The Suiciding of the Church (SNAP and VOTF go after the Catholic Church)

Catholic Exchange ^ | May 6, 2006 | Richard Leonardi

[NYer]

"This is an ancient, rigid, secretive, top-down, all-male monarchy. It always has been. It always will be. The answer is not to reform them, but to go around them and to contain them."

Whatever constructive role these groups once played in the national “dialogue” about the abuses perpetrated by predatory, largely homosexual priests, it has long since past. In fact, they don’t seek dialogue at all. Clohessy now counsels against dialogue with bishops and instead urges Catholics to lobby state legislatures to exempt dioceses from statutes of limitation that prevent an endless stream of aging, often dubious, claims.

High profile plaintiffs’ attorneys are wasting no time. Attorney Jeffrey Anderson is taking advantage of California’s lifting of its statute to “sue the s*** out of [the Catholic Church] everywhere.” Cincinnati’s Stan Chesley successfully coaxed the nearby Diocese of Covington, Kentucky, to settle for $85 million, pocketing 30% of the take for himself and his co-counsel. Despite the fact that Chesley overestimated the number of claimants for Covington’s funds by a factor of two-to-one, he had the audacity to claim that 30% is a low figure, since he usually takes home between 33% and 40%.

Let’s gain some perspective here. As bad as the abuses brought to light during 2002’s “Long Lent” were, they pale in comparison to those committed by the employees of another venerable institution: the public school system.

The May 2006 Crisis magazine reports the findings of Hofstra University’s Charol Shakeshaft: 6.7% of all students in the United States report being sexually abused in a physical manner by an educator in public schools.

Catholic author and blogger Mark Shea recently wrote that

in a single year, 1998, the Dept of Justice listed 103,600 cases of sexual abuse in public schools. From 1950 to 2003, there were 10,667 reported cases of clergy sexual abuse. That's 10 times as much in one year as there were in 53 years in the Church. Yet nobody is passing laws singling out teachers for special exemption from ordinary laws. Only Catholics.

Shea calls what Clohessy and his attorney cohorts are urging “the suiciding of the Church.” And if these folks are successful, that’s precisely what it will be. Take Catholic schools, for example. Nationwide, approximately ten percent of elementary school students are educated in Catholic institutions. And although estimates vary, it’s a safe bet that half of the average parish budget goes to maintaining its school.

Tack onto each parish budget a share of the additional debt that tens of millions of dollars in settlements or successful lawsuits will create, and the recent wave of Catholic school closings will quickly look like a trickle. Are the supposedly over-burdened government schools ready to take on an extra couple million students?

Liberal activists often complain that federal budget cuts in the '80s either caused or exacerbated the homeless problem in our inner cities. Whether or not that’s true, what’s indisputable is that Church-run charities like food pantries and homeless shelters remained in these communities. “Suicide the Church” and not only will recipients suffer, but taxes to support government replacement agencies will go up.

Likewise, as businesses and residents have abandoned downtown areas, churches have remained, providing a needed cultural core. No dollars, no core. Catholics will be left to worship almost exclusively in the beige, bongo-filled barns that increasingly dot the suburban landscape.

This is real, folks. Hiding in the chancery, if you’re a bishop, or pretending that your parish will survive the deluge unscathed, if you’re a layman, isn’t going to work. What the Church needs are bold, sensible actions from all the members of the Body of Christ. Take Columbus’s new bishop Frederick Campbell. When the Ohio legislature debated the merits of lifting the statute of limitations, he took to the airwaves identifying the flaws in the proposal. "This undermines a fundamental right to a fair defense of a case.... When an accusation is made, it tars a person for the rest of his life."

Thankfully, the effort in Ohio was partially defeated (the statute expires twelve years after an alleged victim turns eighteen, instead of the proposed twenty), but currently more than a dozen states are considering lifting their statutes. California, mentioned above, has witnessed its Catholic institutions shell out $250 million to plaintiffs now that its statute has been lifted, with no end in sight.

I recently had the pleasure of touring the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. The church proudly notes that it was paid for by the generous contributions of individual Catholics and their families during the 1950s. We cannot let the cultural treasure that our grandparents worked so hard to accumulate be squandered.

Francis X. Maier, the author of the May 2006 Crisis piece, said it best:

As a Catholic, I believe I have a duty to help sexual abuse victims heal. And I have an equal obligation to the Catholics who came before me, and the ones who will come after me, to pass along the Faith and the resources with which I was entrusted. They’re not mine to throw away.

