NEWTON (MA)
Boston Globe
By James Vaznis, Globe Staff | October 24, 2005
NEWTON -- Voice of the Faithful, a national lay Catholic reform group launched at the height of the clergy sex abuse scandal, has a membership that is deeply devoted to Catholicism but will need to recruit more active members if it wants to remain vibrant, according to academics who gathered for a symposium on the organization's future yesterday at Boston College.
The academics based their observations on a survey the Voice of the Faithful conducted earlier this year.
The organization will use the survey, which included responses from 1,300 members nationwide, to help it develop a new action plan to broaden lay people's role in Church decisions.
Among some of the key findings praised by the group and academics yesterday:
93 percent are ''cradle Catholics," meaning worshipers raised in the Church.