THE BISHOPS' WORKBOOK IS OURS, TOO
- WHY IT MATTERS TO VOTF

Kris Ward - VOTF Vice President and Chair of VOTF National Task Force on the Charter Revisions

Voice of the Faithful has unique access to our bishops' thoughts at this time. We are obliged as Catholics to put this access to work for the good of the whole Church.

Voice of the Faithful has obtained the working document the bishops of the United States are using to revise the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

This document, now available on our national website, has the language of the original Charter and the bishops' proposed revisions side by side. What we have cannot be overstated. Note well - the Workbook is not on the bishops' website. It is on the Voice of the Faithful web site. We are the lamplighters.

Voice of the Faithful has taken the Workbook and, like the bishops, made our comments in the spaces provided. We have placed the Workbook with our proposed revisions on our web site.

Any person, any reporter, anyone from the Pope to the person next to you in the pew, can go to our website and read and print the document.

This Workbook for the revision of the Charter has not had wide distribution even among the clergy. Where does that put the rest of us? Clearly, it places Voice of the Faithful in the breach between the Church knowing what the bishops plan to do and the Church not knowing until a revised and weakened Charter might be adopted. At that point, we will be FIVE years away from the next opportunity to get it changed.

Let's remember that the bishops have rested their answer to the crisis on this one instrument - the Charter. When all is said and done, that means that what gets adopted is the Body of Christ's answer, too.

We - unlike the bishops - are offering this knowledge to the world with a simple "come to our website" at www.votf.org.

Open forums on the proposed revisions should be happening. The proposed changes should be published in all diocesan newspapers and on diocesan websites and distributed in every parish bulletin. Voice of the Faithful issues a clarion call to the whole Church to engage in a full and lively debate.

February is a critical time for the Charter. The powerful 55-member administrative committee of the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops meets in March. This committee sets the agenda for the June 2005 bishops' meeting where it is expected the proposed revisions will be adopted.

We have to let the world know that we are holding the proposed revisions - and make them aware of how potent this information is. With this abundance, we become the light bearers and with that privilege comes responsibility, accountability and unique opportunity to model a new path for collaboration in the Church.

I, along with the other members of the national Task Force on Charter Review, Thomas Myles of New York, Patricia Gomez of Massachusetts and James Jenkins of California, earnestly ask you to take up this responsibility with zest.

Now is the time to raise our voices - voices that have become educated in these trinity of years of scandal, voices compassionate to the survivors, voices demanding justice, voices seeking protection for children, voices attentive to the Holy Spirit, voices that will not be stilled even as the bishops seek to declare the scandal HISTORY.

VOTF president Jim Post made the following observations in a recent leadership communication

• Self audits by each diocese under the control of each bishop; VOTF urged that audits be conducted by independent third party auditors
• A "softening" of the language of the Charter provisions
• Afive-year wait until the next revision (we propose a three year waiting period)
• The removal of all references to Our Lord in the revised Preamble

The VOTF Task Force recommended:

• Strengthening of the language of the Charter, particularly in its reference to the reporting of crimes
• A major education campaign for the Charter
• The inclusion of the survivor community as consultors
• The inclusion of two members of communities of religious women as consultors

The Task Force commended the Ad Hoc Committee:

• On the inclusion of a proposal to notify religious authorities in any place where a priest against whom there has been credible allegations retires; however, Voice of the Faithful disagreed with the recommendation that the notification should be confidential
• On the broadening of the definition of sexual abuse
• On the proposed inclusion of consultation with the laity
  

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