Archbishop in Newark bans group Organization formed following sex scandal

New Jersey Star Ledger ^ | October 11, 2002 | DAVID GIBSON

[livius]

Actually, Zulu, you're right on this: "While all of Christandom is threatened by the most dangerous outbreak of militant Islam since Mehmet the Great...."

But you may not understand that VOTF is an organization with a liberal agenda, and they'll be out dancing in the streets when Islam comes in (multicultural, don't you know) - until, of course, their womenfolk suddenly find themselves having to wear the burqa. And their menfolk have to go and submit themselves to the local imam. And Christians are put to death on the spot...

[american colleen]

I've attended VOTF meetings in the heart of their birthplace.

I joined with a very open mind because I was hoping for a group of Catholics in unison with the Pope, to help try to fix the problems within the hierarchy, IMO, stemming from the seminaries. I also wanted to show my horror and outrage of the abuse of boys by the very men we are supposed to be able to trust.

No such luck.

VOTF is going to become an "umbrella" group for all the disaffected, dissident groups out there.

They want to become a separate Catholic hierarchy.

It is fine to discuss our opinions, but at what point does it become damaging to the faith and to our unity as Catholic Christian brothers and sisters? Parishes are becoming polarized here, parishioners are at odds with each other, and sometimes with their priests. Priests are at odds with their Bishops - some of them are breaking their vows of obedience.

IMO, VOTF is an occasion of sin.

It is easy to talk the talk, but hard to walk the walk. You are known by the company you keep.

[sinkspur]

It is fine to discuss our opinions, but at what point does it become damaging to the faith and to our unity as Catholic Christian brothers and sisters?

When doctrine is compromised. If people are scandalized over organizational issues, then they need to get some perspective.

Parishes are becoming polarized here, parishioners are at odds with each other, and sometimes with their priests. Priests are at odds with their Bishops - some of them are breaking their vows of obedience.

Well, some bishops were guilty of criminal conspiracy in covering up for pederasts. There's lots of anger. A smart bishop would allow these people some venue to vent and let off some steam. The more reactionary the bishop, the more severe the reaction.

IMO, VOTF is an occasion of sin.

Then stay away from them. But for those who want to get the bishops' attention, this may work.

[ultima ratio]

I do read these. But they are not willing to challenge Rome's part in the present debacle. The corruption is systemic. That means the Vatican is part of the problem. But conservatives only grouse about middle-management, never the CEO or the people around him. When traditionalists point out this anomaly, the right goes ballistic. It obviously equates the Catholic Church with the papacy and nothing else.

[yendu bwam]

I hadn't hear that the bishops were homosexual.

Four, count them, four bishops have been removed in the last year for being homosexual molestors themselves. Given that a very large percentage of Catholic priests are homosexual, it would not be surprising to find out that the same is true of the bishops.

[yendu bwam]

I wish the Vatican would make the best of a bad situation with the pedophilia crisis and simply fire all the bishops and replace them with young, orthodox priests. I think the Vatican is missing a golden opportunity.

I wholeheartedly agree, wideawake. Wholeheartedly.

[yendu bwam]

VOTF is part of the crowd that would like to turn the Catholic Church into a clone of the Episcopalians.

That's my impression too.

[dsutah]

If you're implying that our Pope is a "Queer"; you're terribly wrong! Also, not all of our bishops are/were "Queers" or involved in this scandal. You're sure fast and loose with the "Q" word! I don't know what religion you belong to, or if you belong to one at all; but this is called "bearing false witness against thy neighbor", or slander. And you can look it up in the "Bible", because you'll find it in the "Ten Commandments"!

[SMEDLEYBUTLER]

It's not been demonstrated that VOTF is anything but a grass-roots organization which attracts liberals and conservatives alike.

You are clueless.

If conservatives don't like its make-up--then let them organize on the right. This they won't do because they won't buck the system but make excuses for it ad nauseam.

Again you are clueless. Catholics United For The Faith is just one conservative group that has been organized in response to the masquerade at VOTF.

[patent]

LOL. It would figure that you, a so called "Traditionalist", would align yourself so nicely with a group led by heretical "Call to Action" leaders. These people are so liberal that if you were consistent you should be blasting them much more severely than you blast the Pope and the Bishops. That you don't makes one thing clear.

You don't object to liberalism and modernism.

You only object to Catholic Bishops

Just as you do here, on this thread.

patent

[patent]

It's not been demonstrated that VOTF is anything but a grass-roots organization which attracts liberals and conservatives alike.

