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Please send
comments and inquiries to pthorp.ed@votf.org.
"To
date, what has been missing in all of this is the
lay voice. It's just not in the process.” Bishop
Donald Trautman (Erie, PA),chair of the Bishops’ Committee
on Liturgy, speaking to NCR’s John Allen following
recent approval by bishops of liturgical language
changes.
We're happy to report our
votf.org domain name is back. The registration had
expired
without our knowledge or any direct notice. The contact
name has
since been updated and the domain name has been renewed
for several years.
Our web site is now accessible via votf.org, votf.net
and
voiceofthefaithful.org. Emails can be sent to the national
VOTF
staff/volunteer person's name at either @votf.org or
@votf.net, for example
rjoyce@votf.org.
In
this issue:
VOTF
National/Int’l News: VOTF
National Representative Council (NRC) Region
13; new representatives elected to NRC – see
updated contact list for Regions 14 and 2 here; Campaign
for Accountability Update – new
information and new support; VOTF in Australia
news coverage at
Catholic
Online; change of leadership
for Goal 2 (support for priests of integrity),
click
here. Affiliate
News Update from international
area coordinator Mary Ann Keyes (who is also area
coordinator for Alaska, and parts of Florida and
New York).
SURVIVOR Community News – Survivors
Quilt displayed
during the USCCB
meeting; SNAP conference
to draw record numbers including VOTF; Cecelia
Project under way; Tom Doyle DVD
available.
VOTF 2004 Priest of Integrity Award recipient Fr.
James Scahill (East Longmeadow, MA) speaks out again, with
courage again. See Site-Seeing, Etc.
USCCB Los Angeles, CA meeting and VOTF – different
messages and a different presence; private Mass
for bishops leaves lay Catholics literally on
the street – our very own Gaile Pohlhaus was there;
read more in Commentary – “Banging a Drum in LA” and “The
people are leading; will the leaders follow?”
Note Site-Seeing,
Etc. below: St.
Anthony Messenger and Op-Ed News.com published comments on the USCCB
meeting; Common Ground Initiative to host anniversary
lecture by Cardinal George; and more.
Diocese/State Watch: California is in
the spotlight: in Sonoma, CA, Bishop
Daniel Walsh of the Diocese of Santa Rosa,
CA, is defending his handling of a priest
accused of abuse. The priest subsequently “fled” the
state; in Los Angeles and Orange, CA, diocesan
screenings for abusers will not cover illegal
immigrant Catholics who can volunteer with children
without background checks since they lack the
required ID; Elsewhere: Spokane, WA – a federal
court has ruled that the diocese does not own
its parishes; Oregon federal judge has
ruled that sex abuse lawsuit against the Vatican
can move forward; cautious optimism in Boston – the
Apostolic Signatura has advised vigiling parishes
that they will not be closed until their appeals
are heard in Rome; Bridgeport, CT’s astounding
tale of reckless financial “management” in a Darien
parish is a cautionary tale for all Catholic parishes;
and Excommunication Update. |
What
do you think – of
the bishops’ approval
of language changes in our liturgy? Bishop Donald Trautman
of Erie, Pa., chair of the Bishops' Committee on Liturgy,
told NCR’s John Allen, “To date, what has been missing
in all of this is the lay voice. It's just not in the
process. Some bishops on their own have sought it out,
but at least formally it's missing. In the United States,
we have outstanding scholars in liturgical theology,
and we should be using these experts. That needs to
be done for the next steps.” See National
Catholic Reporter, June 23 posting.
Site-Seeing, Etc.
- From St.
Anthony Messenger - “US
Bishops Must Follow Through”: “Distressing is the first reaction
to the third audit measuring how well U.S. dioceses
have implemented provisions of the 2002 Charter
for the Protection of Children and Young People. This
audit raises questions for two reasons: The rate
of full compliance actually went down, and one
diocese and one eparchy refused to participate.”
- OpEd
News.com published “What Happened to the Bishops?” from
Debby Bodkin of www.catholics4justice.com. An excerpt
from Debby’s excellent consideration of the USCCB
meeting: “A Survivors Quilt with hundreds of pictures
of clergy sex abuse survivors was handmade and
placed on display for the Bishops to view sometime
during the three days they were in Los Angeles.
Yes, an invitation was delivered with the hope
of some type of dialog or communication with Church
Bishops and leaders. However, not one Bishop, of
the approximate 300 Bishops attending the USCCB
conference, found the time to walk across the street
to view the Survivors Quilt, meet the survivors,
supporters and families that anxiously awaited
a visit from one of the Bishops. What happened
to the Bishops?”
