Long Island Voice of the Faithful The meeting was opened with prayer and hymn. Pat Zirkel spoke and announced that the format for the evening
would be open mike night. The following is Pat Zirkel’s prepared remarks in their entirety: In August, when I shared a few remarks at the meeting in Riverhead, I compared VOTF to a little cloud on the horizon that eventually brings welcome rain. The reference was to a story in I Kings 18. Somewhere during the past month – perhaps in a homily – I met up with another theme from the Bible that also caused me to think of VOTF. That is, God’s poor; in Hebrew “the anawim.” Let me say right off that although this term – God’s poor – can refer to material poverty, the spiritual lesson in all cases where it’s used in the Bible is not about being materially poor at all. The lesson in all cases has to do with where one puts one’s trust. The anawim – God’s poor – are those who have known affliction and terrible sorrow. The book of Isaiah speaks of those who have seen their children suffer. A passage in Isaiah 51 mentions children who have fainted from fear, who’ve been caught in a net like animals. (Is 51.20) God’s poor are the parents who’ve seen this. They are those who have suffered at the hands of the arrogant. Another image Isaiah uses is, we’ve been forced to drink sorrow like bad wine. The passage goes on to say that God will turn the situation around; he will take the cup of suffering out of the hand of the oppressed and give it to the oppressor. God will take the wine of anguish that the poor have been forced to drink and give it to those who’ve said to God’s faithful: “Bow down, that we may walk on you.” God will turn the suffering from these lowly servants onto those who “have made your back like the ground and like the street for them to walk on.” (Is 51.23) The point of the biblical theme of God’s poor, the anawim, is that these are friends of God who’ve learned the lesson of betrayal. It’s not just that the people endure suffering: they’re not called the poor, but God’s poor. Their suffering has caused them to become centered on God, not on human solutions to problems. They are abandoned to God’s will, not to their own. They look to God for answers and put their confidence in God’s goodness, not in human solutions. We have been betrayed, and we have seen our children suffer. The lesson from Isaiah and other places is now to put our trust in God. We are God’s poor if we know that without God we have nothing. And although we continue to push for reform in our church – for example, toward independence for the National Review Board, the lay board who oversee the auditing of dioceses to ensure that the Bishops are living up to their own Dallas charter – although we continue to work for this type of restructuring, our confidence, our deep trust cannot be put in human beings. The answers to our problems today have to begin with our becoming people of profound prayer. It is prayer that changes hearts and brings our focus onto God’s will. It is prayer that will give us the courage to make hard choices and to move forward in true poverty, relying on God alone. Some of us have begun to gather on Wednesday evenings for quiet centering prayer. May I suggest that each of you try to set aside some time, maybe Wednesday evening, for quiet prayer, alone or with friends? The person who suggested we start this gave as his reason that prayer helped him deal with his anger constructively. Whatever your reason, please pray for our poor, struggling church.
Fr. Bob Hoatson, a survivor of abuse, gave an update on various aspects of the abuse scandal. He reported that a group of 300 survivors attended the SNAP conference. He also reported that there are numbers that suggest that 750 thousand Irish citizens have yet to report their abuse. There are 850 lawsuits under way in California. Meanwhile, he told of legal abuse that the victims are still suffering. A group of six who were abused in the diocese of Rochester were turned away because of statute of limitations and were fined by the courts for filing frivolous lawsuits. The requests have been make for the fines by the diocese of Rochester. He appealed to all present to get involved with legislation. Fr.
Hoatson suggested that the climate is changing – they are
seeing the wisdom to not protecting abusers. St Joseph’s
in Philadelphia is hosting a day on healing.
Dan Bartley reported that the Liaison Committee received a letter
from the diocesan liaison committee which contained conditions
which would need to be met in order for the talks to continue.
