Affiliate Spotlight – Bridgeport Voice of the Faithful (continued)

We asked for a meeting with Bishop Lori, but he sent his Vicar General, Fr. Cullen to meet with Fr. Blanchfield and our Board. We met with the Vicar General and Fr. Blanchfield at the St. Jerome rectory. Fr. Cullen told us that the bishop would let us meet on church property if we: 1) Changed our name from VOTF to some other name, and  left the National VOTF, and 2) each member of the Board agreed to sign some kind of affidavit affirming our agreement on several Church proclamations regarding abortion, birth control, women’s ordination, celibacy, etc. On the spot, none of us would agree to this, and the meeting broke up. Subsequently, Bishop Lori forbade Fr. Blanchfield from letting us meet on St. Jerome property or anywhere else in the diocese.

In the summer of 2002, we arranged to meet at Norwalk Congregational Church and have met there ever since. We meet monthly, and normally have 60 people in attendance for a business meeting followed by one or two speakers.

We have a 15 person Board who elect officers.  Dr. Joe O'Callaghan was our first Chairman, followed in 2004 by Tony Wiggins, John Lee in 2006, and Co-Chairs Jamie Dance and Dan Sullivan in 2008.

 "Voice of Compassion" is a fund which we initiated in our early days. It is understood that many people don't want to contribute to the Diocesan Campaign yearly, since they don't agree with the bishop's secretiveness about abusive priests, plea bargains arranged by Lori (and Egan before him)  and with sealing of the records.  The fund is well-publicized and distributed by our Board each Thanksgiving to religious-based charities.

We have managed a major Conference each April at Fairfield University (a Jesuit institution), with attendance from 200 to 300.  The Conference features roundtables on major topics, and major speakers, including Fr. Richard McBrien.