From various articles:

Voice of the Faithful and Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation

The only information I had about this "conservative Catholics" group was that a member of VOTF's steering committee was working closely with the homosexual spin group Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD).

On June 15 at the Dallas bishops meeting, homosexual activist Cathy Renna, writing for GLAAD's Web site, said that during a victory get-together, she met with "a number of familiar media faces" and Anne Barrett Doyle of the Coalition of Concerned Catholics, who is a member of the steering committee for the lay reform movement Voice of the Faithful.

According to Renna, "Anne was one of the first people I spoke with back in March when we were cultivating resources and contacts to offer media outlets. ... Seeing Anne at the cathedral brought to mind how far we've come in the past months."

---

One must examine the "mainstream" and "conservative Catholic" priests that are supporting VOTF before making any judgments about that group. Unfortunately, not one single mainstream and conservative orthodox Catholic priest supports the group.

Voice of the Faithful and the Liberal Richard P. McBrien

However, Father Richard P. McBrien, a professor of theology at the University of Notre Dame, put his support for the organization into an article in the Tiding on July 19 called "Listening to the 'Voice of the Faithful.' " As all mainstream and conservative Catholics know, McBrien is one of the most liberal Catholic theologians in the U.S.

McBrien has shown that he is 100 percent opposed to the official teachings of the Catholic Church when it counters the gay and lesbian movement's agenda.

The official Catechism of the Catholic Church states in section 2357 that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered ... under no circumstances can they be approved."

Also, the Sacred Congregation for Religious in Rome in 1961 stated: "Those affected by the perverse inclination to homosexuality or pederasty should be excluded from religious vows and ordination." Roman Catholic Faithful President Stephen Brady said, "The Church directive has never been rescinded and is still officially in force."

But McBrien, on a April 5 Tiding piece, disagreed with those who hold the official teachings of the Church, calling them "homophobes who look upon gays as disreputable souls held in the grip of the worst sort of moral perversion."

He then went on to attack Pope John Paul II's spokesman Dr. Joaquin Navarro-Valls for wanting to get "rid of gay priests."

The Vatican spokesman said homosexual ordination might be invalid in the same way a marriage can be annulled on the grounds that it was invalid from the start. For example, a woman who marries a homosexual can get her marriage annulled on those grounds.

McBrien, in his anger at Pope John Paul II's spokesman, revealed how widespread the homosexual problem is in the U.S.

He wrote: "A few priests have privately observed that, if this [homosexual ordination annulment] were actually to happen, the Roman Catholic Church might lose two-thirds of its priests under the age of 45 and some bishops as well. At the same time, many of its seminaries could be emptied of all but a handful of students."

---

Lay Catholic theologian Thomas Groome, Senior Professor of Theology and Religious Education at Boston College who has been a featured speaker at VOTF meetings in the Boston Diocese, is – like McBrien – in favor of homosexual ordination.

On March 21, according to the Miami Herald, Groome said homosexuality is rampant in the nation's seminaries. The Herald quoted the lay theologian as saying, ''A well-balanced gay person can make a fine priest. ''Having been 'inside,' I knew lots of gays and philanderers. I've known hundreds of priests and never known a pedophile. They hide themselves well,'' said Groome.

According to the Boston Diocese Sacred Heart Bulletin, in June Groome gave his lay participation talk on "Doing Theology Ourselves" at St. Eulalia's Parish (Manion Hall) on Ridge Street, Winchester, which is a major chapter of VOTF in the diocese.

The Rev. Victor LaVoie, a Strong Supporter of Voice of the Faithful

The Boston Globe said St. Eulalia parishioners praised pastor Rev. Victor LaVoie as "a strong supporter of the Voice of the Faithful."

One must consider the Rev. LaVoie to be unfaithful to the teachings of the Catholic Church on homosexuality if he has ex-priest (and McBrien clone) Groome – now turned lay spokesman – speaking at his parish.

On July 26, LaVoie became "the17th priest the archdiocese [of Boston] has removed over allegations of sexual abuse since January," according to the Globe.

The parishioners who supported VOTF also support their pastor. The Globe said, "Hundreds of parishioners attended a prayer meeting at St. Eulalia's last night to discuss LaVoie's suspension and to pray for him."

---

In fact, the pro-gay National Catholic Reporter (NCR), which is "the newspaper" of U.S. liberal Catholics – and a strong supporter of McBrien – has been pushing Voice of the Faithful as a mainstream organization for months.