They included rescinding the call for resignation and that LIVOTF
disband our financial initiatives. On September 22, 2004, The Long Island Catholic printed an open
letter from the Diocesan team accusing LIVOTF of breaking confidentiality
and accused us of acting like Congregationalists. They also denied
the setting the conditions put forth in their letter. We asked
for an opportunity to respond in The Long Island Catholic. To date,
we have had no response to that request.. Dan opened the mike to the floor. Comments from the membership included: • AFA Dan will be on show that will air November 3 at 9pm
in western Suffolk. • We have a dilemma. People think the problem is over because
they read the LIC. Many people not familiar with vigils at St Agnes
Cathedral. We need to get the message out. First Sunday of the
month meet and give out circulars to people going into the mass
and then hold reverent prayer service. • Please come out and show support at the vigils. Northwest Province is targeting people with info about VOTF. So many people have no idea about us. We need to hand out informational literature. This Sunday at Notre Dame on New Hyde Park Road at 9 and 10am mass handing out info lit about VOTF. • St Hugh of Lincoln on October 18 Msgr. Tom Hartman will be the speaker. Want to invite each of you to attend. St Hugh we are involved in restricted funds. We tell people to write on their check for St. Hugh parish only • Reenergize our dollars make a difference. We need to explain the program again to people. • Pat Paone is home ill pray for her. We are a corporation and each of your parishes is a corporation, bishop is CEO. In St Mary’s Bishop Murphy is the CEO. To write a check to your parish is to write a check to the bishop. • I am a member of VOTF but am frustrated because I feel we are losing the battle. Rhetoric is counterproductive. The window of opportunity to get rid of him is closing. I have heard of people saying we need to move on – they think we are picking on him. Laura Ahearn gave presentation giving compelling evidence. Main message is stop giving the money • Our dollars do make a difference. We want to encourage each person to meet with your pastor and ask him to put your money in a separate account. He needs to look you in the eye and say he will or won’t. We want to believe they will be honest. If you want your dollars to make a difference, go and meet with your pastor. • 8% of everything in that basket goes to the bishop. Pastor can take 16% from your neighbor’s dollar. I say give nothing. • Concentrate on Legislative efforts. Two bills before senate and assembly. I am suggesting that anyone who belongs to any other organization approach their board and ask them to consider supporting the legislation. • Look at broader spectrum of all bishops who were complicit and use that mechanism to see who they are. If each of us wrote letters to 40 bishops and asked for a project like Project Millstone, as a matter of ethics, a lot could be accomplished. • Fear has been bred into us. We are afraid to not contribute to the church. Perhaps fear of not being able to be buried in Catholic Cemeteries. Why don’t we try three months of not giving any money at all? • Reason we came tonight was to vote. When we were filling out the form we were impressed with the quality of the people in this group. The people who are on the board, I think they have done a great job and that we have really moved along. We haven’t reached our goals but we have shown so many that we are the Church and a Catholic people. • I have been to many vigils and to several Stations of the Cross. They speak to our issue. One of the women who attend has triplets, a toddler and is expecting another. • Keep registration forms and other info in the car about VOTF. • Finance committee speaks about Dollars Make a Difference, seven of my fellow parishioners went to the pastor and got four different reasons why their money could not be kept in the parish. This is a community thing. Do it in groups. • I am on the membership committee. I listened to some of the people here tonight. I always wear my buttons. Get your bumper stickers on. We need membership and money. If each of us brought a member a year in five years we will have 30k members. Please talk up the membership. • Consider that each survivor who gets up here is a speaker. Be careful of who you invite to speak before you. Another group had a “superstar speaker” who admitted knowing about childhood abuse in his neighborhood and his credibility went out the window.
• Can we believe that he will stop child abuse in the future? No he will do what he did in Boston. • What benefit will come of dealing with BWM? This gets spun. • We support office of bishop but not him. At what point do we become complicit. • Part of our goals is to support priests of integrity. How can we support priests in some of our parishes that have not admitted that some of this has happened? The poll was confusing • I know too many priests that I don’t trust. Any letter to the bishop about this is answered that he is sorry you feel this way. The meeting was ended due to the late hour and the need to vacate the meeting space. The meeting was closed with prayer
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