take deliberate steps to fund and move forward with a multi-year plan for annual audits of every diocese and eparchy in the country;
• to approve and fund a comprehensive causes and context study
• to appoint members of the National Review Board in the stead, caliber, resolve and dedication of the departing members, Justice Ann Burke, Robert Bennett, Leon Panetta and William Burleigh who have distinguished themselves with service and vigilance.
• to begin the review of the Vatican’s recognitio now instead of in November as a pledge and promise of good faith to hold themselves accountable
• to release all documents that will provide us with the truth

A retreat is not a dodge. A retreat, in our tradition, is a clarifying space, a time of renewal, an opportunity for repentance and a moving on with grace. It is our hope that for our bishops this week of retreat will be a retreat in the classic spiritual sense and not a time of retrenchment.

We call upon the bishops not to be men of splendid isolation but to allow the windowed view of the Inverness Hotel to lift them to the mountaintops. Mountaintops of accountability.

It is our hope for you that in this time of gathering together you are energized by the strength of your truth. We hope for you that this conference lightens your burdens. Most especially we hope that our religious leaders will act with equivocation to set signposts of the future that will emblazoned by accountability and justice.

Thank you.