The first is to support victims of abuse. I have no problem with that.
The second was to support priests of integrity. At that meeting I asked who was to determine the "priests of integrity" and what criteria were to be used. Two meetings later and the facilitator was still unable to answer.
I pointed out that at that very parish I had seen some of the same faces supporting a priest who had been charged with abuse,supported to the max by these very same people. Several days later it was confirmed that he indeed was an abuser.This is the biggest problem of lay groups advising the Church,many have their own agenda and many have no idea of the facts. They just knee jerk respond to emotional appeals.Then they get mad if their advice is ignored,even though their advice may have been counter to Church teaching and truth.
I won't even address the third since no one seems to have a satisfactory response to the second. The third is actually more impossible to acheive.
Anyway I am serious,just what non-doctrinal topics can be subject to more vioce from the laity?
I don't know how comprehensive a list I can give you, but I'd like laymen to be able to assume a greater role in financial matters in the Church. In fact, a panel of laymen should clear every major financial decision in a diocese. It's quite possible a monstrosity like that built by Mahoney for $200 million in Los Angeles would have been smaller, or not built at all. What a colossal waste of money that could have been better used somewhere else.
We have a very progressive priest in our parish who came here two years ago. One of his first acts was to dissolve the finance committee; he said he didn't need them.
Well, the parish was in the hole last year, missing a $950, 000 budget by $125,000, which had to come out of parish savings.
With no finance committee, he has no laymen who are going to stick their necks out for him to go to parishioners to ask them to pledge more. I told him he made a colossal mistake when he dissolved that committee, and he now admits he did.
I suggested our diocese have laymen help the bishop set strategy for the diocese: what are the priorities and how can we meet them?
The bishop decided he didn't need a committee, so he sets strategy. His objective is to increase the number of seminarians for the diocese. His plan? Have priests give sermons on vocations. My idea was to have some permanent deacons, and even laymen, talk about the value of the ordained ministry in parishes, and do this as a team effort, to make sure every parish is reached.
If this is left up to the individual pastors, they won't do it.
So, even "liberal" bishops and priests prefer to do it all themselves, then they wonder why people don't listen to them.