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	An Interview with Voice of the Faithful, Bill Casey By Jaime Romo Healing and Spirituality March 18, 2010 http://www.jaimeromo.com/blog/archives/168 Mr. William Casey currently serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees for Voice of the Faithful. More information about VOTF is available at www.votf.org JR: VOTF was a powerful force in bringing the Boston clergy abuse story to Catholics in the pews and beyond. I imagine you’ve been deeply impacted and transformed by your involvement with survivors and clergy abuse over the past decade. What has this done to your sense of spiritual life? BC: As I began to take in the magnitude of clergy sexual abuse and hierarchical cover-up that the Boston news media started to reveal in 2002, the spiritual question for me was, “What responsibility do I personally have (being neither a survivor or even knowing anyone who was) given that I believe that all Catholics “are the Church” and the Church had deeply harmed some of its members? I wondered what I would do if I was part of an extended family where the members discovered that a patriarch had abused one or more children and that some other senior family members remained silent about it. Would I ignore the problem if it didn’t affect one of my immediate family members? Would I expect those directly affected to take responsibility for it instead of me? Would I go on with extended family gatherings as if it didn’t happen? I concluded that I would have to do or say something specific, most of all regarding the family members who were abused—acknowledgement, support, but something. Also, I knew I would have to address what happened with those who abused and those who remained silent. When I looked at the unfolding abuse scandal in 2002, I believed that those who needed the most attention were the victims, those who tried to come forward and, in my judgment, were treated by the hierarchy in a way similar to the Levites and Priests who stepped away from the person left helpless on the side of the road. I viewed the calling of the Church to follow the example of the Good Samaritan not that of the priests and Levites described in Luke’s Gospel. Voice of the Faithful was the only organization that I could find that shared similar values at that time. My outreach to victims and survivors in my local community led me on a powerful spiritual journey to learn from and try to support survivors as I found them along the path. JR: “If they had just operated from the principle that I was telling the truth.” That’s what I hear from survivors, whether the ‘they’ are churchgoers, church leaders, or family members. What has been your experience? If there is a universal need that I have heard from survivors is that each one wants his or her truth to be acknowledged, to be believed, to be trusted. In the volunteer work I do as a Restorative Justice facilitator, victims of crimes or offenses oftentimes want their experience to be acknowledged even more than they want apologies or restitution. Not to be believed seems to be a threshold impediment to any kind of true justice, recovery or reconciliation. I suspect that one reason that many survivors resort to litigation is because it is too often the only forum in which they have a chance to validate the truth of their abuse. JR: I have heard some churchgoers evoke the image of the ‘Prodigal Son,’ with the idea that someday survivors might come back to the church. I believe it takes time and contact with survivors for potential supporters to understand that mostly it’s the church that left the survivors, not the other way around. So, in my version of the prodigal son, the prodigal is the Church and the Father represents the survivors. What do you think about this analogy? BC: Yes, I believe that those who see survivors in the commonly understood role of the “prodigal son or daughter” miss the whole point of that iconic parable. Nothing in the abuse experience makes a victim “prodigal”. On the contrary, the abusers, enablers and those who shun survivors’ pursuit of justice and recovery fit the “prodigal” imagery. So far, there is little evidence that they have recognized the dissolution of the inheritance they have received from the “Father”. To expect that survivors should one day come back to the Church that enabled their cruel abuse is, in my opinion, a naive or misguided reading of the parable. Why not go out to meet survivors wherever they are and accompany them on their journey, whether that leads back to space in the pews or not. JR: What have you learned about the institutional church and its response to clergy abuse as a result of your involvement with VOTF? BC: After seven or so years of working out of the VOTF agenda, there are lots of lessons learned, many of them in stark contrast to the expectations that most VOTF folks had when the organization literally rose out of the collective gasp and shame that the media stories set forth. If I were to pick one learning at this moment, it is my belief that the sexual abuses, enabling and cover-up flow quite predictably from an institutional