Boycotting Collections

What can ordinary Catholics do to encourage their bishop to take more serious action against priest sex-abuse? A group of Catholic laymen in Chicago think they've found the answer.

They have founded a group to encourage local Catholics to boycott the parish collection plate until they've seen Francis Cardinal George get tough with sexual abusers in the priesthood and open up archdiocesan files for a full accounting of four decades of clergy abuse.,p.

Members of the Ad Hoc Committee for Prevention of Sex Abuse by Clergy insist that the cardinal allow an independent examination of all reports of priest sex abuse in Chicago over the last 40 years, and turn all cases over to the police. Among other demands, the committee also insists that the archdiocese release all victims of abuse by the Chicago clergy from confidentiality agreements signed as part of settlement agreements.

"Once you get these files open to the public, what's happened across the country will happen in Chicago," says Michael Tario, a banker and committee member. "We're absolutely certain there are pedophile priests in key positions here in Chicago. We won't find out until these files are opened up."

In a Chicago press conference Monday, committee members said if Cardinal George doesn't move quickly on their demands, they will encourage individual Catholics to withhold money from collections at their local parishes, and instead give the money to worthwhile organizations outside archdiocesan purview.

"There are all sorts of organizations you can give to," says Tario. "There's Mother Teresa's nuns, there's SNAP [Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests] if you want to help those who have been abused, and there's Roman Catholic Faithful if you're interested in ferreting out the problem."

Catholics are morally obligated to give money to the support of the Church, but the protesters are redirecting their donations according to an expansive view of the definition of "the Church" to include, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church says (752), "the liturgical assembly, but also the local community or the whole universal community of believers. These three meanings are inseparable."

Kevin Orlin Johnson, author of Why Do Catholics Do That? and other books and pamphlets written from an orthodox Catholic perspective, says sending one's weekly contribution to Church ministries other than the parish and diocesan ones is legitimate under canon law — but that it can only go so far.

"We are the Church; the Church isn't a club to which we pay dues," he says. "The big caution here is to divert donations only to organizations that are part of the Church. RCF would not qualify, as they are a lay organization not erected under canon law." Instead, suggests Johnson, Catholics should consider donating to official Church apostolates like the St. Vincent de Paul Society, which assists the poor.

The collection strike is on not only in Chicago. In early March, a prominent layman and generous donor to Church causes announced a similar strike after his bishop, Anthony O'Connell of West Palm Beach, resigned after admitting sexual abuse of seminarians earlier in his career.

And Boston, the epicenter of the national scandal, is fast becoming a hotbed of lay revolt. A fast-growing lay organization called Voice of the Faithful is discussing establishing a tax-deductible fund into which angry Boston Catholics can divert their contributions to support essential Church ministries without having to give to the archdiocese. And this past Sunday in the Boston area, the pastor of a parish where a former priest allegedly molested over 30 children announced that he had informed the archdiocese that the parish would not be sending money to either the Cardinal's Appeal or the archdiocesan capital campaign.

"I do not comprehend why the Archdiocese of Boston is not doing more in response to the needs of the victims of sexual abuse by priests," the Rev. Albert Capone wrote in the parish bulletin.

Despite these moves, there have to this point been little more than anecdotal reports of individual Catholics withholding money from their dioceses in response to the scandal. Polls show that most Catholics, while angry at and mistrustful of the hierarchy over its handling of the crisis, nevertheless trust their parish priest. This suggests that for the time being, the faithful will continue to donate locally, with certain stipulations.

"The [contribution] envelopes are coming in marked 'for parish use only,'" says a priest of the Brooklyn diocese, which has been wracked by scandal.

Tario, the Chicago banker, says he formed the Ad Hoc Committee last week with friends and associates from his parish and weekday prayer group, all of whom were distressed by what they believe is George's insufficiently strong stance on the abuse issue.

"We're all parishioners, and we all have children, and we're concerned," says committee member Richard Kenlay, a retired businessman. "It's apparent since this whole issue started up that we haven't been getting the whole truth. There are still abusive priests out there in parishes, and there are lots of gag orders here in Illinois."

Kenlay and others say that they worry that a portion of their contributions have been going to pay "hush money" to victims of priest sex abuse. "We're interested in knowing where the money is going, and where it has gone in the past," he says.

Committeeman Greg Morrow, who has been a Chicago lay Catholic activist for most of his 82 years, says that he fought anti-Catholic bigots for much of his life, "but it seems like for the past 35 years, the Church's greatest enemies are within the Church itself."

