Posted on: Saturday, July 20, 2002

Catholic laity to present its view

Associated Press

BOSTON — After months of legal drama and Roman Catholic leadership summits on the abuse of children by priests, thousands of ordinary churchgoers will gather here today to offer a perspective from the pews.

"In Rome the pope spoke, and in Dallas the bishops spoke, and in Boston the laity is going to speak," said Jim Post, president of Voice of the Faithful, which is hosting its first national conference. "This is a day of awareness building, education, kind of the great awakening."

The conference is expected to draw 4,200 people from at least 28 states and Germany and Canada.

Voice of the Faithful was formed five months ago in the basement of a church in Newton, Mass., in response to the sex scandal that began in the Boston Archdiocese and spread nationwide. The group's membership has grown to nearly 20,000.

The organization is pressing for greater lay involvement in the church, arguing that such oversight could have helped prevent the scandal and forced bishops to act. Voice of the Faithful has accused the church of protecting priests and maintaining a culture of secrecy.

The group announced yesterday that it had started to assemble a national database of abusive priests and created monitoring forms for churchgoers to check local compliance with a reform charter passed by bishops last month.

"Everyone agrees that the new charter must be implemented, and whatever input that is given will be very helpful," said Sister Mary Ann Walsh, spokeswoman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The nation's bishops, meeting last month in Dallas, approved a policy on sexual abuse that includes both national and local review boards made up of lay Catholics. But critics say those proposals do not go far enough.

Voice's relationship with the Boston Archdiocese has been tense. Earlier this year, the archdiocese was moved to issue a statement firmly asserting that lay organizations are subordinate to bishops.

The relationship has also been strained by the group's creation of a fund that would allow Catholics in the Boston Archdiocese to contribute to charities but bypass the church's central administration.

An archdiocese representative plans to attend the conference.

Prayer and a Mass will be interspersed with seminars on how to start local chapters and how to ensure parishes focus on keeping children safe.

Participants will learn about church governance and discuss such topics as sexuality in the priesthood. Victims of child-molesting priests will address the gathering, and seminars will deal with how to help victims.