You know, I’ve hosted many discussions of Voice of the Faithful here, although I have no strong opinions about it myself, mostly because I’ve never really understood what it’s supposed to be or do. As a person with over twenty years of experience in institutional church ministry, I have a robust skepticism about groups like this. Not necessarily about their beliefs, but about their function and purpose. God forgive us for all of the hours we churchy types have spent in meeting rooms with color-coded papers spread out over laminate tables under buzzing fluorescent lights contemplating mission statements rather than actually going out and living the Gospel in a world in need.

Because, you know, that’s hard.

All of that is by way of preface, to clarify that I’ve never been about heresy-hunting in VOTF, and that’s not the reason I post this story. I understand the crevice in which VOTF took root and grew – this extreme and thoroughly justified frustration that the laity feels about its lack of power in regard to Church decisions (aka Blessed Sacrament in Dallas), and the desire to do something, to change something, to figure out how the laity can be a part of the search for greater accountability – not “their” accountability to “us”, but all of our accountability to God. We need to keep each other accountable by constantly calling ourselves and each other to listen more intently to Christ with the commitment to do his will, lay, ordained and consecrated. Granted. And I have no more answers than anyone else, so I guess I should give kudos to VOTF for trying to figure it out.

But still, I’ve never really gotten VOTF. I can’t make myself care much about it, and I think media attention to its views is strange.

Anyway, here’s the story, about Archbishop Donoghue of Atlanta forbidding VOTF from meeting on Archdiocesan property. What’s striking to me about the story is the definition of VOTF:

The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta will not allow a support group for victims of the church’s sex abuse scandal to meet on church grounds.
Archbishop John Donoghue told the Voice of the Faithful’s Atlanta chapter they also can’t advertise in the archdiocese’s newspaper because he doesn’t believe the group’s goals match church teachings

I don’t recall that “support group for victims” has been the primary way that VOTF has been defined up to this point. Perhaps I’m wrong, but it sets me wondering. Is this careless reporting or a new, improved definition that the group has come up with?

And, as a commentor has pointed out, being a group in support of victims is different than being a support group *for* victims. SNAP is a support group *for* victims. VOTF, to my knowledge, is not set up to be that. Just wondering if this new defintion is the reporter’s doing or not.