Well, as in the political arena, most of these people don't care about ANYTHING, and wouldn't come to a meeting of lay Catholics unless beer was involved.
I went to a couple of IBM stockholder meetings back in the early 90's when the company was losing money, and there were some angry people there who just wanted to have their say.
That's what I think is going on here. If Law had any guts, he'd have a townhall meeting and just let people vent. There'd be fewer people showing up at these VOTF meetings, although I don't think they're a bad thing at all. As with all groups, as time goes on, people lose interest until only the diehards are left, and they can be managed or marginalized.
You are so right on this. He had a "listening" (barf alert, I'm as sick of that phrase as I am of "let the healing begin", etc.) session a few months ago but only the pastoral council of parishes were invited. I think there were a couple of thousand people there. But things have gotten so much worse - he needs to do something. I wish I had the minutes of that meeting, I think I threw them out. Anyway, most of the people who spoke were advocating changes in the church (modernization) that did not address the problems, IMO.