BOSTON (MA)
National Catholic Reporter
Sep. 18, 2012
By Jerry Filteau
BOSTON — At a two-day conference in Boston, Voice of the Faithful celebrated 10 years of battling sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy and working to change the church structures that permitted and at times facilitated it. But the 450 conference participants spent most of Friday and Saturday exploring how to continue and expand that struggle over the next decade and beyond.
When the organization was founded in 2002 at the peak of the U.S. scandal of clergy sexual abuse of minors, the organization spoke with “a prophetic voice. Never forget, your voice rose up from your faith, from your love for the church,” Fr. Donald Cozzens, writer in residence at John Carroll University in Cleveland, told the gathering Saturday morning.
“When others lost their nerve and their voice, you didn’t lose your nerve or your voice,” he said. “I salute your courage to come together 10 years ago, to speak your truth to power then, throughout the last decade, now, and into the future. Speaking the truth to power is never easy.”
Cozzens, the award-winning author of The Changing Face of the Priesthood and other widely acclaimed books on priesthood in the U.S. today, said that by faith, he meant not only “belief in Jesus Christ and his teaching and his church, but also … trust.
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