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PREPARE, ACT, REFLECT

All are welcome to join local VOTF affiliates on the Campaign for Accountability. Connect with your VOTF state level contact to get more involved in the Protect Our Children initiative. For the Financial Accountability effort Connect with VOTF members in your state to join with others in your area working on these goals.

A campaign is a highly energized, intensely focused, stream of continuous activity with specific objectives and deadlines. In this sense, a campaign is linear in nature. We start at one place, and we end in another (our desired outcomes). In another sense, a campaign is cyclical in nature. Within a campaign we engage in just three basic PHASES over and over again – PREPARE, ACT, REFLECT. These three phases create one CYCLE of the campaign.

First, we prepare ourselves with prayer and discernment. We also gather necessary information, pool our resources and create plans to help us reach the goals to which we are called.

The summer months are an excellent time for a smaller group to prepare so that the larger group can be ready for concrete action once everyone returns from their vacations. Below are the details of the first phase of a cycle, PREPARE, to be used with the Financial Accountability and/and Protect Our Children Legislative Campaigns.

THE FIRST PHASE:

PREPARE

A) Prepare spiritually
B) Investigate
C) Educate in order to build support
D) Build strategic alliances
E) Strategize

A) PREPARE SPIRITUALLY

Christ suffers when his Body, the Church, is wounded. He longs to make it whole. It is clear to us that the Church is deeply wounded. For four years we have been called, through a deep sense of our baptismal responsibility, to play our part in its healing.

As it is Christ's Church that we humbly work to heal, we must strive to do everything “through him, with him and in him.” Through him, our outrage can be transformed into creative, powerful love. With him, we can show goodwill even to those who oppose us. In him, we can sense his companionship and be guided and empowered to reach our goals. Through genuine, ongoing discernment and a spirit of deep listening, we can remain grounded in the Spirit of Christ.

In each step of our direct action, we will want to turn to Christ in prayer. Here at the threshold, however, is a good time to for special prayer and worship, as individuals and as a group. We want to make sure, as much as in humanly possible, that we will be “attentive to the Spirit” as we investigate, strategize, negotiate, train, organize and carry out direct action.

Each VOTF group will have its own modes of prayer, discernment and worship during meetings and special gatherings (e.g. retreats, prayer services, etc.). In addition, at the beginning of direct action, it is good to set aside special time to prayerfully underscore our attentiveness to the Spirit.

We have compiled an extensive list of resources in order to help your group stay centered in the Spirit. Please consult the resources at http://www.votf.org/2006/prayer.html

B) INVESTIGATE

WHY INVESTIGATE?
During your group’s campaign, members will be called upon, by the press or interested people, to articulate why your group is focusing on financial accountability or legislation to protect children. If a listener or opponent can point out that your facts or interpretations are clearly incorrect, then the campaign stalls right there. No one will join a campaign whose organizers haven’t taken the trouble to learn the facts surrounding the issue in question. So be prepared. Investigate. Do research. Don’t get “caught with your facts down.” You may also need to investigate to decide which campaign you should undertake.

OPENNESS AND UNDERSTANDING
We may be tempted to dismiss offhandedly a particular position taken by a Church leader as “just his attempt to shore up clerical power.” However, if he can counter with persuasive, convincing reasons why he holds this position, then we’ve lost the argument.

Insofar as possible, we must become “experts” on all the arguments against the position your group is taking, and practice giving stating our own arguments in a rational, loving, and firm manner. Our readiness to respond to others’ criticism increases the likelihood that we will be able to stay committed to our principles of maintaining a spirit of love and prayerfulness in all that we say or do.

Finally, we must strive to listen to any truth that may be within their position since the Spirit is accessible to everyone. (Usually, there’s at least some truth on both sides.) Never make the arrogant claim that “only our way is right.” Be open to being convinced that part of your position was inadequate or wrong. Make changes accordingly.

LOOK FOR ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS
It’s not enough to believe that lack of financial accountability and transparency is wrong. We also need to be able to propose how the wrong could be set right. So, in your information-gathering, look for reasonable proposals for how things can be done better. People are more likely to join the campaign if they can come to understand, not only the injustice, but how things could be done more justly.

