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Contact: Jessica Lillie, votfpr@votf.org,
(617) 558-5252, (617) 680-2131 cell
For Immediate release
After 36 Years, All He Gets Is 30 Days?
VOTF Calls the Excommunication of Fr. Bourgeois the True Scandal
In a letter to the Papal Nuncio Voice of the Faithful demands a second look
November 25, 2008 – Boston –Voice of the Faithful calls on the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to withdraw the demand by the Catholic Church that Fr. Roy Bourgeois recant his decision, made in good conscience, to support the ordination of women.
Having served the Church for 36 years as a Maryknoll priest, Fr. Bourgeois received precisely thirty (30) days -- not even one day for each year of service -- to recant his position or be expelled from the Church he so clearly loves. How scandalous that the Catholic Church can move so rapidly when its authority is challenged, yet the same Church has failed, after years of disclosures, to remove even one of the many American bishops who secretly and repeatedly enabled pedophilic predator priests to abuse Catholic children.
“Fr. Bourgeois arrived at his position through the dictates of his conscience,” said Dan Bartley, Voice of the Faithful president. “Where are the consciences of the Vatican officials who have scandalously failed to discipline those bishops who actively facilitated the abuse of Catholic children across the United States? Where is their sense of shame?”
In a letter to the editor of National Catholic Reporter, VOTF highlighted the most dramatic example of this disproportionate treatment by comparing Fr. Bourgeois to Cardinal Francis George. Fr. Bourgeois has been a widely respected champion of justice, but when he speaks his conscience on a sensitive issue, he incurs the Church’s ultimate penalty. Cardinal George, who acknowledged protecting child abusers who have endangered children, is today president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The ordination of women is of course an issue of great sensitivity in the Catholic Church. Just a few months after Fr. Bourgeois participated in the ceremony involving Janice Sevre-Duszynska, he was alerted by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of his impending excommunication. In a letter addressed to the Papal Nuncio, VOTF responded to this threat, writing, “The speed of this action stands in vivid contrast to the action of the Holy See on what we regard as a far more damaging problem: public action on numerous priests accused of sexual abuse. Nearly 5,000 Catholic priests have abused more than 12,000 young people. Most of these priests, and the bishops who protected them, still remain active.”
The contrast is disturbing. Right or wrong, Fr. Bourgeois comes by his views honestly and with his conscience. He forthrightly admits what he has done. For this, he faces the Church’s ultimate penalty.
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Press contact
Jessica Lillie (617) 558-5252, (617) 680 2131 ©
About Voice of the Faithful (VOTF) VOTF is a worldwide movement of concerned
mainstream Catholics formed in response to the clergy sexual abuse crisis.
The group’s mission 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. Its goals are to support survivors of
clergy sexual abuse, support priests of integrity, and shape structural change
within the Catholic Church in full accordance and harmony with Church teaching.
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