From the WSJ Opinion Archives
HOUSES OF WORSHIP
A New Voice
Worth Listening to? Catholics confront their heritage.
In response to recent scandals, a lay Catholic watchdog group has formed, calling itself Voice of the Faithful. It held its first "convention" and, a few days ago, tried to take on the Boston archdiocese.
The 19,000-member organization says that its main goal is openness in the way that the Catholic bishops' bureaucracies--in Boston and elsewhere--handle clerical pederasty. But there are signs that Voice of the Faithful wants to transform itself into a large, well-financed interest group, agitating for a restructuring of the Catholic Church in the U.S.--including elected bishops and an end to bans against married and female priests.
Voice of the Faithful, born only six months ago, recently announced plans to raise funds to contribute to Boston archdiocesan charities--programs that aid inner-city parishes, AIDS patients, senior citizens and the like. The idea was to bypass official archdiocesan control of the funds, and thus allay fears that the money could be doled out as hush money or legal fees in pederasty lawsuits.
On Monday, however, Cardinal Bernard Law's archdiocese declared that it would refuse to accept charitable donations from the Voice of Compassion, a tax-exempt entity set up to handle the organization's contributions. It said they would undercut the Cardinal's Appeal fund-raising drive.
At first glance, Voice of the Faithful seems to have a point. Contributions to the Cardinal's Appeal are way down this year: a mere $4.8 million in pledges by June compared with $7.5 million by the same time last year. Lay anger at Cardinal Law's apparent acquiescence in payouts and reassignments instead of criminal prosecutions for the two most egregious of the child-abusing Boston priests surely accounts for some of the shortfall.
In a similar way, the revelation that the Milwaukee archdiocese had secretly paid a $450,000 settlement to the onetime gay lover of former Archbishop Rembert Weakland enraged and demoralized Catholics across the spectrum.
"The people in our group range from traditional to liberal," insists Voice of the Faithful's president, James Post, a management professor. "But we all agree that the problems aren't about doctrine. The problems are about the administration of an institution."
Mr. Post's proposal to give the laity more access to church administrative and financial decision-making sounds reasonable. It was only two or three years ago that the Boston archdiocese started making its annual audit results available to the public, according to the Rev. Christopher Coyne, a diocesan spokesman. In an article in the conservative Catholic World Report in April, editor Philip F. Lawler wrote: "If American clerical leadership has been paralyzed, the ordinary faithful . . . should take the lead."
But not a few Voice of the Faithful members want a great deal more than that. Last week's convention in Boston drew more than 4,000 attendees, many of whom expressed discontent with Mr. Post's restrained aims. Speakers included Lisa Sowle Cahill, a theologian who advocates ordaining women. The Rev. William Kremmell expressed his hope that in 25 years a married woman might be taking his place as the celebrant at Mass.
The organization's Web site urged convention participants to read a paper by Anthony Massimini proposing a "new authority structure" for the church. (Mr. Post says that Voice of the Faithful invited several leading Catholic conservatives to the convention but none attended. Two of them, the Rev. Richard John Neuhaus and author Michael Novak, tell me they never received an invitation.)
Furthermore, Voice of the Faithful has plans to turn itself into an institutional force, contemplating a $1 million annual budget and a staff of 40 or 50, according to spokesman Mike Emerton.
So far, the group's achievements have been more modest: $10,000 in pledges for its alternative to the Boston Cardinal's Appeal, as well as a commitment from Boston's Catholic Charities to defy Cardinal Law and accept Voice of the Faithful money. The archdiocese is trying to stave off further defections and convince parishioners that they don't have to go through Voice of the Faithful to donate directly to Boston Catholic nonprofits.
Alas, for many lay Catholics the church can no longer be trusted in such matters. In that way it is to blame if lay organizations form with broad, and not entirely desirable, agendas.
Ms. Allen is the author of "The Human Christ: The Search for the Historical Jesus."
