VOTF

[Weeorphan]

Continued from previous post.

As for the College of Bishops literally committing sexual abuse: Common sense intuits that the College of Bishops has an unwritten, silent code that Church image and fiscal solvency come first no matter what. Hiding the lewd acts of a few offending priests serves the Church best, whispers the devil in their collective ear. Now don’t you think a court of law would judge that their collectively aiding and abetting a few offending priests (and some bishops) is equal to the act itself? Sure enough. That’s why the immense dollar settlements lately. Los Angeles is next to feel the wrath of God.

To drive home my point: If my family helps a bank robber escape the scene of the crime just because we are ‘brothers’, and we protect him from detection to save the family ‘name’, by transporting him to another city or state, where he again robs a bank, and we help him over and over again, don’t you think a court of law would judge the family just as guilty as if we literally robbed those banks? You better believe it.

As for the wrath of God, over and over we read of it in the Old Testament and in the New. Recall in the Acts of the Apostles, the pre-announced sudden death of that married couple who lied to St Peter about their donation to the new Christian community. You wouldn’t consider their death a punishment by the Holy Spirit, to strike fear and respect into the Brethren? Whether you deem the financial drain on the Church a punishment by the Holy Spirit or not, the fact remains all too obvious that many parishes are closing, Church donations are down, the pews are half empty where I go to Mass, and unless the Spirit of Renewal sweeps through the Church soon, there may be no laity to govern and no Church to call home. God’s wrath is the only descriptive I can think to use for our membership’s lukewarm disciplines and devotions to Christ.

In Ann Arbor, Michigan, the Dominican Sisters of Mary( 734-994-7437) are rare in their returning to the habit, living in community, and attracting large numbers of young postulants… because of the ancient spiritual disciplines and devotions they practice. We pray the Holy Spirit kindles the fire of renewal and suchlike change of heart in both the laity and priests. The hour’s at hand when each must kindle a fire and come in from the cold, …or be a ‘dead man walking’.

May God bless us each and every one!.

 

[Weeorphan]

• Here are current examples of what the VOTF organization is doing to demand laity participation in the governance and guidance of the Church.Dated 12-29-04:
• ""Last week, the Archbishop of Seattle disbanded a lay review board he had created and dismissed their recommendations for change. Six of the board’s 10 members issued a statement condemning the action, and both of Seattle’s daily newspapers condemned the action as well, terming it “backsliding.”
• On the east coast, two people at a church in Natick, MA, seeking to initiate a vigil in hopes of preventing the closing of their beloved church were arrested for trespassing after their pastor called the police. The next morning, with the support of the Archdiocesan officials, police from two towns descended on the church to remove five parishioners seeking to renew that vigil after Christmas Mass. Both of these actions display an arrogant disregard for the role of the laity in the Catholic Church.
• And in November, the U.S. Council of Catholic Bishops voted to administer self-audits as the chief means of monitoring the implementation of child safety protection policies initiated in response to the clergy sexual abuse scandal - over the objections of survivor groups and Voice of the Faithful. We now have made a formal request to the bishops to reverse this decision.

From Seattle to Boston, New York to Chicago, Indianapolis to Atlanta, the work of reform must go on to return trust and moral authority to the Catholic Church and to prevent backsliding by the hierarchy.""

From my perspective and direct experience with VOTF, (and
putting aside the large percentage of kinkydoos pushing for their own hidden agenda), I feel VOTF does have a seriously needed, and legitimate purpose in helping the Church with its constructive feedback: … just so long as they leave the holy doctrine in place and eliminate the free sex/homosexual marriage/elected hierarchy/euthanasia/female clergy/prochoice abortion crowd. Only then will it truly be the Voice of the Faithful.

 

[aridite]

Weeorphan:

From my perspective and direct experience with VOTF, (and
putting aside the large percentage of kinkydoos pushing for their own hidden agenda), I feel VOTF does have a seriously needed, and legitimate purpose in helping the Church with its constructive feedback: … just so long as they leave the holy doctrine in place and eliminate the free sex/homosexual marriage/elected hierarchy/euthanasia/female clergy/prochoice abortion crowd. Only then will it truly be the Voice of the Faithful.

And if they don’t, as they give every indication they won’t . . . ?

 

[katherine2]

aridite:

And if they don’t, as they give every indication they won’t . . . ?

they have. What’s YOUR hiden agenda that you feel the need to put down the only lay organization doing any effective work to protect children?

 

[aridite]

katherine2:

they have.

Not to my satisfaction. And, no, it does not require herculean, inquisition-esque detailed professions of faith. Just a clear, explicit renunciation of some of the ideas raised at THEIR conference and available (however difficult to find) on THEIR website.

katherine2:

What’s YOUR hiden agenda that you feel the need to put down the only lay organization doing any effective work to protect children?