SOME METHODS OF INVESTIGATION

  1. Interviews: Prepare a list of pertinent questions and interview people who know about the issue, including people purported to be experts. Don’t rule out people who may be “part of the problem.” Find out what the financial reports of your own parish or diocese look like and how often they are made public, if at all.
  2. The Internet: Do a search on Church financial accountability or model state laws. See what other states, dioceses or Catholic parishes have done around the country. For financial accountability, try www.Churchsecurity.info. Why has the Austin Diocese been called “the most financially transparent Church in the country” (NCR, 6/17/05)?
  3. The Mass Media: Look up articles in magazines, newspapers, etc. Have any reporters been covering the issue? See if you can meet with them.
  4. Organizations: What organizations may have important information on financial accountability or state law? Do they have newsletters, a library, a website? The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has printed a good set of guidelines for how to do financial reporting. Other groups to check for financial accountability: the National Leadership Roundtable on Church Management; FADICA (Foundations and Donors Interested in Church Accountability); National Association of Archdiocesan Finance Councils. SNAP (Survivors Network of those who have been Abused by Priests) is a key resource if you should choose to undertake a legislative campaign. They have spearheaded successful initiatives in several states.

SEEKING ANSWERS WITHIN THE LEGISLATIVE CAMPAIGN
There is certain information that you need to acquire in order to successfully navigate through a legislative campaign in your particular state. Within the first cycle, some key questions are as follows:

  1. What are the laws currently on the books that pertain to your campaign?
  2. What is involved in your state’s legislative process?
  3. What bills have been filed and are still pending? In what stage are they currently? By whom have they been filed?
  4. What kind of legislation are you willing to work for (best case and fallback)?
  5. Which is the strongest bill in terms of content and filer (should be a committee member)?
  6. When does the legislative session end? When will the bill die? Is this the ideal time to file?
  7. To what committee will the bill be assigned?
  8. Who are our potential allies? Opposition?

C) EDUCATE IN ORDER TO BUILD SUPPORT

Though we can achieve small measures of success with just a few people, our potential for making necessary change increases exponentially when we add larger and larger numbers to our base of support. One of our national objectives is to mobilize 1,000,000 Catholics throughout the course of the campaign. In order for this to happen, we must educate everyone we know about the problems that exist, give them hope that things can change (by citing examples of success), and ask for their unique, God-given contribution. We must think of ourselves as giving everyone the opportunity (perhaps that they have long been looking for!) to help in the healing of our Church and society.

As Catholics, there is often much fear about speaking our truth in the world. Or we feel as though people just don’t care. Perhaps it is because we have had our excitement around VOTF shut down by family members or friends, or perhaps we are discouraged by the lack of committed members at the affiliate level. We cannot let this deter us. We must be courageous, as the apostles were courageous, and speak our truth wherever we go. And we must expect that if these campaigns are the will of God, many will feel compelled to participate.

Therefore, first you must set a goal for yourselves in terms of the number of people that your group plans to work to mobilize by the end of the campaign. Begin by asking the question, “How many people will it take to move the pastor, bishop, or state legislature?” Think much bigger than adding a mere 10 or 20 supporters to your campaign. In nearly every case, such a small number will not suffice; it will not convince anyone that enough people desire this particular change. Think realistically about the number of people it will take to achieve your objectives, and the number you will be willing to work to educate. Once you have established your goal for the end of the campaign, create benchmarks for yourself along the way. “In order to reach our end goal, how many people will we need to have participate by X dates?” Finally, you will have to decide which methods to use in order to generate this kind of support.

You will return to this process during the preparation phase of every cycle within your campaign. Building support is not something you simply do once. It is critical that you continue to engage new people throughout the life of the campaign. Some targeted people and methods are listed below.

  1. VOTF Members: The first people we need to educate are ourselves. Before we engage in a campaign, we must understand fully the scope of the problem, as well as our plans for addressing them. Affiliate meetings are an excellent way to bring everyone onto the same page. Some affiliates have found success with scheduling a speaker for part of the evening, or dedicating part of the meeting to prayer alone, and then following with a business meeting.

  2. Lay Catholics: The problems in the Church affect all Catholics, and we all have the responsibility to do what we can to help bring about healing and justice. We must continually speak our truth and join others to join us, much as the apostles did. One-on-ones, house meetings and parish informational meetings are methods for educating lay Catholics and asking for their participation.

