MICHIGAN
Midland Daily News
Sunday, March 16, 2014
By Nancy Janoch, Nancy Rivet, Susan Dusseau and Harry Grether
This year, the local Catholic organization, Mid-Michigan Voice of the Faithful will be 10 years old.
Formed in the Tri-City area in 2004, this group is an affiliate of the organization that began in 2002 in Massachusetts as a response to the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. Since then, it has grown to more than 30,000 members in the United States and in 21 countries. If many have never even heard of this group in the past years, some may ask how this is relevant to Catholics here in the Tri-City area?
When the first people joined together for VOTF, they were shocked, hurt and upset. They saw the great injustice of the sexual abuse by clergy and the following cover-up, and they demanded that changes begin in our church. VOTF became committed to a mission to provide a prayerful, Spirit-filled way for all Catholics to actively participate in the guidance and governance of the present-day Church. This follows Canon Law, which states that the laity “have the right and even at times the duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church and to make their opinion known to the rest of the Christian faithful, without prejudice to the integrity of faith and morals, with reverence toward their pastors, and attentive to common advantage and the dignity of persons.” (Canon 212 §3)
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