• Subscribe to Crisis

    • April 10, 2008

    Institutionalized Dissent Greets the Holy Father

    by Deal W. Hudson


    Pope Benedict XVI will arrive     in the United States next week. It’s predictable that various Catholic groups will use the occasion to gain visibility for their cause. Such is the case with Voice of the Faithful, whose full-page ad in the April 8 New York Times begins with “On behalf of all Catholics who share our desire to help our Church.”
    In many ways, VOTF and the message of its ad together represent the most serious problem Benedict will face in America. Let’s call it “institutionalized dissent”: I don’t mean organized dissent, but dissent woven into the fabric of Catholic institutions, especially Catholic colleges and universities.
    Institutionalized dissent, by its very nature, is slippery, difficult to pinpoint because it never says what it really means. Take the case of VOTF. Since its founding in 2002, VOTF’s program “to help the Church” has always been to change the Church. Using the sex-abuse scandal as a launching pad, VOTF traced all the reasons for the priest scandal to the need for “structural change” in the Church.
    The ad published by VOTF only hints at its real objective: “The laity continue to be excluded from meaningful participation in decision making. . . . The hopeful vision of Vatican II remains largely unfulfilled.” Unpack these two phrases, and you have the purpose of VOTF and its purported justification.
    By “meaningful participation” of the laity, this Boston-based organization would like to dismantle the hierarchy of authority that descends from the Holy Father through the bishops to the clergy and laity. VOTF’s purported concern for victims of sexual abuse has been used as an excuse to seek the “transformation” of the Church through the subjugation of priests and bishops to committees of “enlightened” laity.
    This “hopeful vision of Vatican II” is nowhere to be found in the documents of the Second Vatican Council, which were intended for pastoral purposes rather than doctrinal development. In other words, Vatican II changed Church practice, not its doctrine. One day, dissenting Catholics will stop waving the flag of Vatican II over every challenge they make to Church teaching because the laity will finally get the joke.
    This myth of a post-Vatican II Church is still believed by many lay Catholics because it is a constant drumbeat in most major Catholic institutions. It has become the “sacred deposit” of the institutional dissent that opposes the ban on contraception and abortion, promotes female priests and would “transform” the Catholic Church into a democratic body, ruled from below. As the VOTF ad puts it, “Laity would be fully involved in the decisions that impact the life of our parishes and our dioceses.”
    The claim that VOTF is a “worldwide movement of concerned mainstream Catholics” is hyperbole, unless you consider the combination of Boston, Long Island, and northern New Jersey “worldwide,” and the few hundred VOTF activists and dissidents “mainstream.”
    But in spite of its inability to create a strong national organization, VOTF represents a deep inclination in most established Catholic institutions still controlled by the generation of Catholic leadership shaped by post-Vatican II dissent and its associated mythology.
    It’s sad that VOTF has chosen the occasion of Benedict’s visit to unpack its worn-out catch phrases of barely concealed dissent for public viewing. Catholics in the pews simply don’t share the views of VOTF. They never did and they never will. That the laity has not gone along with the institutionalized dissent that pervades Catholic institutions is a tribute to the legacy of Pope John Paul II’s impact on the Church in the United States.
    John Paul II helped to create new and orthodox Catholic apostolates throughout this nation that served as a platform for his genuine implementation of Vatican II reforms. Benedict arrives in the United States to continue the work of his predecessor. The Holy Father knows very well that when he meets with the presidents of more than 200 Catholic colleges and universities, there will be only a relative handful who have embraced the Apostolic Constitution on Catholic universities, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, issued over 18 years ago by John Paul II.
    Most of the secular media is trained on what Benedict will say about the Iraq War — but in the life of the Church in this country, the real action will come on Thursday, April 17, when the Holy Father meets at the Catholic University of America with the college presidents. What he will say to those who safeguard institutionalized dissent will not change anything overnight, but it will send a forceful message to the laity to demand their institutions reaffirm their true Catholic identity.
     

