Voice of the Faithful V Church, by Tom Hoopes, National Catholic Register, March 9, 2009

Voice of the Faithful V. Church

By Tom Hoopes
National Catholic Register
March 9, 2009

http://www.ncregister.com/daily/voice_of_the_faithful_v._church/ ?utm_source=NCRegister.com&utm_campaign=8d31b2ee2e-RSS_DAILY_EMAIL&utm_medium=email

Connecticut Catholics, be prepared in Hartford Wednesday:

1. Catholic "experts" will back the anti-Church bill.

2. The defense of the bill will sound reassuring and reasonable.

3. A big crowd will be there early on — but the Church needs Catholics to come later on, too.

4. We can win this, if we fight.

Let me explain:

1. One objective of the new Connecticut anti-Church structure bill, I'm told, is for the Voice of the Faithful to get its message out about democratizing the Church.

Today's Connecticut Post lists "Some details of the proposed 'Act Modifying Corporate Laws Relating to Certain Religious Corporations':

Photo by Lisa Kessler

"A corporation may be organized in connection with any Roman Catholic church or congregation in the state by filing in the office of the Secretary of the State.

"The corporation would have a board of directors consisting of not less than seven nor more than 13 laymembers. The archbishop or bishop of the diocese would serve as an ex-offico board member, but could not vote on issues.

"The board members would be elected from among the laymembers of the congregation."

Senate Bill 1098 was quickly labeled as payback to the bishops for the defense of marriage. But it may be worse than that: It may be part of a Voice of the Faithful strategy to "democratize" the Church. This is Voice of the Faithful's plan that would gut the Church's structure.

At annual meetings in Connecticut (at Fairfield University, for one place), Voice of the Faithful has been much more open about what it wants than it had been hitherto. Leaders in the movement dissent from bottom-line Catholic issues from women's ordination to the sinfulness of homosexual acts to abortion. They also want to change Church structure (as a first step to changing Church doctrine, maybe?).

I've been told to expect professors from Fairfield University and Fordham to testify at the March 11 Hartford hearing—FOR the bill. They will make a historical "Catholic" case for a new parish structure that bypasses bishops. (Think Pelosi's tangled logic on "when life begins" applied to the question "what is a parish?")

Parish finance scandals will be used as a club to goad the Church to throw the baby — its very structure — out with the bathwater — the abuses of that structure.

This story helps set the stage. Notice the Voice of the Faithful members quoted in it who aren't identified as such.

2. Co-chairmen Mike Lawlor (East Hartford) and Andrew McDonald (Stamford) are very capable trial lawyers.

They seem to have written this bill so that it is not mandatory. It does not require any Catholic parish to organize itself according to the statute it cites. (The statue it amends, by the way, is part of a number of statutes helping churches organize themselves. The Connecticut Catholic Church welcomed the statute in the 1940s and 1950s; but it leaves the door open for this.)

The two chairs will cite "faithful Catholic parishioners" (in fact, the Voice of the Faithful people) and say: "This bill comes from your own Catholic faithful. Your own people are begging us to do something. We're only offering an option. What's wrong with that?"

They will sound like they're right.

If anyone testifies and accuses these two chairman of promoting this bill as payback for same-sex "marriage," they will go on the attack. How dare you insinuate about their motives! They will demand to know where you got your information.

Be careful! Remember: Make arguments polite and professional. Base them on the rights of the Church, not on personal judgments.

3. This hearing will last late into the night.

I'm told that if people show up and sign up for this hearing at noon or 1 pm, it's possible they won't get to testify until 6 pm, 9 pm, or even 11 o'clock at night (if they stick around). You won't know until you see how many people are on the list above you. (Sign-up starts at 10 am).

If there are hundreds ahead of you: Go into town. Get something to eat. Check out what Hartford has to offer. Then come back to testify.

It's important for people to recognize that if they sign up and there are hundreds of names before them, they don't need to wait around getting irritated and burnt out and eager to leave — but they do need to come back.

The pro-Church side doesn't want a huge crowd of people to disappears two hours later, leaving few. (They especially don't want people to hear the reasonable sounding opening statement [Its theme will be: "There has been a lot of misunderstanding about this bill ..."] and then seem to leave en masse, convinced.)

Come early. Come often. And if you can't be there at noon: Come after work. Let's stagger our visits to keep the pressure up.

4. The Church can—and likely will—win.

This can all sound discouraging. There's no reason to be discouraged. Quite the contrary.

The prediction I heard: The bishops will come out of this stronger than they started. There will be a huge show of support for them. The fight against them may be nasty, but the Church will prevail on the merits.

Be heartened. If we were going to have a fight about something, this is a good one: We're on strong ground constitutionally and faithfully.

But remember: The good won't happen if we don't show up.