- VOTF 2004 Priest of Integrity Award recipient Fr.
James Scahill (East Longmeadow, MA) speaks out again, with
courage again. Read Fr. Scahill’s letter to
the editor in the June
25 Republican. In part, the letter reads, “Why
are the churches of all denominations so silent on
the possibility of legislation that would better
protect our young and hold more accountable their
abusers and enablers? What could be more pro-life
than the better protection of children?” and, “Instead
of addressing this issue, at the recent convocation
of bishops in Los Angeles, its main achievement was
to change certain familiar prayers so that they would
better approximate their Latin translation. Hollywood
could not produce a more tragic comedy of errors.”
- HEADS UP! Cardinal George
will deliver a lecture in Chicago “The Role of Dialogue in the Life
of the Diocesan Church” on August 11 at Loyola
University, Chicago, IL. It is sponsored by the National
Pastoral Life Center to commemorate the 10th anniversary
of Cardinal Bernardin’s Catholic Common Ground Initiative.
Given the recent breakdown of the USCCB Charter and
VOTF’s subsequent meeting with the Cardinal, the
gathering promises to shed some light on the common
ground of dialogue. Watch www.nplc.org for
details.
- The National
Pastoral Life Center is the guardian
of Cardinal Bernardin’s legacy, the Catholic
Common Ground Initiative. Their current quarterly
newsletter Initiative Report recaps the Initiative’s
annual conference held in March; the gathering
was devoted to an assessment of the Initiative
as it approaches its 10th anniversary (in
August). The questions asked, the ensuing
dialogue noted, and the talk delivered by
Sr. Mary Forman are recommended reading for
VOTF members. Initiative Report is free;
to subscribe, send your name and mailing
address to commonground@nplc.org.
- The BishopAccountability.org web
site has had a superb facelift.
- From
the current issue of America magazine: “Cardinal
Avery Dulles, S.J., [a convert from the Presbyterian
tradition], said his journey to the faith has been
a ‘wonderful adventure’ and expressed hope that Anglicans
received into the full communion of the Catholic
Church will enrich their new church with their Anglican
traditions.” That may prove difficult given the other
news in America – "Cardinal Walter Kasper,
president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting
Christian Unity, has warned the Church of England
that a move to ordain women as bishops would destroy
any chance of full unity with the Catholic and Orthodox
churches. If the Church of England adopted such a
resolution, the ‘shared partaking of the one Lord’s
table, which we long for so earnestly, would disappear
into the far and ultimately unreachable distance.’"
- Timeless reading in National Catholic Reporter, June
16: “Spin without end in abuse scandal” responds
to the Catholic League’s remarks in a New York
Times ad. Subscribers can access the editorial
here. VOTF also responded on our web
site.
- The current Boisi Center Report is
a publication of Boston College’s Boisi Center for Religious and
American Public Life. The May 2006 issue (it is published
twice a year) summarized a talk delivered March 15th
by Ann Braude, director of Harvard University’s Women’s
Studies in Religion Program, “Faith of the Feminists:
Religion in the National Organization for Women.” Braude’s
presentation “explored the ways in which religions
was both absent from and an important part of the
creation of NOW.” To receive the report or to read
it on line, go to www.bc.edu/boisi.
- A Women’s Justice Coalition is about to assemble
a nationwide report card on the status of women
in US dioceses. The coalition includes all
organizations that support the equality of
women in the Catholic Church, inclusive of
women’s ordination. For more information, email cso@quixote.org or
visit www.quixote.org/cso.
QUOTE for our time: “The chaos that
happened in the Diocese of Bridgeport could happen
in any diocese and it happened in one of the
richest communities in the northeast and the
Darien, CT, parish has both a parish council
and a finance council. Does this not show the
need for structural change in the Church?” VOTF
member Joe Byrnes; see more on this story
in Diocese/State Watch in this issue and the
May 4 issue.
Editor’s Note: Apologies to all
of our June 8 Vineyard readers for
the misprinted date of death for Sr. Jeannette
Normandin who
died on May 30 (not tomorrow June 30, as stated).
In the mix of offers of employment from bettors,
fortune tellers and obit writers, came this message
from a priest: “You must have been very fond
of the good sister to keep her with us another
month.” Humor is always appreciated.
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