culture that sets clergy apart, above and exempt from the normative expectations of most other people in our society. That culture of “clericalism” can only thrive when people in the pews and clergy themselves accept these norms. Until a critical mass of these members of our Church balk at accepting it, there is no incentive for institutional leaders to change. JR: What is the current focus of VOTF today? How is VOTF helping others believe that survivors are telling the truth? BC: Although many lay Catholics who joined or supported VOTF expected it to be an immediate change agent for healing and reform in our Church, VOTF recognizes that it cannot effect that outcome without a fundamental shift in the mindsets of people in the pews, and among the clergy, regarding the institutional influence of a “clericalism culture”. Rather than alter its original mission to seek active participation by the faithful in the governance and guidance of the Catholic Church, VOTF leaders remain committed to be a “voice of conscience” in the public square for the needs of survivors and children, for the needs of clergy who seek to make right what the sexual abuse scandal revealed, and for the needs of Catholics in the pews (or those who have left them) to reform the governance structure in a way that precludes not only sexual abuses but also the underlying patterns that enable and foster them. VOTF issued a new Strategic Plan in late 2009 and currently has underway a campaign called Voices In Action that sets forth a variety of initiatives to pursue its mission and goals. Three of those initiatives relate to support for survivors and the protection of children. One is the development of an advocacy guide for VOTF members and others that are attempting to reform Statute of Limitation laws in state legislatures. A second is an online forum for survivors and supporters to share stories and resources on the road to acknowledgment and recovery. A third is a pair of campaigns to raise awareness about the risk of child sexual abuse and to prevent abuses in faith communities. More information is available at the VOTF website (www.votf.org). JR: Do you think that churchgoers still have some work to do related to their own sense of betrayal and perhaps perpetuation of past abuse and/or current church leader behaviors? If so, how does that impact supporting survivors? BC: Yes, as with any significant trauma within a family or organization, healing and recovery only comes when those affected face the full truth and effects of the trauma, and determine ways to repair the harm and restore relationships. The clergy sexual abuse scandal refuses to die (no matter how often someone declares it over) because institutional leaders continue to repeat harmful behaviors and because those harmed courageously strive for justice and recovery. Yet, many Catholics continue to view this scandal as someone else’s problem. Those who do help neither the survivors, themselves and the members in the pews. JR: I recently heard a presentation recently by David Kennedy: Center for Crime Prevention and Control, John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He gave a model for ending gang violence that boiled down to holding the leaders of a gang accountable for any violence by gang members. When community members took the lead to say to leaders, “It has to stop. End of story. It hurts. You’re better than this. We don’t want to live like this anymore,” with the promise of consequences, the violence ended. He saw a parallel with clergy abuse. How does this strategy resonate with VOTF? BC: The tipping point for real change is when enough Catholics in the pews and among the ranks of the clergy say to each other, “No true change will take place unless we take direct responsibility for the change we want”. That doesn’t mean taking over the institutional leadership but insisting on a collegial shared responsibility among all the people of God. Institutional leaders are too rooted in the clericalism culture to offer that healing step. JR: Some point to Europe as sign of the end of religious identification. Is there a next generation of VOTF membership? I don’t think anyone can reliably predict what is going to happen with future generations. What society recognizes at some conscious or subconscious level is that we are in a period of enormous (perhaps unprecedented) change, not only within specific cultures but globally. VOTF clearly took root among Catholics who were among the more senior, educated and Vatican II-influenced segments of the Church. As with baby boomers at large, this cohort of people is approaching or is in the waning years of active influence in our society. I think it is more important for us to remain faithful witnesses to our beliefs about what the Gospels call us to do in light of the clergy sexual abuse scandal than it is to expect to achieve the hoped for changes in our lifetime. The next generation will find its own way just as we did. JR: Thank you for your commitment to promoting healing, exposing and ending abuse, and supporting survivors.
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