  3. Official Leaders within the Church: Some pastors and employees of the diocesan offices may be supportive of your campaign. Make the effort to reach out to these individuals in a spirit of love and collaboration. Should this attempt fail, move on – do not spend the energy trying to convince someone at this stage in the campaign. There is opportunity for that kind of meeting in the step called “Attempt to Collaborate”. For this phase, focus on pulling together those who already support you, and consider using one-on-one conversations as your primary method.

  4. Lay Council Members: When pursuing a financial accountability campaign, take the time to educate people who are already serving on their parish or diocesan finance council. Consider hosting a conference, or meet with each group separately for a mini-training. In these forums you can cover details of Church finance as well as accounting procedures/ issues (all of which may be more than the average lay person is interested in!).

  5. Organizations: Identify and meet with leaders at other organizations who may be supportive of your campaign. If you are engaged in the legislative campaign, for example, connect with your local SNAP chapter as well as other child protection groups (e.g. social work associations, etc.). One-on-one meetings work well with organizational leaders, which may be followed by an opportunity to make a presentation at one of their upcoming meetings.

D) BUILD STRATEGIC ALLIANCES

After you have educated people about your campaign, seek to build alliances with select people or organizations that can help contribute to your success. In determining whether or not to partner with a particular person or organization, consider the following:

  1. What are the resources they can contribute to the campaign? Is their alliance with you beneficial, or could there be potential costs associated with that particular partnership?
  2. How closely do you agree on campaign objectives and methods? Can you work through minor differences?
  3. What are their interests in partnering with you? What do they hope to get out of it? Can you give what they are asking?
  4. In what ways are you allies? Do you share equally in all responsibilities in all steps of the campaign? If not, who is responsible for what?

E) STRATEGIZE

To “strategize” is to plan a course of action intended to make it more likely to get from the present to a desired future situation. Its basic questions are: Where do we want to go, and how can we get there? Here are some useful methods of strategizing. Remember, strategies probably will have to be revised as your campaign moves forward, as new challenges crop up, and as the Spirit guides you in new directions.

SET CLEAR OBJECTIVES
Objectives try to answer the question: “What’s the aim of this campaign? What would we like to see happen as a result of our efforts?” Each group undertaking a campaign will have to prayerfully discern which objectives (listed in the section called “Campaign Objectives”) to target, since success may not be achievable with regard to all listed objectives. The objectives may also have be refined to meet the specific needs of the local situation.

Objectives should be as concrete as possible. “To make our pastor more open about our parish’s finances” may be a great goal, but it’s too general to be an action focus. A parish that decides to focus upon establishing a lay-selected Parish Finance Council might set objectives like the following:

  1. To establish a Parish Finance Council (PFC) made up of the pastor and parishioners who have skill and experience in areas like financial planning, budgeting, etc.
  2. To select parishioner-members of the PFC by vote or some other method that involves parishioners in selecting who will serve.
  3. To establish a policy that the new PFC will meet regularly and that all members will receive all pertinent parish financial information. All will have a significant voice in setting meeting agendas, facilitating meetings, discussing issues and making decisions.

Having such goals helps your group to stay focused, to explain to new people and to the public what you hope to achieve, and to evaluate what’s being accomplished as the campaign unfolds.

SPECIFY “GATE-KEEPER(S)” / DECISION MAKERS
Usually, there is a person (or a small group of people) who have the authority to say whether the change will be made or not. The buck stops with them. Your campaign may relate to many different people among the power-holders. But these “gate-keepers” are the target of your action. Usually, the pastor is the gate-keeper at the parish level, the bishop at the diocesan level. State legislators and the governor are the gate-keepers when attempting to change state law.

Bishops especially are often surrounded by layers of staff or other people who follow their instructions. They probably will try to deal with you through representatives rather than in person. The same often goes for state legislators. But if you don’t get to the person actually in charge, the change you want won’t happen. Specifying the gate-keepers keeps your campaign focused with your main energies aimed at reaching and influencing those who actually can bring about the change you want.