Why won’t you believe me ?!?!?! :banghead: My agenda is not hidden. It really is to protect true Catholic doctrine AND to protect children. Can’t I want to have both? If I am criticizing VOTF for confusing me on one, does it have to mean I am opposing them on the other? Do you always suspect duplicity on the part of people you disagree with? The only reason it is suspected with VOTF is because THEY (or those THEY CHOSE to associate with) raised heterodox issue unrelated to protecting children.

 

[Fiat]

Exactly what is this “effective work” that VOTF is doing to protect children? VOTF in my diocese is all but defunct.

 

[katherine2]

Fiat:

Exactly what is this “effective work” that VOTF is doing to protect children? VOTF in my diocese is all but defunct.

if it makes you feel any better, my personal guess would be that VOTF will not be around for a long period of time. They have risen to address an immediate and pressing crisis in the church. Wise and pastoral leaders of the church along with concerned lay people will pick up on VOTF’s concerns and properly respond to them. Having acheived its mission (or a reasonable advance), VOTF will fade away, mission accomplished.

Even some of VOTF’s nastiest critics are adopting much of its platform while going to great lengths not to credit the organization.

That’s fine. it is the cause that is important, not the organization.

 

[larryo]

VOTF is primarily a group of dissenters who use the priest sex-abuse scandal as a jumping-off point for rearranging the Church to suit their own predilections. They consciously or subconsciously have absorbed a thread of anti-clerical and anti-hierarchical bias into their philosophical worldview. Basically, when they talk of reform, they tend to think in terms of the original so-called reformers, that is, Protestants. I believe their ultimate aim includes lay election of bishops, women in the priesthood, a married clergy, and a figurehead pope that would simply carry through the collective wishes of all the world’s bishops. I don’t believe the VOTF has the best interests of the Catholic faithful at heart.

 

[katherine2]

larryo:

I don’t believe the VOTF has the best interests of the Catholic faithful at heart.

and you are entitled to your beliefs. God bless you and be well.

 

[Lorarose]

I had family members travel to Washington DC during the pro-choice “March For Women’s Lives” (or March for Babies’ Deaths).

They spent a couple of days there to counter protest, and to especially help represent faithful catholics as a protest was planned at the Vatican embassy.
VOTF was present at this protest. Guess which side they were on?
Not only were they protesting FOR the Church to allow the murder of babies - they were vile and disgusting in their behavior.

IMO - definitely wolves - but I don’t think they even bother to put on the sheep’s clothing.

 

[katherine2]

Lorarose:

I had family members travel to Washington DC during the pro-choice “March For Women’s Lives” (or March for Babies’ Deaths).

They spent a couple of days there to counter protest, and to especially help represent faithful catholics as a protest was planned at the Vatican embassy.
VOTF was present at this protest. Guess which side they were on?
Not only were they protesting FOR the Church to allow the murder of babies - they were vile and disgusting in their behavior.

Your family members lied to you. The fact that critics of VOTF need to resort to the most baseless lies speaks volumes about VOTF’s critics. it is very sad that certain people are so threatened by VOTF’s admirable mission that they will even commit vile sins to try to harm VOTF.

 

[aridite]

katherine2:

Your family members lied to you.

Lorarose: do trust katherine2, an anonymous poster on the internet. Do not trust your own family, people you have known your whole life and who were actually THERE in DC! And no, I would never be sarcastic.

 

[katherine2]

aridite:

Lorarose: do trust katherine2, an anonymous poster on the internet. Do not trust your own family, people you have known your whole life and who were actually THERE in DC! And no, I would never be sarcastic.

if the moderators permit internet gambling, I’m willing to put a little wager on this one. In fact, more than a little. Any takers?

 

[TPJCatholic]

It is easy to find out VOTF’s real intentions. Simply challenge them to provide a detailed mission statement (a sort of business plan) that provides (in detail) what their purpose and goals are, with action plans and benchmarks. Along with that, challenge VOTF to provide a point/benchmark at which the entire group would disband.

If their intentions are honorable, they will have no problem providing that information. If their intentions are honorable, they should be eager to disband as soon as possible. Otherwise, VOTF should be looked at with great doubt and suspicion.

 

[katherine2]

TPJCatholic:

It is easy to find out VOTF’s real intentions. Simply challenge them to provide a detailed mission statement (a sort of business plan) that provides (in detail) what their purpose and goals are, with action plans and benchmarks. Along with that, challenge VOTF to provide a point/benchmark at which the entire group would disband.

If their intentions are honorable, they will have no problem providing that information. If their intentions are honorable, they should be eager to disband as soon as possible. Otherwise, VOTF should be looked at with great doubt and suspicion.

remember when conservatives used to poke fun at liberals who would spend a lot of energy writing “mission statements”? Oh, how they would criticize and laugh and put down the composition of such statements.

