Mary Pat Fox
President, Voice of the Faithful

Panel Discussion
Leadership in the U.S. Catholic Church
Section IV: The Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal: How Dioceses Worked and Might Work

Voice of the Faithful exists because of the clergy sexual abuse crisis. Our mission statement is: To provide a prayerful voice, attentive to the Spirit, through which the Faithful can actively participate in the governance and guidance of the Catholic Church. Our goals are to support survivors of clergy sexual abuse, support priests of integrity and to work for structural change within the church so a crisis like this could never happen again. We are growing, we have more members in every region of the US today than we did a year ago and we are also active in Australia, Ireland, and Canada. We have 35,000 members and over 120 active affiliates.

Let me give you a picture of our typical member: she or he is progressive, liberal and conservative. We are highly educated and we love the Church; it is very important to us. In a study conducted by Dr. Bill D’Antonio and Dr. Tony Pogorelc of the Life Cycle Institute they reported that 87% of the members of Voice of the Faithful have at least a college degree, greater than 70% attended Catholic Grammar School, 60% Catholic High School and greater than 50% also attended Catholic College. About 25% have degrees in theology, canon law or scriptures. Our membership is active in parish life. Most of us are lectors, Eucharistic Ministers, on parish councils, or teach CCD. And when asked how important the Catholic Church is to us personally 61% answered that it is the most or one of the most important parts of our lives.

Voice of the Faithful emerged in January 2002 when the clergy sexual abuse crisis became front-page news. As Catholics, our founders were shattered to find out what had been happening; how priests had abused children and how bishops had moved the abusers around and in some cases had actually protected abusers. Children were put at risk in OUR Church. These priests listed in the newspapers were our priests, our pastors and had abused OUR children. The clergy sex abuse crisis was a crisis of secrecy and deceit. Priests found to have abused were quietly moved to another parish. Families that came forward were quietly paid in exchange for their silence. The result – more children were abused. By keeping this all under a cloak of secrecy protecting the priests and the institutional church the bishops sacrificed innocent children and made the healing process near impossible. By paying for silence children and families thought they were alone. Children in families that did not come forward often were not believed. Parents continued under a false assumption that all priests were safe and trustworthy and did not have the information needed to protect their children – more children were abused.

A crisis like this can cause people to drop away from the church and many did. Those who joined Voice of the Faithful are the ones who said, this is my Church – we are the Church – and we need to ensure that nothing like this can happen again. It is our responsibility to do this. We are still here and growing 5 years later because we cannot pretend this didn’t happen and go on as before – this must change.

That is who we are and WHY we are. Now let me describe what we seek to DO.

Voice of the Faithful gives Catholics a voice within the institutional Church with a desire to reform the church into a healthier, just, compassionate, accountable and transparent church.

We seek to identify the causes of the crisis in order to prevent another crisis. VOTF strongly supports the work of the Causes and Context study that Maggie and Jim are working on. From our vantage point - What could the dioceses have done differently? The bishops could have dealt with the situation with honesty and compassion. They had several opportunities to do this – at the first instance of abuse they encountered – in the mid 1980s when the prevalence of clergy sex abuse across dioceses was reported – in 2002 when the abuse crisis made the front page of national newspapers. But each time there were dioceses that thought – no one will find out about our secrets. Then came Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and San Diego to name a few.

Today we still see dioceses concealing records. The Courts declared that Cardinal Mahoney in Los Angeles must release the records of priests who have abused and he still has not released them. Several dioceses have declared bankruptcy in order to avoid releasing records. The recent situation with San Diego should cause everyone to question the justification for declaring bankruptcy in light of pending legal action on abuse cases. After the filing for bankruptcy the diocese was found to have not reported the market value of the Church-owned property as the courts requested, some accounts were missing and new ones set up after the bankruptcy filing. The situation was so egregious that the judge threatened to hold the diocese in contempt.

In addition to dealing with situations with honesty and transparency the bishops needed to get the laity involved. A parent participating in personnel discussions would not have allowed a priest to be quietly moved from one parish to another. This is what VOTF means by our mission statement to participate in the governance and guidance of the church. The laity has a baptismal responsibility to participate.

Today some dioceses have changed. We see more openness in places like Brooklyn, Albany, Boston, San Francisco and Providence to name a few.

However, the root causes of the crisis still endure. The issue of secrecy and clericalism must be addressed or we will soon have to deal with other crises. Secrecy still permeates much of what happens in many dioceses. The NY Times ran an article on church finances here in the Archdiocese of New York not long ago and we saw the next crisis of the Catholic Church with great clarity – the crisis of financial accountability. We have not seen financials in the Archdiocese of New York in over 20 years. In the article Cardinal Egan’s arrogant dismissal of financial accountability, stating that he is selectively “transparent to the best possible people” is the same blindness that enabled abusive priests to be moved from parish to parish unchecked.

The time has also come for fraternal correction to be a real performance management issue on the part of bishops across the country. Together the bishops have formulated solid programs such as the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People and the Financial Reporting Guidelines however many diocese do not fully implement the programs. It is up to us as the laity and the bishops as well to ensure these are fully implemented in each diocese.

In summary the steps that must be taken immediately in order for the church to regain the trust of the membership: 1) engage the Laity – at all levels of governance beginning with effective parish and finance councils, 2) be honest and transparent – release the records – post the names of credibly accused priests – admit the wrong the church has done, 3) engage in fraternal correction amongst your fellow bishops.