In a soon to be released document  the Holy Father explains that the responsibilities and the authority of the pastor come

"not from the community, but-- through the bishop with whom he works-- from Christ."  

   tnoonan@towntv.org

Subject:   "Priest of Integrity"

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One of the goals of VOTF is to:

"Support priests of integrity".

The first "Priest of Integrity Award"

went to Fr. Thomas Doyle, who then proceeded to nourish the faithful with an address filled with the revisionism

and the damage control needed by a generation of defiant dissent against the Catholic Faith.

The Rev. Doyle praised the NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER that has for decades made fun not only of the Holy Father, but of everything

generations of Catholics have held dear, and that, moreover, has been

mainstreaming the sexual revolution in rectories, seminaries and

churches throughout the country.

He then went on to praise the BOSTON GLOBE, one of the nation's most

powerful promoters of legalized abortion, contributing to the cruel

slaughter of millions of innocent babies, and a paper which,

ironically, has done everything in its power to prevent the BOY SCOUTS

OF AMERICA from protecting themselves from just that type of

exploitation that VOTF claims it is trying to stop. He also praised Mr.

Garabedian, whose anti-Catholic rhetoric spewed out venomously and

continuously in the public media amounted to a hate crime against the

area's numerous and devout Catholics, i.e.: "I don't know how anybody

can belong to this Church".

We are then treated to an astounding manifesto of heretical ideas

including calumnious and baseless attacks on the history of the Catholic

Church:

"For decades and even centuries", charges Fr. Doyle, "the rape and pillage of children, adolescents, and young adults in our midst at the hands of the clergy has been allowed to not only happen but to flourish.

The physical and emotional plunder has been intensified by the spiritual

devastation brought on by the aggressive refusal to face the truth. . . .

The despicable saga of clergy and religious sexual abuse is not the

essence of the problem. It is a symptom of a deeper, much more pervasive

and destructive disease that is nearly fatal in nature: the fallacy of

clericalism.

The primary symptom of this virus is the delusion that the clergy are somehow above the laity, deserving of unquestioned privilege and

stature, the keepers of our salvation and the guarantors of our favor

with the Lord. The deadliest symptom, however, is the unbridled

addiction to power. . . .Yet out of this nightmare there has emerged a beacon of hope. It is the realization that we must have a deep, probing and painful scrutiny of the governmental system that has caused this to happen, joined by a firm commitment to bring about a real change. . .

What we see happening around us are the initial death throes of the

medieval monarchical model of the church. This was and is an

institutional Church that was based on the belief that a small, select

minority of the educated, the privileged, and the powerful was called by

Almighty God to manage the temporal and spiritual lives of the faceless

masses, on the presumption that their unlettered and squalid state meant

that they were ignorant and incapable of discerning their spiritual

destiny. This is 2002 and not 1302, and that model is based on a myth

that is long dead, if in fact it was ever remotely grounded in a sliver

of reality.

We are often told that this model is based on God's will, grounded in an interpretation of Christ's action in giving the "Keys to the Kingdom" to St. Peter. . . .

For centuries, the only form of government most people knew was

monarchy. Even today there are countries throughout the world that are

either monarchies or dictatorships. But the Church is not any ordinary

society. Although its temporal leadership could perhaps conceive of no

other form than monarchy it is entirely possible that God's vision was

more expansive. If we listen to the words of Christ and especially learn

from his actions, we see looming up that word that strikes fear and

trembling in churchmen .... democracy! Why? Because it surely is evident

that this was the reality that Christ lived by in his ministry. Why the

fear and trepidation? Because to accept democracy means to shed the deep seated misconception that to serve means to control. . . .

Is clericalism and its co-dependent spouse, a monarchical hierarchy,

part of the Divine Plan? Hardly! We need only look to the unequivocal

words and actions of Christ. We need to try Christ's radical

egalitarianism. . . .

We can no longer depend on a magical notion of the sacraments and the priests and bishops who administer them. By sustaining the erroneous magical thinking about the sacraments we also sustain the false notion of the power that clerics hold over the believers. . . .

We must stop enabling, through our continued financial support, the very power structures and office holders who have been largely responsible

for the horrific consequences of the cover-up of widespread sexual

abuse. . . .

We must challenge ourselves and everyone who is part of the church to abandon the notion that the Church is a kingdom made up of a series of

fiefdoms called dioceses. There is no longer any justification for

timidity and deference to the very structures and leaders who have

betrayed us. Our Church has been hijacked and we want it back!"

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