DEVELOP AN EFFECTIVE STRATEGY TO REACH YOUR GOALS
A strategy is an overall course of action you will need to take to achieve your goals. Will you try to dialogue with a gate-keeper first, or would it be better first to get more concerned people to join you? If dialogue doesn’t work, how will you convince the gate-keeper to comply? Strategy is your “big picture HOW.” You should be able to explain it in a few sentences or less:

“Our strategy is to attempt dialogue, build support and then apply pressure through highly participatory and visible direct actions. The direct actions will all include, through symbols or substance, components that pertain directly to money, Church finances, financial reports, etc (e.g. procession to deliver an empty accounting book, group showing up at parish finance council meeting).”

OR

“Our strategy is to partner with all groups concerned about the welfare of children, work with a lobbyist to create a bill that will extend criminal statutes of limitations, and actively lobby senators and legislators to pass the bill.”

WHY DIRECT ACTION

VOTF has used a wide range of methods in its efforts to change the Church, e.g., prayer, newsletters, conferences, outreach through the press, support for survivors and for priests of integrity, efforts to dialogue with pastors and bishops, isolated public and prayerful demonstrations, etc. While we can agree that we have been successful in coming together as a prayer-filled and Spirit-guided community, and in a deepened understanding of our baptismal responsibility as Catholics, our success in transforming the institutional Church is less measurable, and certainly less widespread. In some places, we have achieved great success, and those successes must be celebrated. However, in other places, members have been left feeling that our vision of enabling the faithful (in the words of our Mission Statement) to “actively participate in the governance and guidance of the Church” still feels very far away. Regardless of which situation we relate to, we can all agree that there is much more work to be done in order to bring about the kind of “structural change” that we seek.

As the Catholic University of America study showed (2005) we in Voice of the Faithful are mainstream Catholics who are educated in Catholic School, active in ministry, and who regularly attend Sunday liturgy. For more detail see our press release and the study. And yet, as an organization we are not embraced by the official Church leaders for our faithfulness. Sometimes we feel that we are spinning our wheels, that we are up against a brick wall. With a few exceptions, pastors and bishops are largely unmotivated to deal with us or take our proposals seriously. For the most part, they rebuff our initiatives or ignore us, regarding us as suspect. Some VOTF groups even have been denounced or banned from meeting on Church property.

This sense of stalemate in many dioceses across the country has led many in VOTF to consider whether we need to draw more deeply on the long tradition of direct action in pursuit of our mission and goals. We all know that Jesus himself confronted the evils of his day, directly inspiring many leaders since to ground their quest for justice in faithful prayer. Historically, strong but peaceful direct action has demonstrated it can be a powerful force for change. For example, it was a key method used by women at the turn of the century to gain the right to vote. Mohandas K. Gandhi looked to Jesus as inspiration throughout the non-violent struggle to free India of British colonial rule. The Solidarity movement in Poland (in which the Church was deeply involved) sparked the movement to overthrow Communism. Martin Luther King, Jr. deeply rooted in his faith and commitment to justice, was one leader of many who utilized direct action in the civil rights struggle of the 1950’s and 60’s.

Having prayerfully grounded ourselves in love of Christ, Voice of the Faithful, with the guidance of the Spirit, is determined to undertake direct action campaigns in an attempt to better realize our mission and accomplish our goals. With clear objectives and united, prayerful actions, we can hope to chip away more of the brick wall that stands before us . . . with faith, firmness, and love. Some basic guidelines for prayerful direct action are included here.

Guidelines for Prayerful Direct Action

We must always remember that we are a Spirit – led movement. All action we engage in must be done in a manner that honors and best represents this fundamental characteristic of VOTF.

Some guidelines for prayerful direct action:

  • Treat each other with respect. This includes listening and being respectful in our responses to each other. The same standard applies to our interactions with all people we meet within our campaign, including critics and gate-keepers. We are ONE SACRED COMMUNITY.
  • Respect the sanctity of all sacraments, particularly the Eucharist. No action should disrupt the Mass for others in attendance.
  • Do not denigrate others by speaking derogatory comments and names.
  • Be peaceable. Violence in any form (e.g. harsh thoughts, words or actions) is never a justified response, and pulls us away from our prayerful center.

Staying true to these basic guidelines will work to both our spiritual and practical advantage. When we deviate from them, even with the best of intentions, history shows that we will struggle, and perhaps even be unsuccessful. Each group engaged in direct action should feel free to expand upon these basic guidelines as it sees fit.

 
 
 
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