Lifting Their Voices

Lay Catholics band together to gain clout after clergy scandals

Rocked by allegations of clergy sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church, lay Catholics are banding together

by the thousands in hopes of gaining a greater voice in ecclesiastical affairs. In the Archdiocese of Boston, which is at the center of the nationwide scandal, fund raising has emerged as a key tool in the laity’s efforts.

In February, disaffected Catholics in the Boston area formed Voice of the Faithful, a lay advocacy group that has mushroomed to more than 25,000 members in 90 parish affiliates, mostly in the Northeast but also as far away as California and Oklahoma. In July the group formed the Voice of Compassion Fund–Boston, an alternative fund for Catholic donors who feel they cannot in good conscience give to the archdiocese, but still want to support its programs. So far 267 donors have contributed more than $62,000 — a fraction of the archdiocese’s budget, but enough to suggest that the fund’s long-term impact could be significant.

“We need new tools for a new era of Catholicism,” says Jim Post, president of Voice of the Faithful. He says the Voice of Compassion Fund stands out as an example of the kinds of giving tools that are needed at a time when Catholic parishioners are starting to want more control over contributions.

“It is a fund where the laity donates, the laity is involved in the management of the funds, and the laity is involved in the distribution and the use of the funds,” he says.

Francis J. Butler, president of Foundations and Donors Interested in Catholic Activities, in Washington, thinks that the fund will have its biggest impact as an educational model. “The Voice of Compassion Fund is an effort to teach philanthropy to Catholics, to show them that they can participate more actively in the use of their donations by creating a kind of independence,” he says.

Mr. Post puts it more directly. “The people in the pews can vote two ways,” he says. “They can vote with their feet by not coming to church, and they can vote with their dollars. I don’t know how much the bishops care about people voting with their feet, but I do know that they care about people voting with their dollars.”

This summer Cardinal Bernard F. Law of the Boston archdiocese indicated that he would refuse to accept money from the fund for church programs. But the fund’s existence may have been a factor in his decision last month to agree to meet for the first time with leaders of Voice of the Faithful.

Crisis of Conscience

The fund was born of a crisis of conscience among Boston-area Catholics who were repulsed by the sex-abuse scandal — and by what they saw as Cardinal Law’s efforts to cover it up — but nonetheless felt determined to continue to support Catholic causes, Mr. Post says. The central question, he says, was, “How could we give money to a Cardinal, to an administration, that had proven itself so morally bankrupt and so unworthy of support?”

When Voice of the Faithful first discussed forming the fund, two views prevailed on what its purpose should be, according to David L. Castaldi, a trustee. Some members said that the only way to get the church to recognize the concerns of the laity was to encourage parishioners to withhold their gifts. The other camp said Catholics, even in their anger and disappointment over the hierarchy’s handling of the scandal, had a responsibility to support their church.

Ultimately, the second group won, says Mr. Castaldi. “We are a group of faithful Catholics who want to build the church up, not tear it down, and that meant that we had to pursue the pathway of supporting the church,” he says.

Mr. Post says the group encourages Catholics to give to the archdiocese if their conscience will allow, and if not, to give directly to the charities and ministries of the archdiocese. But if donors want an alternative, he says, they can choose to support the Voice of Compassion Fund.

Despite its support for the church, Voice of the Faithful has put strict conditions on gifts from the fund. The archdiocese cannot use the money for its general operating expenses, including fund raising. In addition, the archdiocese can receive money from the fund only after it provides a detailed accounting of how it will spend the donations, and it must later follow up with more information after allocations are made.

If the archdiocese refuses to accept the money or the reporting conditions, the money then will go to Catholic Charities Archdiocese of Boston, a separate nonprofit organization affiliated with the archdiocese that provides social services in the metropolitan area. Should Catholic Charities also refuse the money, it will go to other Catholic organizations in the Boston region.

The Voice of Compassion Fund, which is overseen by the National Catholic Community Foundation, in Annapolis, Md., will distribute 90 percent of its money quarterly to the designated recipients. The remainder will go into a permanent fund, a portion of which will be offered to recipients annually. Mr. Castaldi says the fund was structured so that all recipients are named upfront to avoid confusion and to assuage any concerns among donors about the fund’s youth and lack of experience.

Effort to Gain Oversight

Voice of the Faithful was created as an effort by lay Catholics in the Boston area to gain a greater role in church governance and oversight of priestly conduct.

In January, parishioners at St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church, in Wellesley, Mass., began meeting to talk about the problem of clergy sexual abuse and how church leaders had handled it. Catholics from nearby churches soon began to attend the weekly meetings, and by the end of May, Catholics from all over New England and the Middle Atlantic states were coming.

As the lay movement grew, the Boston archdiocese banned new parish affiliates from meeting on church property, as have several other dioceses, including those in Bridgeport, Conn., Newark, N.J., and Rockville Centre, on Long Island, N.Y.

When Voice of the Faithful announced the creation of the Voice of Compassion Fund, the archdiocese expressed its unequivocal opposition to it and said it would refuse to accept its money.

“This approach of donating money to the mission of the Church which has been proposed by the Voice of the Faithful does not recognize the role of the Archbishop and his responsibility in providing for the various programs and activities of the Church,” Donna M. Morrissey, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said in a written statement.

Kenneth J. Hokenson, chief development officer for the Boston archdiocese, says he believes that Voice of the Faithful wants to do something other than just supplement the Cardinal’s Appeal, the annual campaign run by the archdiocese, with contributions that donors otherwise wouldn’t make.

“I don’t want to say that they’re not being truthful. I want to say that they’re not telling the whole story,” says Mr. Hokenson. “The whole story is that their fund is competing with the Cardinal’s Appeal. It is taking money away from the good work of the church and the mission of the church.”

No Call for Boycotts

Leaders of Voice of the Faithful insist that its fund isn’t competing with the Cardinal’s Appeal. “Voice of the Faithful has been very clear that we are not calling for any boycotts of giving to the church,” says Mr. Post.

He says he hopes that when Cardinal Law meets with Voice of the Faithful, the Cardinal will tell the group that he has changed his mind about accepting money from the Voice of Compassion Fund.

“These are heartfelt gifts from Catholics who genuinely want to help the programs that are in need,” says Mr. Post. “I would hope that he would find a way to accept the gifts in the spirit in which they’re really being given.”