Louisville VOTF Affiliate

Submitted by Vince Grenough

The Louisville area affiliate has 12-15 active members who attend our meetings regularly. Our members range in age from their 50’s to one delightful and dedicated lady who is in her mid-80’s. We usually hold general meetings monthly in the community center of Epiphany Catholic church. We often have ad hoc meetings of our leadership group and/or task groups between the general meetings. We have an email list of about 250. We begin every meeting with a period of meaningful prayer and we ask God for the gifts of discernment and charity in all of our deliberations. We have had Retreats every other year; one year including VOTF members from nearby States.

We are most proud of our three-year successful effort to toughen Kentucky's laws concerning sexual abuse of minors. In early 2008, HB211 was passed unanimously in both legislative houses and signed into law. The new law eliminates Statutes of Limitations by making felonies out of almost every crime that was previously a misdemeanor crime of sexual abuse against minors. In Kentucky there is no SOL on any felonies. Contact Shannon Whelan at sw@shannonwhelan.com for more information.

We have an on-going cooperative relationship with the Trappist monks at nearby Gethsemane abbey. We arranged for two separate groups of survivors and their family members to go there to tell their stories and to dialogue with the fifty-or-so monks who live there. The monks offer a special welcome to any survivors and/or their family members who come to the abbey. For more information, contact Cal Pfeiffer at caljpfeiffer@cs.com.

Two years ago David Clohessy of SNAP came and spoke to a large gathering. He also joined a group of us on a “Pilgrimage of Healing” during which we visited and prayed at several public locations where crimes and/or cover-up of clergy sexual abuse were particularly egregious. Media coverage was excellent. We support the work of SNAP and have paid the expenses for a local survivor to attend the SNAP National Conference. We also strongly supported the work of The LinkUp, located near Louisville, until that ministry sadly ended two years ago. A large group of our members travelled to Chicago to join the demonstration that called public attention to Cardinal George's criminal behavior.

We have spoken with more than half of the priests of our archdiocese by attending their regional meetings.  One of our members sends notes of congratulations and appreciation from our affiliate to each priest on the occasion of their ordination every fifth year anniversary.  Public support for Voice of the Faithful by our priests is non-existent except for one courageous priest, Joe Fowler, who was basically forced into retirement early because of his public advocacy for victims. (When our governor signed HB211 into law, Joe read a powerful statement before the TV cameras that strongly criticized some of his fellow priests and our diocesan leaders for their crimes and failures, but praised Voice of the Faithful for our leadership.)