---

THE VOTF PLAYERS

While VOTF has been operating largely on a volunteer basis up to this point, many of those associated with its leadership are involved with other dissenting groups, like Call to Action (www.cta-usa.org), CORPUS, and We Are the Church (www.we-are-church.org). Jan Leary, a member of VOTF's steering committee, serves as the contact for Save Our Sacrament/Annulment Reform, and Andrea Johnson, another steering committee member, is the contact for the Women's Ordination Conference in Virginia.

But this barely scratches the surface. Many of the people invited to speak at VOTF's national convention on July 20 espouse other radical views that are not in line with Church teaching. The following people were all invited to speak at the Boston conference:

** Leonard Swidler, professor of Catholic thought at Temple University. Well-known for his work in the formation of a "global ethic" with dissenting theologian Hans Kung, Swidler is also the founder of the Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church (www.arcc-catholic-rights.org). As the chair of the association's constitution international drafting committee, he's responsible for drawing up a constitution for a more "democratic" church which includes the proposal for elected leaders; term limits for those leaders; a legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government; and opening up leadership positions to all people, including "women and minorities."

** James Carroll, columnist for the Boston Globe. Carroll, a self-proclaimed Catholic, was ordained a priest in 1969 but left the priesthood in 1974 and married before his laicization, effectively excommunicating himself. His columns in the Globe confirm that he believes in contraception, abortion, and women's ordination. Additionally, he rejects numerous fundamental Church teachings, such as the divinity of Jesus Christ. In a July 16 column, Carroll stated that at the VOTF convention, "deeper questions must be confronted as well -- the role of the laity in church governance, assumptions of sexual morality, the place of women, the pathologies of clericallism, the 'creeping infallibility' that corrupts church teaching."

** Debra Haffner, a member and former president of the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States (SIECUS). SIECUS promotes guidelines for sex education for children grades K-12, guidelines which approve of children ages 5-8 being taught that masturbation and homosexuality are acceptable practices. Not only that, they also urge that 12- to 15-year-olds be taught how to obtain and use contraceptives.

Haffner is also the cofounder of the Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing (www.religionproject.org). The institute's "Religious Declaration on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing" calls for "theological reflection that integrates the wisdom of excluded, often silenced peoples, and insights about sexuality from medicine, social science, the arts and humanities; full inclusion of women and sexual minorities in congregational life, including their ordination and the blessing of same sex unions...[and] support for those who challenge sexual oppression and who work for justice within their congregations and denomination." Haffner has also been quoted as saying, "No matter what gender orientation you have -- bisexual, transgender -- no matter what sex you are, no matter what age you are, no matter what marital status you are, no matter what sexual orientation you are, you have a right to sex."

** Tom Groome, professor of theology at Boston College. Groome gave an interview to BBC 4 World Forum on the sex-abuse scandal in which he commented on the Church: "Catholic Christians are...distinguishing between their faith in the tradition and their faith in the institution.... The Church is terribly important to us, but we won't exaggerate the importance, as it were, of the institution." On priestly celibacy and women's ordination: "I think that [priestly celibacy] has to be revisited, likewise the exclusion of women from ministry has to be rethought. But that's not a liberal position...." On ecclesial hierarchy: "I would love to see an overhaul in how our bishops are chosen because right now they're chosen by a kind of subterfuge -- a kind of backroom politics." And finally, on the pope: "I do think that the problem of an enfeebled pope becomes fairly trransparent, especially when the Church faces such a tragedy in a crisis time as we are in at the moment."

** Michele Dillon, professor of sociology at the University of New Hampshire. Dillon has published several books, including Debating Divorce: Moral Conflict in Ireland; Gay and Lesbian Catholics; and Catholic Identity: Balancing Reason, Faith, and Power, a work focusing on why "pro-change" Catholics (such as those who support abortion, women's ordination, and homosexuality) remain in the Church. If you claim VOTF’s liberal stripes aren’t already more than clear, you are either sticking your head in the sand intentionally, or you are being disingenuous.

patent  +AMDG

[Incorrigible]

Hi Sinkspur,

The issue of Bishop Myers and the seven priests removed from duty in Peoria is elaborated on here.

Newark [NJ] bishop off abuse panel

The press made a bigger deal of it than reality.

[Incorrigible]

Let's give out some links while we're at it:

         

 

I'll through The Wanderer in for good measure too!

[Incorrigible]

No prob, I can add another link:

[leilani]

"The VOTF is nothing but a cover for anti-Catholic doctrinal agitation." You are 100 hundred percent on the money about this. NOBODY has been more vocal & outraged about priest sex scandals than I, but this group is BOGUS, profoundly anti-christian, and ultimately wants to do away with the Catholic church completely - they are neo-nazi, anti-religious freaks, and they have been for many years, sadly.