[NYer]

Rich Leonardi, publisher of the blog Ten Reasons, writes from Cincinnati, Ohio.

[oh8eleven]

And I have an equal obligation to the Catholics who came before me, and the ones who will come after me,
to pass along the Faith and the resources with which I was entrusted. They’re not mine to throw away.

Nor are they Bishop Mahony's out in LA - but he's doing a damn good job of it.

[Antoninus]

SNAP and VOTF have always been fronts for anti-Catholic/barely Catholic liberal groups like Call-to-Action and FutureChurch. They prey upon victims of sex abuse more than help them. They have no interest in addressing the root causes of the abuse crisis (i.e., homosexuality in the priesthood)--they are much more interested in using the crisis and the victims to bludgeon the Church and turn it in a direction amenable to their goals.

They will fail.

[bornacatholic]

I've REPEATEDLY written to my local fishwrap about the FAR GREATER sexual crimes of the gov't schools. However, they won't print the letters or respond to me. The media is the enemy of the Catholic Church and the protector to the govt school system and enablers of their sexual crimes

[lastchance]

You are right. The biggest danger to the faithful of the Church are not anti Catholic outsiders- but to the so called Catholic insiders who disguise their desire for the Church's downfall with pleadings for Reform. Yes there are good Catholics who want to see true Reform. Meaning a return to the teachings of the Church by her Clergy and laity. A return to a liturgy that truly glorifies God and His love for us. These reformers love the Church as Christ's bride on Earth and would never prostitute her.

But those like VOTF want a false Reformation. One that denies the Church's teachings and sets them up as their own popes. You can tell the enemies of the Church by their fruits. Bitterness, rancor, hatred, disobedience, contempt and slander are not fruits of the Holy Spirit. These are fruits of the Spirit of The Age.
These wolves need to be sent packing and kept out of the sheep fold.

[Salvation]

Our Lady's Warriors.Dissent>Organizations

Voice of the Faithful (VOTF)

From their mission statement, they are attempting to "3. Shape structural change within Church." This is intended to make a "democratic" Church which clearly violates the hierarchical structure which has always existed and is reemphasized in Vatican II Lumen Gentium. The chairman James Muller states in a National Catholic Reporter article on April 26, 2002, ìWe have donation without representation, and we have to change that.î Also on a CNN interview dated April 29, 2002, the chairman desires cafeteria Catholicism: "... our goal is to provide a democracy for the laity, so that the laity can decide what they want and then counterbalance the absolute power, which we have now of the hierarchy." See more details below.

 

 

Documents Revealing the Truth about Voice of the Faithful

Description	Author	Comments
When Wolves Dress Like Sheep: Close Look at Voice of the Faithful	Deal Hudson	But notice the bait-and-switch tactic used [by VOTF] in listing its three goals. Everyone can rally behind the cry of supporting faithful priests and the abused, but "change within the church" could encompass a variety of "changes" that are well outside the Church's teaching. (off-site)
An Inside Look at Voice of the Faithful	Danny DeBruin	As the subject says. (off-site)
Dissidents Advance Usual Agenda	Paul Likoudis	VOTF is a clone of Call to Action. (off-site)
A Pastoral Letter From Your Priests [regarding VOTF]	Rev. Thomas A. Frechette	Pastoral letter in response to parishioner queries regarding VOTF. (off-site)

[IIntense]

(i.e., homosexuality in the priesthood)

Are these priests homosexuals or are they pedophiles? Has this distinction been clearly determined? In either case, obviously, this behavior is despicable.

I would like to be able to give a knowledgeable answer to someone who insists they are not homosexuals, but pedophiles.

[tenn2005]

I would like to be able to give a knowledgeable answer to someone who insists they are not homosexuals, but pedophiles.

Actually they are both. Homosexual because they desire same sex relations and pedophiles because they desire these relations with children.

The even greater tradegy is that these perverts are sheltered and protect by the Catholic Church which claims to be the church established by Jesus and recognizes a Pope who claims to be God's spokesman on earth.

[IIntense]

Actually they are both.

Thank you for your answer. If it's even worth making a distinction when referring to those guilty of sexual abuse, the victims of abuse by SOME priests were, for the most part, teenagers or pre-teens. Pedophiles attack children of any age and both sexes. While I won't flat out disagree with you, there is a difference. Yet you may be correct in labeling these wayward priests as guilty of both abnormalities.

