Catholic Reform Group Finds Promise in Pope Francis

By Christopher Hoffman
Hartford Courant
April 10, 2014

http://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-votf-francis-archdiocese-20140410,0,4007041.story

If he had been asked two years ago what the Roman Catholic Church needed, Voice of The Faithful President Mark Mullaney would have replied, a pope in the mold of reformer John XXIII.

"John opened the windows, opened the doors, opened discussions," he said of the pontiff who reigned from 1958 to 1963. "There's a great need for that type of person."

Mullaney and many others attending the group's biannual assembly April 6 at the Hartford Convention Center clearly believed he had gotten his wish. Pope Francis' explosion onto the world stage, his impact on Catholics and how he might reform the church dominated discussion among the more than 200 people from around the nation.

"What he is saying resonates with what we have been saying since our inception," said Jayne O'Donnell of West Hartford, the group's development coordinator. "Our hope is to meet Francis in the middle. We don't expect to get everything that we want. Let's work together in the sense of our community."

Voice of the Faithful was founded in the Boston area in 2002 in response to the pedophile priest scandal engulfing the church at the time. The group, which says it has more 30,000 members worldwide, seeks to support victims of clergy sexual abuse and priests of integrity, reform church structure, and increase transparency and lay supervision of church finances.

While not challenging Catholic teachings, the group has been shunned by many in the Catholic hierarchy.

"We don't want to change dogma," O'Connell said. "We just want our voices to be heard, a place at the table."

Like Mullaney, O'Connell compared Pope Francis, installed 13 months ago, with John XXIII. John, who will be canonized later this month, convened Vatican Council II, which instituted sweeping changes that created the modern Catholic Church.

O'Connell said the new pope has shown far greater willingness to confront and crack down on priest sexual abuse. She cited Francis' recent decision to send a seasoned Vatican investigator to look into allegations against a Scottish cardinal.

The pope has also moved to clean up the church's finances and hold leaders accountable for financial misdeeds, another major focus of Voice of the Faithful, O'Connell said. Francis, for example, moved against the so-called "Bling Bishop," a German prelate who spent $43 million of church funds building a luxury residence, she said.

"He's made it clear that he's not going to allow financial [misdeeds]," O'Connell said.

And then, there's the issue of tone and style. In contrast to his two immediate predecessors, Francis is far more open to other voices and views among the world's more than 1 billion Roman Catholics, attendees said.

"He's willing to listen and not just issue decrees," said Ed Wilson of Brooklyn, N.Y.

The assembly's featured speaker, journalist John L. Allen Jr., who has covered the last three popes for CNN, the independent National Catholic Reporter, and other news outlets, assured his listeners the change they see is real. He called the first year of Francis' papacy a "tsunami in Catholic life."

Francis' impact on Catholics and non-Catholics has been enormous, leading many who had given up on the faith to give it another look, Allen said. He noted that the pope, whom Allen said has replaced Nelson Mandela as the world's conscience, has 12 million Twitter followers and a 90 percent approval rating among American Catholics.

"It would be difficult to get 90 percent of American Catholics to agree that [today] is Saturday," Allen said.

Francis is truly the humble man the world has seen, eschewing papal apartments, fancy cars and elaborate vestments, Allen said. But he is also a shrewd leader fully aware of the impact of his every action and always seeking to balance the church's many factions, he said.

"Beneath that humble, simple exterior lives the mind of an incredibly savvy and crafty Jesuit politician," Allen said.

Where Francis will take the church is "the $64,000 question," Allen said. He predicted that the new pope would continue to reform the church's finances and keep his focus more on social justice instead of moral and sexual issues. But the pontiff remains deeply conservative on social issues and will not change church doctrine on issues like abortion, Allen said.

Allen added that while Francis has moved more forcefully on sexual abuse issues, he doubts the pope fully understands the problem. The pope has never met with a victim, and his native Argentina was spared a scandal on the scale of the United States or Ireland, he said.

Mullaney and his fellow Voice of the Faithful members said they would continue their efforts to support the victims of clergy sexual abuse and seek greater transparency and a bigger role for the laity in church finances at both the diocesan and parish levels. The issue was the subject of a number of workshops at the assembly.

"When you put your money into the basket, you want to know where it's going," he said.

A dozen years after its founding, Voice of the Faithful is no longer a pariah among at least some Catholic leaders. Bishop Frank Caggiano, the new leader of the Bridgeport Diocese, recently met with the group, O'Donnell said.

But Hartford Archbishop Leonard P. Blair, who was installed in December, has yet to respond to a letter from the group late last year seeking a meeting, O'Donnell said. The archdiocese has not given a public accounting of its finances since 1985, she noted.

Asked whether Blair would meet with Voice of the Faithful, Archdiocese of Hartford Director of Communications Maria Zone said in a written statement that he is open to input from all who accept Catholic doctrine, "including the church's structure."

"To the extent that the input of groups like Voice of the Faithful reflects these beliefs, it is certainly welcome, and Archbishop Blair would be open to receiving it," the statement said.

O'Donnell said that the group would keep seeking a dialogue with Blair.

"We'll continue to reach out to him," she said.