    Tagged as: Ex Corde Ecclesiae, Holy Father, New York Times, VOTF

    The views expressed by the authors and editorial staff are not necessarily the views of
    Sophia Institute, Holy Spirit College, or the Thomas More College of Liberal Arts.

    Print this   |   Share this

    Deal W. Hudson

    By Deal W. Hudson

    Deal W. Hudson is president of Catholic Advocate, an organization which engages and encourages faithful Catholics to actively participate in the political process to support elected officials and policies that remain consistent with the teachings of the Catholic Church. Formerly publisher and editor of Crisis Magazine for ten years, his articles and comments have been published widely in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, and U.S. News and World Report. He has also appeared on TV and radio news shows such as the O'Reilly Factor, Hannity & Colmes, NBC News, and All Things Considered on National Public Radio. Hudson worked with Karl Rove in coordinating then-Gov. George W. Bush's outreach to Catholic voters in 2000 and 2004. In October 2003, President Bush appointed him a member of the official delegation from the United States to attend the 25th anniversary celebration of John Paul II's papacy. Hudson, a former professor of philosophy for 15 years, is the editor and author of eight books. He tells the story of his conversion from Southern Baptist to Catholic in An American Conversion (Crossroad, 2003), and his latest, Onward, Christian Soldiers: The Growing Political Power of Catholics and Evangelicals in the United States, was published in March 2008. He is married to Theresa Carver Hudson, also a Baptist convert, and they have two children, Hannah, 21, and Cyprian, 13, who was adopted from Romania in 2001.

    More from Crisis

    • Billy Valentine

      VOTF continues to fail and is unable to organize nationally while institutions that embrace their Catholic identity like Franciscan University of Steubenville continue to flourish. While VOTF’s “35,000″ members probably are composed of 90 year old Catholic grandmas giving $1 donations out of their social security checks after receiving a deceiving direct mail piece thinking they were giving to a good cause. At the same time, Franciscan University is growing every year with more and more applicants and every year a new building is built on campus, which is symbolic for its graduates which go on to build the church and a culture of life across the country.

      Institutions that refuse to embrace true Catholic identity will ultimately fail, while institutions that do will continue to flourish.

    • Tom Burris

      “Most of the secular media is trained on what Benedict will say about the Iraq War — but in the life of the Church in this country, the real action will come on Thursday, April 17, when the Holy Father meets at the Catholic University of America with the college presidents. What he will say to those who safeguard institutionalized dissent will not change anything overnight, but it will send a forceful message to the laity to demand their institutions reaffirm their true Catholic identity.”

      And mainstream Catholics will miss that point and most likely will care less if they do get it. However we will eagerly await the reports. I believe we will here much more from the Pope regarding Climate Change, Care for the poor and the war than deal suspects. I am sure Deal will be ready to give us the anylisis quickly and point out where the Pope is sending this message and how it over lays the main message that the Pope will be giving.

    • Ellis

      remember the personal dissent visited upon the Church by many who claim to speak for it, those in the clergy, in religious orders, and among the laity. And it appears both on the “liberal” as well as the “conservative” ends of the spectrum, not just on theological issues, but on moral issues.

    • David

      Deal,

      You ought to mention of how SNAP, Thomas Doyle and others are using a Marxist approach with their agenda. Terms such as “revolution” and “survovors” echo the Liberartion Theology JPII condemned in Latin America.

    • Teri Bohlinger


      Please pray for Benedict’s safety. He is a candle in the darkness.

      Pray that with God’s grace the ears of all lambs who need it most will be opened by our Shepherd’s words.

    • Marjorie Campbell

      VOTF’s ad that “The laity continue to be excluded from meaningful participation in decision making” made me smile a bit. I attended an organizational meeting for VOTF a couple of years at a local parish here in San Francisco. After the organizers passed a collection basket, as “an alternative” to parish giving, I raised my hand to ask a question. I was escorted out (really) and told that the format did not permit questions. The group was not that big … and several of the people seemed to have lost positions with the archdiocese or harbored a very real and emotional complaint against an archdiocesan policy or decision. I felt for the group ~ because they truly seemed frustrated that they were “not heard” ~ genuine feeling, I’m sure, that drives big buck expenditures to, at least, be “seen” in the NYTimes. They seem to be collecting signatures for a petition at their website, http://votf.org/petition/, again pleading to be “heard”. I think you are right Deal, that many of this group think the Church should become more democratic ~ it would be interesting to understand why they think such a change would be theologically sound, and whether they sincerely believe that a Universal Church based on Truth can be administered on a secular model of participatory decision making. Haven’t you tried to talk with VOTF representatives? How did that go?

