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VOTF:
Five Years Old
Even
With …
As most of our readers know, VOTF will mark its fifth
anniversary this year. Our emergence was occasioned
by the horrific revelations in Boston, Massachusetts
on January 6, 2002 of a calculated and long-standing
practice in the Catholic Church of clergy sexual abuse
of children and a moat built by some bishops and priests
around those crimes. The moat remains in place even
with the advent of VOTF, BishopAccountability.org,
and other older organizations (SNAP foremost among
them) that continue to demand accountability throughout
the Church; even with dioceses being hauled
into court in order to get at the truth; even with the
publication of grand juries’ reports that read
like the most sordid of fictions; even with state
legislative reforms that “correct” inadequate
statutes of limitations while the Church fights those
same reforms; even with
survivors continuing to emerge with yet more stories
of abuse; even with the current Pope’s
call for honesty and justice in the interest of survivors
and
their families. The “even withs” go
on and on.
In the next several issues of In the Vineyard, we
will post commentaries and reflections on the past
five years of our shared awakening; taken together,
these years must be seen as a phenomenal shift in the
way Catholics are Church – from the U.S. and
Canada to Ireland and Australia. In one sense we have
come a great distance from what Jim Post called couch-potato
Catholicism; in another sense, we have much further
to go than we could have guessed in 2002. We invite
you to participate in this ongoing discussion of the
way we are/will be Church in the 21st Century. Write
to pthorp.ed@votf.org.
From Svea Fraser, founding chair of the Priests’ Support
Working Group
1/6/02 was another 9/11 for us Catholics. For me,
it was a double whammy as I was serving as a Catholic
chaplain at Wellesley College, leading an energetic
group of Newman students and encouraging them on their
faith journey. Suddenly, the Church that is my home,
and the Church that I represented professionally, was
revealed as guilty of a horrific crisis of abuse and
cover up. The feelings of shock, outrage, betrayal
and confusion rushed in on me like a tsunami of destruction.
I went to speak with my friend and mentor, Fr. John
Philbin (boy, do I miss him!) and asked him, “What
do I do?” Unhesitatingly, he responded, “You
tell the truth.”
Our movement grew out of that conviction: we had to
raise our voices. We could not remain silent until
justice is served and trust is rebuilt. We have all
been betrayed—none so egregiously as the children
who have been abused, but everyone of us has had something
precious stolen from us.
Unlike the twin towers that fell to the ground within
an hour on 9/11, the buttresses of the institutional
Church are still crumbling as we continue to use our
voices (and our time and our talents) against injustices
that have not ceased since that fateful day.
From Peggie L. Thorp, founding editor of Voice and In the Vineyard
January 6, 2002 was the half-way mark in a two-year “sabbatical” I’d
taken in order to write a book. The working title was
Why We Stay and it was purporting to address the question
of what keeps otherwise intelligent women in such a
diminishing and discriminating institution. My thesis
was that one keeps the institutional Church at arm’s
length; we live our faith in the light that touches
all the faithful. We stay for that faith and in that
light; the hierarchy stays on their side and we stay
on ours. Ridiculous, but it seemed to work. The Boston
Globe on January 6, 2002 basically turned my argument
on its head. I remember staring at the paper and hearing
myself saying, “This is what we get at arm’s
length.” The question, then, moved quickly from
the Why of staying in the Catholic Church as a woman
to the How of staying as an adult. For me and for thousands
of others, Voice of the Faithful grew out of that sentiment.
The earliest lesson I learned is that silence is not
an option – for the Catholic least involved in
the work of the Church, for the lay person most active
in parish service, for the parish priest, for the Pope.
We have so very far to go but I still believe that
the lay voice is imperative on every single
issue that touches our faith lives. As a faith community, we have
to say individually, “These people raped my children;
and these others let it happen.” If we can wrest
those words from mental images, movie clips, and the
journals and testimonies of survivors and their supporters,
and own those words, we will never again wrestle with
our own silence.
From Mary Scanlon, founding chair of the Support for
Survivors Working Group
We have traveled a long road since January 2002. Before
that date, many of us Catholics rested comfortably
with the image of our Church as the noble protector
of the poor, the champion of justice and peace, the
safe haven during times of suffering, and the place
for celebrating life’s joyful occasions. Surely,
we did see imperfections: the neighbor who passed the
collection plate while cheating on his taxes or his
wife; the embittered priest whose homilies were the
antithesis of Christ’s kindness; the self-important
bishop whose lust for prestige and power deprived him
of the ability to listen and learn from others. We
recognized these flaws and even cherished the notion
that they were signs of our human frailty – the
exceptions that accentuated the overall goodness in
the Church. We believed that the Catholic Church en
masse was basically all about bringing people into
a closer relationship with God by instilling faith,
hope, and love. At least I did.
That was five years ago. Before the Boston Globe reported
Father John Geoghan’s sexual abuse of children,
then a cascade of other offenders. Before we learned
that Cardinal Law had knowingly transferred pedophile
priests from one parish to another, and before we learned
that other bishops had done the same. In 2002, we saw
infiltrating the Church the awful evidence of widespread,
criminal, willful disregard for the wellbeing of our
children. Once we recovered from the initial shock,
we had to ask ourselves to what extent had we lay persons
been complicit in the degradation of the Church by
forfeiting so much of our spiritual responsibility
to the ordained. By neglecting to assume more vital
involvement in the life of the Church, we not only
allowed, but compelled, the clerical control that has
had such destructive results. The aggregation of power
in the hierarchy, the demoralization of priests, and
the marginalization of the laity, then, must be considered
at least in part due to the apathy of the laity. Of
course, those who directly violated children - our
children – and those who knowingly shielded them
bear unequivocal responsibility. Nevertheless, there
is plenty of shame to go around, and we lay persons
must accept some of it.
As I look back on 2002, I now realize that I was incredibly
naïve, and comfortable in my ignorance. Then,
suddenly, my frame of reference was shattered. A short
anecdote may help to explain. When VOTF was in its
incipient stage, I was part of a delegation that met
with Cardinal Law’s inner circle in an attempt
to help the hierarchy to understand the devastating
effects of child abuse. During the meeting – and
a stiff meeting it was – we offered the insights
of family but were told that “revelation is given
to the hierarchy, not to the laity”. Suddenly,
I knew for certain that I would have to commit to changing
this Church if I hoped to stay in it at all.
Worshipping in community has always been an important
source of guidance and sustenance for my family and
me, and I believe that we learn important lessons about
the dynamic love of God through natural and spiritual
families. I needed a spiritual family, people who are
authentic, tolerant, just, dedicated, and wise. I turned
to people of courage whom I saw speaking up and taking
action, even in the face of rejection and personal
risk, namely the survivors of clergy sexual assault,
priests who championed the dignity and rights of those
who are marginalized (even to the point of placing
their livelihoods in jeopardy), and other members of
the VOTF community. Their bravery inspires me to speak
out against injustice and intolerance, and to work
for reform from within this Church that I love.
I believe that the Catholic Church can become relevant
again in the lives of those who search for a framework
of living decent lives and raising children in dignity,
but only if we the laity raise up and claim the promise
of Vatican II. I believe that revelation is given to
the laity, and that with that revelation comes the
responsibility to claim a share of the Resurrection
for all of God’s children. Let us not leave the
job to others, not to the priests, not to the bishops,
not to other lay people, but let us each individually
and collectively take on the job ourselves. What a
powerful sign of the radical love of God.
This is my prayer for the New Year.
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