Morrow says it's "very difficult" for lay people to have any influence over the Catholic hierarchy, aside from using the power of the purse.

"People could just stash their money in envelopes and hold onto it until the job is done," he says. "We have a lot of good parishes here, and people don't want to hurt their pastor. But the archdiocese takes a cut of everything, and you have to start somewhere. Money is the key to all things here."

Unlike older Church-reform organizations, such as the orthodox Roman Catholic Faithful, or the heterodox Call to Action, the leadership of the new groups strive to keep their reformist focus on the issue of power. Voice of the Faithful is led by 1960s-style Church progressives, but the group doesn't officially advocate specifically liberal prescriptions. "We've got to stay focused," its leader, Jim Muller, told the Los Angeles Times. "Our goal is to organize the laity and give us a voice. If we start fighting over the gay issue, married priests and everything else, we won't make it."

The Ad Hoc Committee is led by doctrinal conservatives, but they agree that the changes that need to take place transcend ideology. "This isn't a Left or Right issue. This is about crime," says Tario. "I'm nobody. I'm an ordinary father and a Catholic who has had enough."

This is the line taken by Florida lawyer Ed Ricci, a fundraiser for Catholic causes who singlehandedly started a protest movement in his West Palm Beach diocese after his bishop, Anthony O'Connell, resigned on March 8 after admitting that he molested seminarians years earlier.

Ricci, a Jupiter, Fla., resident who claims to have given $2 million to Church causes over the last decade, and to have helped raise as a volunteer $785 million for the Church in the same period of time, publicly rescinded a $100,000 pledge to the local diocese in the wake of O'Connell's resignation, and said his fundraising days are over for now.

"I cannot go look a potential donor in the face and ask them to contribute money while the scandal is going on. I cannot and I will not," says Ricci, who says he's a regular massgoer.

His website is posting today a "substitute contribution form" for interested Catholics to print out and put in the collection plate instead of a donation. He says it will inform the parish that money will be withheld until the sex-abuse mess is cleaned up.

"My local pastor has said to me that while he respects my view, I'm going to deprive children of having their Catholic school," Ricci says. "My response is that my bishop and the local hierarchy should have realized that 30 years ago. That half-billion to one-billion dollars spent in hush money would have built a lot of schools."

Both Ricci and members of the Chicago committee express hope that their examples will be repeated by fed-up Catholic laymen. Says Ricci, "The only vote a Catholic has is with his wallet."

"I think we've set the stage here for what people can do," says Morrow. "I hope people across the country will see this, and do the same thing where they are."

Chris Kaufman, a professor of Church history at Catholic University of America, says the breadth and depth of the laity's anger is startling, but that bishops can assuage it by taking the protesters' demands seriously.

"People will really respond positively if they feel like they have a real voice," he says.

It only stands to reason. Though the Catholic Left and Right have always had malcontents, the great majority of Catholics take no pleasure in rising up against their bishop. Indeed, the well of patience among the Catholic laity has been so deep that previous scandals have not brought nearly this kind of response from them.

So what happens if the bishops listen, and institute concrete reforms? "I will rejoice, and double my contribution," says Ricci. "I think most people feel the same way."

I do believe that the only way to get the attention of the Current Hierarchy is to divert the funding until the reforms are in place and an honest oversight group is put in place to avoid the horror we are witnessing.

Law is a perfect example of rudderless men in positions of power who have been running amuk and have allowed the Smoke of Satan to enter the Church.

Law is still promulgating orders like a maniacal Despot who rules by Intimidation.

"My response is that my bishop and the local hierarchy should have realized that 30 years ago. That half-billion to one-billion dollars spent in hush money would have built a lot of schools."

Amen!

the new groups strive to keep their reformist focus on the issue of power.

And in so doing they've bought into the organizing theme of postmodernism and Cultural Marxism. In a nutshell: Postmodernists crave power while despising authority.

This article has many good suggestions on how to send a loud and clear message to the bishops and cardinals. For starters, I am going to write "For Parish Use Only" on my checks that go into the Sunday basket. When the Bishops Appeal comes around, I will send $0 to the bishop, with a note that my regular contribution of several hundred dollars is going to EWTN instead.

For starters, I am going to write "For Parish Use Only" on my checks that go into the Sunday basket.

And you trust them to honor that request?

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