...the Catholic Church which claims to be...

Here you point to the Church's cover-up (and yes, it certainly was a cover-up) and protection of the perverted priests that they KNEW had committed heinous crimes.

The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church demands that Catholics believe and follow everything they teach.

On the subject of priestly abuse, and I exclude the majority of priests, I believe the knowledge of this stuff going on was well-known to many, or maybe most priests. Not just the bishops who passed these miscreants around from parish to parish. How could these going-ons have eluded the ears of the whole brotherhood of priests. If true, what percentage played a role by keeping their mouths shut?

I cannot deny the brain and ability to reason which God gave me, anymore than you or anyone else with some intelligence can do. I cannot, will not, pretend to be "blind" when I am not.

[IIntense]

Ten Reasons

While I grant you it's hard to swallow the indictments of the guilty priests while believing others of equal guilt avoid the same treatment, let's face it...the behaviour is still wrong.

Getting a ticket for disobeying driving laws is a perfect comparison. Why me, when I constantly witness others breaking the law? Answer: Because I also broke the law and happened to get caught doing it! Unfair? Who DOESN'T feel that way? But is it?

[Antoninus]

The even greater tradegy is that these perverts are sheltered and protect by the Catholic Church which claims to be the church established by Jesus and recognizes a Pope who claims to be God's spokesman on earth.

No, they were sheltered by some rogue bishops of the Catholic Church. The Church itself (meaning the body of believers and the priests and bishops who are faithful to Christ) never, ever sanctioned or approved these activities.

When you have an institution made up of over a billion people, there are going to be rogues and even people who do truly wicked things. I suppose your sect is pure as the wind-driven snow, eh? If you think that, I wouldn't dig too deep if I were you...

[Antoninus]

I would like to be able to give a knowledgeable answer to someone who insists they are not homosexuals, but pedophiles.

Well, that's a pretty silly argument, but I have heard several benighted individuals voice it to try to shift the onus for these crimes away from their obvious homosexual component. If you read the Jay Report, compiled by a group of people who could hardly be called 'conservative' (Clinton lawyer Bob Bennett and Clinton chief-of-staff Leon Panetta being among them), you will find that even they couldn't deny the homosexual nature of the abuse.

When all was said and done, the Jay report found that nearly 85% of the sex abuse cases were homosexual in nature. And of those, the vast majority involved priests with post-pubescent males--teenagers. If you know anything about the "gay" deathstyle, you know that this is classic homosexual behavior.

Right, Sir Elton?

[kgcyclist]

I must agree with the general comment - particularly with VOTF - but I am concerned that we are grouping all the SNAP members with VOTF members. I personally know the Arizona representative of SNAP, and both he and I came from the same parish that blew the whistle at Father Cunningham when he was suspended. He and I have done music together for years, and we have been part of the St Anne's community - a very conservative parish - for several years. If SNAP as a whole is following VOTF's path, then they are being badly mislead. I have to believe that my friend would either resist this trend or leave his post outright.

[RobbyS]

And in your back yard are public school districts who hide many more of these malefactors and who are protected by sovereign immunity. Meanwhile the Bots Scouts are exposed to calumny for doing a better job of protecting youth--or did. I imagine they are less diligent about protecting their flocks from the wolves out of fear from being sued to death.

[tenn2005]

Good observation.

[RobbyS]

He should know by this time that he is being used by people who hate the Catholic Church. Has he ever looked into the evidence that the public schools are more worthy of his attention than the Church. With three million teachers out there, and the growing boldness of sexual predators, the likelihood of there being in the schools in great numbers seems higher than ever. Anecdotally,as a former union rep, My guess is that the percentage of perverts is not high, probably less than in the general population, but just think: One of a hundred mounts up to a lot of people, and given the number of districts (more than 10,000)in the United States, and the scant attention they pay to last minute hires/emergency hires, means that the bishops are not the only ones who are negligent in such matters.

[IIntense]

Well, that's a pretty silly argument,...

Argument? That's not my word, it is yours. You took a big leap from I would like to give a knowledgeable answer to calling that an argument. Let's be more careful about calling a poster's sincere question "silly". It may backfire.

[Antoninus]

Let's be more careful about calling a poster's sincere question "silly". It may backfire.

I wasn't calling your question "silly", I was calling the point made by the "someone" you mentioned "silly."

[IIntense]

"silly"

Sorry I misunderstood you. This "someone" also came across to me as defending the homosexual lifestyle.