An article in the Christian Science Monitor examines where VOTF is now. I think they give them too much credit. To all appearances VOTF is fading fast, especially here in Boston. With the cardinal’s resignation, I think a lot of members felt like their job was done and have stopped going to meetings.
A couple of notable points from the article:
The controversy swirls around the ambiguity of “structural change.” Paul Lakeland, chairman of religious studies at Fairfield University and an expert on the laity, says that aim does raise the serious issue of authority in the church, and thus can imply radical change. “That makes them more radical than they present themselves, and even more radical than some bishops criticize them for being,” he suggests.
Exactly. VOTF has been reluctant to define what it means by change, except in the very beginning with that ridiculous new “constitution” for the Church which called for governance of the Church based on the US Constitution. As for radical, there is the well-documented evidence of the connection to Call to Action, evidence which came from CTA itself.
Catholics in Santa Barbara, Calif., formed a chapter of Voice last September. “One of the appealing things was the aim of Voice to be mainstream and not have an ideological platform,” says Peter Kruse, a retired corporate lawyer.
This is the problem. There is no such thing as a “mainstream” Catholic, in the sense they mean. VOTF is constantly saying that they don’t care whether members hold to the Church’s teachings or not. Well, it is important whether Catholics hold to the Church’s teachings. Orthodoxy is most important because those teachings guide us to everlasting life by keeping us attuned to the will of God. The Church’s teachings are there to help us, to keep us “right with God.” For a supposedly Catholic organization to say that it doesn’t matter is to undermine their connection to the Catholic faith. Name me one Catholic organization in history that did not promote orthodoxy and holiness among its members that still existed 50 years later and was still identifiably Catholic. Shoot, how about one that was still Catholic 10 years later.
