I received the following email last night from a member of Voice of the Faithful, and since there may be other ill-informed people out there, I thought I’d post my reply online as a public service:
Who do you think you are? I am a member and cofounder of VOTF in Dayton, Ohio and I find your unfounded attacks on our group to be damaging to the countless families harmed by abusive priests and their criminal counterparts the bishops. (And no I don’t mean ALL bishops and priests.)
I have not heard one VOTF member endorse anything contrary to Church doctrine.
How about this: Is a priest getting caught soliciting a male undercover cop for sex in a public park after exposing himself and grabbing the cops crotch against Church doctrine? Hmmmm… Answer that please and then I will tell you how Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk dealt with it.
First, I don’t understand why criticism of VOTF is interpreted as supporting pervert priests and enabler bishops. It’s not like the two are exclusive. But here’s my response:
You obviously don’t know where I’m coming from. I, too, have criticized the bishops for being lax in discipline and allowing perverts to remain in the priesthood. If you’d even tried reading my site for a while, you’d know that, and you’d know that I’ve already criticized Pilarczyk for the way he handled the case. I don’t know where you get off calling me hypocritical.
But that doesn’t have anything to do with my criticism of VOTF. To be blunt, if you don’t think VOTF doesn’t endorse anything contrary to the Church’s teachings, then you aren’t paying attention. Do a search on VOTF on my web site and read all the examples I give. Look especially at the early entries. Or just go to the group’s web site. Start here: ( http://www.votf.org/Educating_Ourselves/educating.html ) Read Anthony Massimini’s articles. James Keenan is another recommended reading; he went before the Massachusetts legislature last year to tell them that the Catholic Church requires them to allow gay marriage, based on social justice! At the first VOTF convention, the priest who celebrated Mass said to the crowd—to general applause—that he looked forward to the day when a woman would be celebrating there in his place. And those are just a few examples off the top of my head.
If VOTF was just a group seeking accountability for bishops who have betrayed our trust, I’d be right with them. Unfortunately, as I have found, the group’s leadership includes people whose real aim is to use the opportunity of the Scandal to undermine the Church’s teachings they disagree with. Now before you reply, make sure you’ve read those items I’ve pointed out to you. I’m not going to argue with someone who doesn’t want to become informed, but just wants to attack me.
In the VOTF group in my area (now numbering about 8 people last I heard), they were trying to schedule speakers from CORPUS and Call To Action. That was the last meeting I attended because by that action they finally put the VOTF agenda out in the open and the “we take no stand” on the hard issues was debunked - I no longer could give them the benefit of the doubt. Actions do indeed speak louder than words.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/16/04 at 08:27 AM
Just look at the recommended reading for prayer page on VOTF’s site.
Zero orthodox recommendations but instead books by people who have been censored by the Vatican (Anthony de Mello) and dissident nuns (Joan Chittister) and the normal Paulist press crap.
When did the Paulists go bad? Is it order-wide? Nuns and priests both? I know the Paulist Center in Boston is off the charts left. I hadn’t heard anyone mention the Paulist Press (at all) in years though.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/17/04 at 08:06 AM
More comments: Page 1 of 1 pages
Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.
Comments are being moderated. After you submit your comment it could take up to a couple hours, but usually only a few minutes, before it will appear. Thank you for your patience. If you have any questions, you may contact Domenico Bettinelli.
A primer on VOTF’s heterodoxy
I received the following email last night from a member of Voice of the Faithful, and since there may be other ill-informed people out there, I thought I’d post my reply online as a public service:
First, I don’t understand why criticism of VOTF is interpreted as supporting pervert priests and enabler bishops. It’s not like the two are exclusive. But here’s my response:
You obviously don’t know where I’m coming from. I, too, have criticized the bishops for being lax in discipline and allowing perverts to remain in the priesthood. If you’d even tried reading my site for a while, you’d know that, and you’d know that I’ve already criticized Pilarczyk for the way he handled the case. I don’t know where you get off calling me hypocritical.
But that doesn’t have anything to do with my criticism of VOTF. To be blunt, if you don’t think VOTF doesn’t endorse anything contrary to the Church’s teachings, then you aren’t paying attention. Do a search on VOTF on my web site and read all the examples I give. Look especially at the early entries. Or just go to the group’s web site. Start here: ( http://www.votf.org/Educating_Ourselves/educating.html ) Read Anthony Massimini’s articles. James Keenan is another recommended reading; he went before the Massachusetts legislature last year to tell them that the Catholic Church requires them to allow gay marriage, based on social justice! At the first VOTF convention, the priest who celebrated Mass said to the crowd—to general applause—that he looked forward to the day when a woman would be celebrating there in his place. And those are just a few examples off the top of my head.
Here are other examples from a quick search of my site:
http://bettnet.dyndns.org/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1031844170,26447,
http://bettnet.dyndns.org/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1031667880,28045,
http://bettnet.dyndns.org/cgi-bin/viewnews.cgi?newsid1033062901,30540,
http://bettnet.dyndns.org/blog/comments.php?id=783_0_1_0_C
http://bettnet.dyndns.org/blog/comments.php?id=865_0_1_0_C
http://bettnet.dyndns.org/blog/comments.php?id=1248_0_1_0_C
http://bettnet.dyndns.org/blog/comments.php?id=1326_0_1_0_C
http://bettnet.dyndns.org/blog/comments.php?id=1943_0_1_0_C
http://bettnet.dyndns.org/blog/comments.php?id=3183_0_1_0_C
http://bettnet.dyndns.org/blog/comments.php?id=2045_0_1_0_C
And those are just the quick finds. This link will point you to all mentions of the group on my site: http://www.google.com/search?q=VOTF+site:bettnet.dyndns.org&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&start=0&sa=N
If VOTF was just a group seeking accountability for bishops who have betrayed our trust, I’d be right with them. Unfortunately, as I have found, the group’s leadership includes people whose real aim is to use the opportunity of the Scandal to undermine the Church’s teachings they disagree with. Now before you reply, make sure you’ve read those items I’ve pointed out to you. I’m not going to argue with someone who doesn’t want to become informed, but just wants to attack me.
COMMENTS
In the VOTF group in my area (now numbering about 8 people last I heard), they were trying to schedule speakers from CORPUS and Call To Action. That was the last meeting I attended because by that action they finally put the VOTF agenda out in the open and the “we take no stand” on the hard issues was debunked - I no longer could give them the benefit of the doubt. Actions do indeed speak louder than words.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/16/04 at 08:27 AM
Just look at the recommended reading for prayer page on VOTF’s site.
Zero orthodox recommendations but instead books by people who have been censored by the Vatican (Anthony de Mello) and dissident nuns (Joan Chittister) and the normal Paulist press crap.
Posted by Jeff Miller on 06/16/04 at 09:46 AM
When did the Paulists go bad? Is it order-wide? Nuns and priests both? I know the Paulist Center in Boston is off the charts left. I hadn’t heard anyone mention the Paulist Press (at all) in years though.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 06/17/04 at 08:06 AM
Comments are being moderated. After you submit your comment it could take up to a couple hours, but usually only a few minutes, before it will appear. Thank you for your patience. If you have any questions, you may contact Domenico Bettinelli.