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Please send
comments and inquiries to pthorp.ed@votf.org.
“The
very fact that our ancestors in the faith found the
need to include four versions of the same life embodies
our faith’s testament to the collective wisdom
of the faithful, of the wisdom found in a variety
of views, of the wisdom of the divergent and collective.
What an amazing solace this should be to each of us.
God reveals God’s self to us in all of history,
in all of our current lives lived.” Susan Troy,Voice,
July 2002
Four
years ago this month, on July 20, VOTF made its “stage
debut” at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston,
MA. On that bright, clear Saturday, one of our speakers,
Prof. Tom Groome of Boston College, asked rhetorically, “What
do you MEAN ‘change the Church’?!” VOTF
continues to work toward meaningful reforms in our
Church; as ever, we welcome thoughts on your own vision
for “changing the Church” – write
to pthorp.ed@votf.org.
In
this Issue:
How
will we ever “change the Church”? VOTF
chose a path at our leadership convocation
in July 2005 – to move the Church toward
accountability now. See where the
campaign is at (50 affiliates already!)
and consider all the tools available for
your own involvement, including the newest
addition: Campaign Resources Detailing Legislation
throughout the US: State
by State Guide for Statute of Limitations
on Sexual Abuse (PDF); Recent
Statute of Limitations Legislative Activity (PDF); and Delaying
Statute of Limitations until discovery (PDF).
ANOTHER
WAY to help our Church is to SAVE THESE
DATES: October 19-21, 2007 for VOTF's
third national convention. Details will follow on our web site
and in this publication. Meanwhile, mark your
2007 calendar! [Catching up? The first
VOTF convention on July 20, 2002 was titled “Response
of the Faithful”; to read more about that
day (and access tapes of various speakers
and panels at the 2002 convention and the
2005 convocation), go to the VOTF website and
click on VOTF conferences on the left-side
navigation bar. The pull-down
menu will do the rest.]
Be
informed: A recent e-conversation among
VOTF members resurrected some valuable information
from the VOTF Structural Change Working
Group. Did you know that until 1983
there was no stipulation that a cardinal
had to be ordained? See what else you might
be missing – visit the SCWG page on our website; NEW! Protecting
Our Children is part of our Accountability
Campaign. Visit BishopAccountability.org’s new
database of accused priests. Visitors to
the site can view by name, diocese and state.
Be
involved: National SNAP’s annual
conference July 21-23 will feature voices
of some of the most long-serving and ardent
of survivor supporters: Jason Berry, Tom
Doyle, Paul Baier, Tom Gumbleton, Richard
Sipe and keynoter Marci Hamilton. VOTF secretary
Gaile Pohlhaus is attending with VOTF president
Mary Pat Fox who will address the gathering.
For more details, click
here.
National
VOTF approved new by-laws on
June 12, 2006, click
here (PDF Format); VOTF
National Representative Council (NRC)
June 2-4, 2006 Chicago meeting minutes are posted
here, including an SOL (statutes
of limitations) report delivered
by Frank Douglas, Region 13.
DIOCESE/State
Watch: When the diocese of Santa
Rosa, CA dawdled long enough over the
case of admitted child abuser Fr. Ochoa
so that he fled the state, Catholics again
asked the same question raised in Chicago
over Cardinal George’s failure to protect
children from an accused priest, What
will it take? VOTF North Bay responded
in a letter to which you can add your
name; protecting children is a
little closer to reality in the St.
Petersburg, FL diocese; Burlington,
VT diocese seeks a judge’s recusal
in upcoming abuse trial; the New York
Times coverage of Fr. Fay’s life as
a pastor in the Bridgeport, CT diocese
is a portrait of negligence; Toledo,
OH parishioners suing their diocese
for control of parish assets; VOTF
Greater Cincinnati will meet July
19 with Bishop Pilarczyk; update from Brooklyn,
NY on the VOTF trip to the state legislature
in Albany.
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What
do you think? A long way to go, no easy
solutions and the threat of bankruptcy – that’s
what Milwaukee Catholics heard from Archbishop Dolan. Catholic
Online reports that the archbishop is worried
about the outcome of pending decisions on 10 child
sex abuse civil suits in California. The question
of justice for so many lives ruined is being pitted
against the risk of bankruptcy in some parishes.
Independent of the cost to parishes and dioceses
of righting such horrific wrongs, financial mismanagement
and/or secrecy in parishes and dioceses has long
threatened Church operations (the case of Fr. Fay,
Darien, CT – updated in Diocese/State Watch – is
only one example). Thoughts? Write to pthorp.ed@votf.org.
Book
Notes: An overview of The Democracy of God:
An American Catholicism by Robert Willis; Commentary: “What
Commitment Looks Like” – on Boston Area VOTF and “Understanding ‘Accountability’ in
Santa Rosa, CA” – Carolyn Disco; Letter to the
editor – a comment on Gaile Pohlhaus’s experience
in Los Angeles (see the June 22 Vineyard for “Banging
a Drum in LA”): SITE-Seeing, Etc.: Boston
College on the cutting edge – again – with a graduate
program in Church management, NCR comment on USCCB’s
approval of liturgy changes, and much more.
QUOTE
for our time: “As you stand in the valley, take
a good look. A mountain is about to rise beneath
your feet.” A monk writing to VOTF in 2002 and
published in our first hardcopy publication Voice,
July 2002
Next
issue of In the Vineyard: July 27.
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