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AFFILIATE News
Voice of the Faithful (VOTF) of Palm Beach County will sponsor a conference
entitled “The Real Costs of the Sexual Abuse Crisis in the Catholic Church” on
November 10, 2007 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Unity of the Palm Beaches,
1957 South Flagler Drive, West Palm Beach, FL. The featured speakers will be
Mr. Jason Berry and Rev. Thomas Doyle.
Berry, a noted author and writer in New Orleans, will speak about the conflicts
of church governing in the continuing crisis. A graduate of Georgetown, he
uncovered the first cases of clergy-abuse in Louisiana in 1985, and expanded
the work into an award-winning national investigation Lead Us Not into
Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children (1992). USA
Today credited
Berry as “the rare investigative reporter whose scholarship, compassion,
and ability to write with the poetic power of Robert Penn Warren are in perfect
balance. The Church itself could not have asked for a more fair-minded instrument
of its own indictment.”
In 2004, Berry and Gerald Renner published Vows of Silence, which chronicles
the lives of two priests: Father Thomas Doyle, who first raised the issue as
a canon lawyer for the Vatican Embassy in 1985, setting him on a courageous
path as an advocate of victims – and Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legionaries
of Christ, a pedophile whose shadowy career holds a mirror to flaws in the
church’s internal system of laws. In 2006 the Vatican removed Maciel
from his position and ordered him to cease public ministry. Berry is working
on a film documentary about the Vatican investigation case, based on Vows
of Silence.
The Rev. Thomas Doyle will describe his efforts to bring the Catholic Church
to be accountable since his 1985 presentation to the bishops of a pioneering
internal report he coauthored with attorney Ray Mouton and a psychiatrist,
the late Father Michael Petersen. Doyle received VOTF’s inaugural Priest
of Integrity award in 2002. Doyle’s latest book, coauthored with A. W.
Richard Sipe and Patrick J. Wall, is Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes: The
Catholic Church’s 2000-Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse (Volt Press, Los Angeles
2006). Doyle and his coauthors document “the enormity of the crime of
sexual abuse of children by priests and bishops and the failure of the hierarchy
to handle it properly…. It describes the clerical network that enables
the abuse to be perpetrated. When clergy sexual abuse is sealed under wraps,
it festers and breeds; when it is brought into the light of day, it withers.” (Prologue)
VOTF of Palm Beach County’s 2006 conference focused on the issue of
fiscal accountability in Catholic parishes, after allegations that two local
Catholic clergymen confiscated several million dollars of church funds – a
case currently before the courts in Palm Beach County, Florida.
Copies of both authors’ books will be available at the conference. Contact
John McGovern at 561-736-5568 for advance registration. Advance registration
is recommended because capacity at the conference site is limited. A donation
of $10 is suggested – payable at the door or in advance, Checks should
be made payable to VOTF of Palm Beach County. VOTF of Palm Beach County is
a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit Florida corporation.
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