WORKING GROUPS

VOTF Priests' Support Working Group

The Support Priests Working Group made a presentation at the March Representative Council Meeting. Highlights of our work include a report on SOUNDING BOARDS. Sounding Boards are small informal gatherings of an equal number of clergy and laity, initially formed to determine how we can be most effective in our support of priests in their ministry. It is increasingly apparent that our support must be mutual, and that providing opportunities to relate to each other in new ways will encourage collaboration and help to rebuild trust in the church. We need our priests as much as they need us--to stand up for each other and to speak the truth with compassion.

A summary of the past two Sounding Boards will be posted on the VOTF website along with a suggested agenda.

The Winchester, MA Area VOTF has produced an extensive survey of priests, which is an excellent tool not only for discussion purposes but for use in other dioceses. http://www.votfwinchester.org/supportingpriests.html

We coordinate and communicate efforts on behalf of Goal #2 from all Parish Voice Affiliates, and welcome your news.
Contacts: Pat McNulty (pkmneedham@aol.com) and
Svea Fraser (sveaandscott@attbi.com)

Prayerful Voice Activities

VOTF Cincinnati, OH
Submitted by Jane Ruhmkorff and Nan Fisher

Our first public event, the Liturgy of Hope, was celebrated on February 26th at Bellarmine Chapel. Approximately 50 people gathered. We asked for forgiveness for our own part in not knowing what was happening and not speaking up. We gave thanks for the many priests of integrity, especially the four priests who participated in or attended the service. We heard a moving and revealing story from a member of the group who is, in his own words, a former victim of abuse, but now a survivor because "as a survivor, I can choose to do something." In prayerful silence we wrote petitions and if we desired that they be read aloud during the service, placed them in a basket so designated. Finally, we recited the Creed together in unity of faith.

A particularly powerful moment for many of those in attendance was hearing passages from Vatican II documents and Canon law that extol the preeminence of the laity and their rights and responsibilities in participating in matters of church governance. It was refreshing and empowering to hear these words from an article of Canon Law: "In accord with the knowledge, competence, and preeminence which they possess, the Christian Faithful have the right, and even at times a duty, to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the church..."

This liturgy coincided with the one-year anniversary of Voice of the Faithful's beginning in Boston. Part of Cincinnati VOTF's intention for this Liturgy was to mark the beginning of hope and healing for Catholics in the Cincinnati area. Our desire is that, from this point forward, we move ahead with the kind of adult, honest communication and collaboration that is needed to transform this dark night of the Church's history into a new day - a day of God's people fully alive and active in their vocation as the Christian Faithful.

REPORT FROM ARGENTINA
On February 13, 2003, VOTF member Ana-María Rizzuto, M.D. gave a lecture on "The Crisis of the Catholic Church in the USA: The Lay Boston Initiative in Response to the Sexual Abuse by Clergy," in Córdoba, Argentina.

The conference was organized by a group of lay people and sponsored by the dean of the School of Philosophy of the Catholic University of Córdoba. Attendance was by invitation. One-hundred thirty people came, an extraordinary number, because it was summer in Argentina and the university offered only a few summer courses, and many local people were out of town. The auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Córdoba as well as many priests attended.

Rizzuto placed the crisis in the context of a church that has not implemented the vision of Vatican II for the people of God and the laity. She presented in chronological order the development of the abuse and described the behavior of the American bishops as well as the formation of mutual support organizations by and for the abused. She described the creation of VOTF and the need for the participation of the laity at all levels of the institutional church. Finally, she analyzed the causes of the crisis and concluded with a quotation from Vatican II enjoining the laity to become active in the Church and in the world.

The lecture was very well received. It will be posted at the website of the Catholic University of Córdoba for easy access in the future. The lecture was given in Spanish and will be posted in Spanish.

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