    • ScholarChanter

      I recently found out that the pastor at my local parish in the NE encourages the group. Alas. I do hope that the holy father kicks some behinds at the UN – but I don’t think he will speak much about Iraq. I do hope that he makes the visit relevant to each of us – I am having trouble getting terribly excited about his visit, because we already know what he is all about. Will his visit make a big difference to other people? Sure! But I am trying to figure out how his visit will impact us. People at busing out to NY to see him, which is certainly important, but I am not sure how his visit affects me personally. Any suggestions?

    • Ken Forton

      I am not sure exactly how you know the “real” agenda of VOTF. Why this level of hysteria? I have not met anyone involved in the organization at any meaningful level who wants to subjugate priests and bishops to their will. I do know that VOTF were trying to revive diocesan pastoral councils and the laity’s role in them. That seems reasonable enough to me. Those councils are consultative in nature and have no juridical power.

      Sometimes I wonder of the “real” agenda of this blog and related publications isn’t just a political and GOP agenda. The articles are often so angry and sarcastic, as well. Not waht I expect from a Catholic or Christian.

    • Guillermo Bustamante


      Congrats Deal, and keep pushing the “dejar con el culo al aire” (Spanish refrain for “exposing their asses”), of the many Protestant contaminated Catholics a la carte in USA.

      Their false belief that Catholicism is some sort of democracy, is deeply imbeded in the USA psyche, so the authority of the Rock-Successor of Peter, Vicar of Christ, tends to be bypassed.

      Please, wouldn’t be great that your Morley Institute and others, pay an advertisement in the NYT & Washington Post, quoting the dressing down of Mother Teresa de Calcuta (in an official banquet) to the pro-abortion murderers Clinton & Gore, the day Benedict XVI arrives?

      Cheers

    • Jay S

      VOTF claims to speak for the laity, but only if those laity want women priests, gay marriage and a host of other liberal changes. Yet the liberal media treat them as if they speak for most lay Catholics.

    • Cyril Ignatius Kendrick

      Ken Forton wrote: I am not sure exactly how you know the “real” agenda of VOTF. Why this level of hysteria? I have not met anyone involved in the organization at any meaningful level who wants to subjugate priests and bishops to their will. I do know that VOTF were trying to revive diocesan pastoral councils and the laity’s role in them. That seems reasonable enough to me. Those councils are consultative in nature and have no juridical power.

      Sometimes I wonder of the “real” agenda of this blog and related publications isn’t just a political and GOP agenda. The articles are often so angry and sarcastic, as well. Not waht I expect from a Catholic or Christian.

      Thank you Deal for giving the issue of institutionalized dissent the attention it so richly deserves. I would recommend that Mr. Forton and anyone questioning the powerful role of institutionalized dissent in the Church simply examine the condition of the majority of Catholic colleges and universities in America today. Consider two related things: 1) overall strength of Catholic identity in campus intellectual and social life, and 2) the scant numbers of institutions who have acquired the Mandatum they are supposed to have under Ex Corde Ecclesia. This is truly the biggest scandal in the Catholic Church, although rarely covered in the media. The crisis of Catholic fidelity in many seminaries in the 1960s and 70s coupled with the loss of Catholic identity in the colleges and universities played a central role in planting the seeds of the priest/clergy sexual scandals that made big national news in 2002. And these and other forms of institutionalized dissent (like that of VOTF) have sapped the strength and vitality of the Catholic Church in many parts of America.

    • Jeff Johnson, Collegeville

      This Pope is awesome.

      What he understands, is that it is the world that must conform to the Church, and the fact of Christ, not the other way around.