Now they turn on a dime. If you don’t have a fifty page manifesto that provides (in detail) what the purpose and goals are, with action plans and benchmarks, you don’t have honorable intentions.

You guys are amazing.

 

[TPJCatholic]

Katherine,

Please, do not “lump” me into any of your “you guys” statements. Respectfully, you know nothing about me to make such a statement.

My point (and your reaction to my post is quite telling imo), is that VOTF wants the Church to bend to their liking in a very transparent manner. They want every aspect of the Church to be completely transparent…yet VOTF is not at all transparent, in fact they behave very much like they claim the Church has behaved.

Let’s see how truly transparent VOTF really is…let them act as they expect the Church to act. Then we will see their true colors. Let them define themselves with precision, and let them invoke their plans in a truly transparent manner, with a disband date or goal set in concrete…only then will we know where they truly stand. Otherwise, they are simply another dissenting group who intends to change the church to its liking (won’t ever happen though).

 

[aridite]

TPJCatholic:

My point (and your reaction to my post is quite telling imo), is that VOTF wants the Church to bend to their liking in a very transparent manner. They want every aspect of the Church to be completely transparent…yet VOTF is not at all transparent, in fact they behave very much like they claim the Church has behaved.

Good point. Accountability begins at home. Just as the hierarchy needs to be accountable to earn our trust (a principle which I whole heartedly endorse), so VOTF needs to be accountable to earn our trust. I would have presumed good will on their part were it not for their questionable associations. (katherine2, I can see you rolling your eyes, but it is true. Care to call me a liar?) With questions having been raise, I have yet to hear any kind of respect for my trust that they are demanding of the bishops. These are times of a great loss of confidence in those who claimed to have been looking after the best interest of the Church. VOTF of all groups should be sensitive to that. Yet all I hear from VOTF is defensiveness (“how dare you suspect us of heterodoxy!”) and them circling their own wagons.

 

[TPJCatholic]

aridite,

I agree.

VOTF should be as transparent as any organization can be…they should open their books, pass out their personal bio’s—let us see extensive background information on every leading member of VOTF (what groups, orgs, companies, associations they belonged to, along with mental histories, criminal histories, finanical histories, etc.).

They should also provide their goals and mission statements with clarity and detail (with accoutability built in), including a benchmark to disband once their goals have been met.

After all, VOTF expects all of that and more from the Church, so why should they be different?

Barring that, why should we trust them?

 

[Weeorphan]

I thought with all the bantering back and forth between spiritual siblings, I would submit a quotation that seems to gather in both sides:

                            THE HOLY LONGING 
                            by Ronald Rolheiser

"How much I must criticize you, my church, and yet how much I love you. You have made me suffer more than anyone. I should like to see you destroyed and yet I need your presence.

You have given me much scandal and yet, you alone have made me understand holiness. Never in this world have I seen anything more compromised, more false, yet never have I touched anything more pure, more generous or more beautiful.

Countless times I have felt like slamming the door of my soul in your face, and yet every night, I have prayed that I might die in your sure arms.No, I cannot be free of you, for I am one with you.

Then, too, where would I go? To build another church? But I could not build one without the same defects, for they are my defects. And again, if I were to build another church, it would be my church, not Christ’s church.

No, I am old enough, I know better."

The church is our divine mother, old with wrinkles, slow to adapt, fussy with her rituals, dogmatic in her traditions, and a sure depository of ancient wisdom. Most of all she loves us unconditionally, willing to forgive us our most mischievous deeds as a mother would her children. We cannot abandon her for all her warts, her stumbling or faulty reasoning or lame excuses.

---

As Jesus hung on the cross, He announced to John his most beloved disciple that Mary was his mother – meaning John was to take care of her as his own. Jesus spoke to us as well, for mystically speaking, the Virgin Mary is the Church to whom we are obliged as spiritual children. We now must lift her up from the inevitable serious stumble, and restore the dignity and respect our hauntingly beautiful, great great grandmother deserves. As anyone who has been caregiver of an elderly beloved would agree, it won’t be easy, is often messy, but it must be done.

---

 

[katherine2]

TPJCatholic:

aridite,

VOTF should be as transparent as any organization can be…they should open their books, pass out their personal bio’s—let us see extensive background information on every leading member of VOTF (what groups, orgs, companies, associations they belonged to, along with mental histories, criminal histories, finanical histories, etc.).

Hey, if those are the rules everyone should play by (the bishops, priests, Catholic Answers, EWTN, the Wanderer, etc.), I’m open to it.

After all, VOTF expects all of that and more from the Church, so why should they be different?

Are you entirely incapable of writing one honest statement about VOTF?