BishopAccountability.org
	Progress in Pews, but Little in Church Hierarchy By Bella English Boston Globe April 18, 2010 http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2010/04/18/progress_in_pews_but_little_in_church_hierarchy/ Anne Southwood grew up in the Catholic Church and raised three children in it. When the priest sex abuse scandal erupted in the Archdiocese of Boston in 2002, the music director at her church, Holy Family in Duxbury, announced a listening session on the charged topic, to be held downstairs. "Two of us were gone [downstairs] before she even finished the sentence," says Southwood, who now lives in Marshfield. Why? "Well, good heavens, I don't adjust well to evil." At the session, Southwood learned of the newly-formed Voice of the Faithful, now a national movement that started in Wellesley in response to the sexual abuse crisis. When Southwood tried to get a VOTF meeting in her own church, she was denied by the parish priest. So she and others went across the street and met in the senior citizens center. Southwood was on the ground floor of the reform movement and today is chairwoman of the South Shore council of the Voice of the Faithful. Though the furor over the scandal here died down years ago, Southwood's and other members' phones are ringing again with the burgeoning scandal in Europe, which has even reached the Vatican. "We're getting a lot more support, online and e-mailed donations," she says. April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month, and the Voice of the Faithful is urging Catholics to talk about the subject to eliminate the stigma — "the silence of shame and denial that permits it to continue." This week, VOTF created "accountability certificates" that Catholics can put in their donation envelopes to a diocesan fund or bishop appeal. "By accepting and depositing the enclosed donation, the leader of this diocese" must agree to three conditions, according to the certificate: report allegations of clergy sex abuse immediately to police; guarantee that all diocesan and parish employees undergo "safe environment" training developed by the US Council of Catholic Bishops in 2004; and agree to request the resignation of any archbishop, bishop, or other religious leader ("including himself") who knowingly transferred a pedophile priest. The certificates have a space for the spiritual leader's signature, along with the donor's name. The Voice of the Faithful is asking people to print the certificates and share them with friends in an effort to "stop the hiding and start the healing." The most recent allegations involve as many as 200 deaf boys in a Wisconsin school 40 years ago. The Rev. Lawrence Murphy, who admitted to the abuse, was never disciplined or tried criminally; indeed, he was transferred to a different diocese where he served another quarter-century, until his death in 1998. In 1996, complaints about Murphy were forwarded to an office then led by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger — now Pope Benedict XVI — who failed to respond.
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