[ultima ratio]

This is a recent development. VOTF was organized originally by apolitical individuals--but it's apparently been penetrated by the left. I haven't been following its progress too closely and certainly don't align myself with some of the people that they've been associating with in recent months. Is this supposed to prove I'm heretical or something? What is your point?

[patent]

VOTF was organized originally by apolitical individuals

No it wasn’t. They were libs from the start. Do you know who these people were? I mean, my word, it was first organized in Wellesley Mass. What do you expect?

What is your point?

That your primary bias is not anti-modernism, but anti the current Church hierarchy.

patent  +AMDG

[ultima ratio]

Monday, July 1, 2002 E-mail This Article
Catholic laity demands a voice
MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — The priest abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church has galvanized the laity in an unprecedented clamor for church reform.

Different organizations of lay Catholics are forming and existing groups say they’re newly inspired to work for reform. But opinions vary widely on where the church should head.

Some groups, such as Call to Action, want women and married men ordained as one solution to a priest shortage that has been only compounded by the priest abuse crisis. Conservative groups like Roman Catholic Faithful want the church to investigate homosexuality in the church and expel gay priests. And others, such as Voice of the Faithful, a grassroots reform movement spreading across the country, are calling for a greater role for the laity in church decision-making at every level.

Rose Marie Lanier of Concord likens the push for reform to the Take Back the Night movement to support sexual assault victims.

"It’s like Take Back the Church. It’s taking responsibility for your church is really what it is," says Lanier, who organized a VOTF chapter in Concord.

Voice of the Faithful, a Massachusetts-based group that formed early this year, expects thousands to gather in Boston on July 20 for its first national convention, spokesman Mike Emerton said. Since it started in February, VOTF has gained 16,000 members — 2,000 since the bishops’ meeting in Dallas earlier this month.

Lanier’s letter to a local newspaper sparked a weekly discussion group that began meeting in her living room in May.

"Our intent was to get together to share our feelings and determine what we wanted to do with our anger and what we wanted to do with our church, because we weren’t happy with what was going on," she said.

Different VOTF members disagree over issues such as the ordination of women and married priests. But the group’s first priority is empowering the laity, she said.

The clergy scandal also has given new inspiration to existing lay organizations like Call to Action, a liberal voice for church reform since the 1970s.

"People are not being silent any longer, and Catholics are beginning to realize that it’s time for us," said Sister Sally Stearns, C.S.C.

Stearns, who serves on the group’s steering committee for New Hampshire, would like to see a mechanism for the laity to have input when leaders are making decisions about church policy on issues such as ordaining women and married men.

The Rev. Edward Arsenault, chancellor for the Manchester Diocese, sees many positives about energizing the laity. He said the ongoing crisis will likely compel church leaders to re-examine opportunities for active participation by the laity in the governance of the church.

But he cautioned there are limits to what can change — such as ordaining women.

"I don’t think they can be wrong about the truth, and that’s the point of the church tradition," he said. "A bishop can’t be wrong when he teaches in union with all the other bishops that the priesthood is reserved to men. That’s been discussed at the highest level, as part of what the church believes is revealed truth."

While Arsenault said discussions about such issues need to take place, he said the role of church leaders should be one of explaining why the church teaches what it does.

That stance could sit well with some Catholics who want a different kind of reform in the wake of the priest abuse scandal.

Richard Healy of Hancock is a member of Roman Catholic Faithful, a conservative group calling for a return to strictly traditional Catholic values and teaching.

Healy said he would start by ‘cleaning house," removing the bishops that he believes have condoned or even encouraged homosexuality in the priesthood.

[patent]

And others, such as Voice of the Faithful, a grassroots reform movement spreading across the country, are calling for a greater role for the laity in church decision-making at every level.

Does this sound like traditional Catholicism to you? The laity make the decisions at every level?

Voice of the Faithful, a Massachusetts-based group that formed early this year, expects thousands to gather in Boston on July 20 for its first national convention, spokesman Mike Emerton said.

Guess what the priest called for in his homily at the VOTF’s very first Mass at this convention? Hint, it’s a heresy.

patent  +AMDG

[ultima ratio]

What is the proof they were liberals from the start? I had read that they wanted to gather under a big tent and steer clear of doctrinal disputes. Their interest was primarily in having input regarding disciplinary matters. I know the left has attempted to pre-empt them, but I read somewhere the steering committee admitted it had bungled by allowing this. What's happening now is that neo-conservatives like you have seized on their initial mistakes to demonize them. This is a grassroots organization, after all, it was bound to be somewhat inept. I'm willing to give them the benefit of a doubt for a while longer.