Lay group responds to conservatives

The Boston Globe ^ | August 21, 2002 | Michael Paulson

[maryz]

The president of Voice of the Faithful, seeking to counter conservative criticism of the growing lay Catholic organization, yesterday sent an e-mail to 22,000 members defending the group's faithfulness to Catholic teachings and apologizing for inviting one controversial speaker to the group's convention.

[maryz]

An article in the Boston Herald today (it's not on their website) noted that now there's a competing group calling itself -- I believe "Faithful Voice," which is encouraging Catholics to attend Mass at the Cathedral to support Cardinal Law. I don't think this group has a website yet, and the article was pretty brief. (I should have clipped it and brought it with me, but I didn't.)

[maryz]

If I may ask for your ping list again . . .

Thanks!

[maryz]

An update on Voice of the Faithful -- looks as if their cover slipped (I can't think how!) and they're trying damage control.

Actually, after their convention, I thought they had given up all pretense of being "nonideological."

[SoothingDave]

"The letter is intended to be a response to the smear campaign that has begun to take shape," Post said. "People in our organization felt it was important to make clear that we are not a dissident group."

Telling the truth = smear campaign.

And then this:

Post said the group did not impose an ideological litmus test on speakers at the July 20 convention, and said he has no regrets about allowing Thomas Arens, president of the Germany chapter of We Are Church, to speak, even though We Are Church supports allowing married men and women to become priests.

So why would a group that is striving to not be seen as a dissident group invite dissidents to speak? And refuse to apologize for it?

SD

[NYer]

An update on Voice of the Faithful

OurLadysWarriors has now updated their list of dissenting organizations to include VOTF

From their mission statement, they are attempting to "3. Shape structural change within Church." This is intended to make a "democratic" Church which clearly violates the hierarchical structure which has always existed and is reemphasized in Vatican II Lumen Gentium. The chairman James Muller states in a National Catholic Reporter article on April 26, 2002, “We have donation without representation, and we have to change that.” Also on a CNN interview dated April 29, 2002, the chairman desires cafeteria Catholicism: "... our goal is to provide a democracy for the laity, so that the laity can decide what they want and then counterbalance the absolute power, which we have now of the hierarchy."

DISSENTING ORGANIZATIONS for the complete list.

[Desdemona]

"3. Shape structural change within Church."

Yes. This bugged me too when I first read it.

[maryz]

donation without representation

Donation without representation??? Somehow it doesn't have the revolutionary ring of "taxation without representation" -- "So, don't donate" is easier than "so, don't pay taxes."

[maryz]

Shape structural change within Church

My feeling is that it's pretty open-ended, to say the least -- talk about buying a pig in a poke!

[NYer]

a "democratic" Church

I am relieved to see that OurLadysWarriors has included this group on their dissenters list. They surely maintain one of the most well researched and clearly defined listings that I have ever come across, on any site.

[sinkspur]

"It is hard not to conclude that some members of the American church's hierarchy resent or are fearful of the laity's voices."

Well, this is certainly true.

Whether the Voice of the Faithful or Faithful Voice, any lay organization is doomed to failure.

The American Catholic bishops are not now, nor have they ever been, open to any kind of serious input from the laity.

That's why so many lay Catholics just make up their own minds about things, including morality.

[patent]

Post said the group did not impose an ideological litmus test on speakers at the July 20 convention, and said he has no regrets about allowing Thomas Arens, president of the Germany chapter of We Are Church, to speak, even though We Are Church supports allowing married men and women to become priests. But Post said the group was wrong to allow Debra W. Haffner to speak on a panel on "creating a sexually safe parish," because Haffner, he said, is a "leader of several organizations that have taken positions at odds with the Catholic Church's teaching on abortion and sexuality" and her "mere presence raised understandable doubts about VOTF's commitment to Catholic teaching."

If her presence raises those doubts, doesn’t the presence of the We are Church people do the same? They take positions at odds with the Catholic Church’s teachings as well. I think this makes their bias clear, they don’t consider We Are Church as contrary to Catholic principles.

Their denial all but admits that their critics are right.

patent  +AMDG

[patent]

That's why so many lay Catholics just make up their own minds about things, including morality.

And here I thought immorality and pride were effects of original sin.

patent  +AMDG

[SoothingDave]

And here I thought immorality and pride were effects of original sin.

Sinkspur perhaps thinks that if the bishops listened to the people more often, the immoral would cease their sin.

Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? Where the people listen to the bishops? (Assuming we had bishops who had somethign to say, that is.)

SD

[patent]

Sinkspur perhaps thinks that if the bishops listened to the people more often, the immoral would cease their sin.

I think there are a couple dozen denominations out there whose Bishops are open to serious input from the laity.

Some even vote on doctrine, can’t get much more serious input from the laity than that. Despite that, it seems their adherents seem as ready to make their own minds up about things as American Catholics are.

patent  +AMDG

[Romulus]

"we accept the teaching authority of the church."

"We do not advocate...the exclusion of homosexuals from the priesthood,

Which is it, then?

The 1961 Document, "Careful Selection and Training of Candidates for the States of Perfection and Sacred Orders" (as promulgated by the Vatican's Sacred Congregation for Religious on February 2, 1961) plainly states that homosexuals are not to be ordained. So does Pope Paul VI's encyclical Sacerdotalis Caelibatus ("On Priestly Celibacy").

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith's message of October 1, 1986, entitled "Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons" also makes plain that homosexuality is an objective disorder and a grave moral risk.

[eastsider]

Post's letter to members of Voice of the Faithful, which is posted on the group's Web site, www.votf.org, asserts that "we accept the teaching authority of the church." ... "We do not advocate the ... exclusion of homosexuals from the priesthood ... or any of the other remedies that some have proposed," the letter says.

I see, they accept the teaching authority of the Church, except when she says not to ordain homosexuals. VTF isn't holding up very well under scrutiny.

[sinkspur]

Sinkspur perhaps thinks that if the bishops listened to the people more often, the immoral would cease their sin.

If the bishops listened to the people more often, perhaps the bishops wouldn't be in the mess they're in today.

[maryz]

That's why so many lay Catholics just make up their own minds about things, including morality.

I don't know how it is everywhere else, but in Boston anyway, it's a long time since I've heard an archbishop say anything about Catholic morality (with the notable exception of abortion). For the rest, most public statements from Law (and Medeiros before him -- I wasn't old enough to be paying attention under Cushing) sound as if they could have been drafted by the DNC. Law, for example, gets very exercised about the possibility of tax cuts -- because they'll hurt the poor. The possibility that some entity or individual other than the state might have a responsibility toward the poor is never mentioned.

I think if the bishops were more obviously listening to God rather than to the New York Times or the Boston Globe editorial pages, Catholics at least -- and maybe others -- would be more willing to listen to them.

[maryz]

If her presence raises those doubts, doesn’t the presence of the We are Church people do the same?

I did happen to go to the VOTF website when they listed the people running for their board -- I believe there were at least three members of Call to Action and there was one who listed in his qualifications that he was an openly homosexual man.

I don't know which of the candidates won.