      Let the Church shrink before its Truth is compromised by this crap.

    • Martin W. Howser

      Dissent is taught widely within the Church by some in the hierarchy and the laity.

      Many of our teachers and some members of the hierarchy actively dissent from Church doctrine, teaching error instead of truth.

      Dissenting thought on abortion, homosexuality, pornography, divorce is being taught in our Catholic schools K-12 and our universities without the affirmation of the true doctrine as the Church proclaims it. Our children are learning error both through education and unfortunately through example.

      Many bishops and members of the hierarchy through their silence give assent to those spreading dissent in settled serious moral matters.

      We must all remember that God is not just Love, He is also Truth, Justice and Beauty in perfect divine harmony. Dissent from the truth that Christ

    • E. Hess

      I’ll just give you one reason for now.

      I just entered the poll at this site and noted that Moral Relativism in the West was one of the categories. Another possible category that did not make the list would be Moral Relativism within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.

      The fact that the Church leaders, in the face of the sexual scandal, not only ignore the wrong doing of anyone above the rank of simple priest, but actually give rewards to some Bishops found guilty is a horrendous abandonment of moral leadership.

      The laity must, indeed, take some action to fulfill their responsibility as members of our Church, and that responsiblity means more than just putting money into the basket.

    • Mike Drabik, Toledo, Ohio

      Reading this many months after the Holy Father’s visit I can say, as someone who has for almost 4 years advocated for Survivors that it is true. VOTF has used the sexual abuse scandal as a launching pad to remake the Catholic Church in their own image. And SNAP has, for years, basically only allowed dissenters to speak to them – especially at their annual convention.

      However, there is still truth here. I’ve personally witnessed the absolute refusal of my own bishop to give the victims/survivors and ear. Money is thrown at them; counseling is offered as a temporary consolation for these wounded, but the unjust structures that protect sexual predators in th Church remain in place.

      Money, a very fungible commodity, remains virtually untraceable as to its uses and bishops will not allow ANY true transparency as to where it’s all spent. Their grip on the power of the purse, despite the fact that is obvious fact that thousands of dollars are immorally lifted out of collection baskets every Sunday, remains firm, unmoved and even supported by the Catholic laity who would never knowingly put their money in any other kind of institution with as lose a fiscal policy as the several dioceses in the U.S. have.

      So, what is the solution. Democratize the Church? Change our teachings – especially our moral teachings on sexuality?

      Many of the Survivors, true victims of all this, (and many having never really received solid and clear teaching in the faith) hold that their sufferings were primarily caused by these teachings and the disciplines that follow out of them. They feel they were led down the garden path only to be viciously hurt during the journey and then treated as enemies when all they asked for was an apology, truth and protection for children. Therefore, it is understandable that they mistrust anyone who talks about holding the line on the Church’s teaching. To them it’s like ask them to go back into the dark room with the beast that hurt them still in there – in effect – giving the evildoers another shot at them.

      So, VOTF and SNAP have wandered off in their frustrations and with election of Mr. Obama as President, are massing for what they hope they will be a forced change. They might well succeed – only to be a part immersing our country into a darkness it has never seen. It’s always hard task to truly move for reform without turning to persecution.

      I have tried to do just that only to get caught in the cross-fire between the faction that wants justice so much they can taste it and the other whose loyalty to the bishops is virtually blind. I have taken collateral damage from the sniping. I have to confess that I allowed that to turn into a rage in which I, while standing in that no man’s land, took turns taking potshots at both sides – sometimes even hitting a few firing from behind their own virtual cover. Result: I lost all credibility with everybody.

      I am sorry for that, but I’ve now have to find a way allow the Lord heal me in so I can turn to try and bring healing to the people in my own little world – the only place I can have any real effect.

      To really change requires, I think, that all Catholics open their eyes to the evils within while holding faithful to all the Church teaches and holds , and yet some how still, in charity, challenge the bishops and Holy Father to be open and truthful – real shepherds – not CEO’s running corporations.

      A difficult if not almost impossible task. But with God, as Jesus our Lord and God taught us , all things are possible.