NCR Lauds Voice of the Faithful

From the Editorial of the National Catholic Reporter of November 7th, 2003

*** This space of late has held readers’ ruminations about hope, and there are still some waiting in the wings, but this week I’d like to add a few notes of my own. More than 1,500 attended the Voice of the Faithful gathering (a full report will appear in next issue). From the stirring welcome by Jesuit Fr. Joseph McShane, who was installed as the new president of Fordham the day before the conference, to the closing liturgy, I most profoundly sensed it as a day with the people of God, not in some manner of celestial glow, but in the deeper, down-to-earth pursuits of holiness and wholeness in an aching church. (My role in the conference was to deliver a talk, the full text of which can be found at NCRonline.org.)

Voice of the Faithful has clearly evolved out of the sex abuse crisis -- and it remains, as it should, attentive to the still-unraveling story of victims and the church’s role in the scandal.

But its larger purpose, its more significant calling, is to bring to bear on the church the force of its collective experience, wisdom and love for the church. And that last phrase is not an idle one, I think. Why else spend a beautiful Saturday sitting on metal folding chairs on a college gym floor? Calling the whole church to account is the work of responsible laity in this era of scandal. Voice of the Faithful is one of the signs of hope in today’s church.

-- Tom Roberts