“ There you go again! ”

-Ronald Reagan

Oh those Voice of the Faithful members, they try so hard to sound “middle of the road”. Check out this quote from a speaker (Dr. Paul Lakeland) at a VOTF meeting on Long Island:

“Finally, there are three practical steps we need to work for. The first is for a free and responsible Catholic press. Of course there are the independent national Catholic journals like the National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal and America. And there are a few small journals on the right, like Crisis and The National Catholic Register.”

Got that? National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal and America are “national” and “independent” (not liberal) but Crisis and National Catholic Register are “a few small journals on the right”. It might interest this person to know that Crisis now has a greater circulation than America or Commonweal. The Register is growing quickly and will surpass the Reporter some day. Of course, the speaker ignores Catholic World Report, First Things, Envoy, but those are just small journals on the right.

“We need to work for a wider availability of publications like Commonweal and the NCR and America and, yes, like Crisis and The National Catholic Register, at the parish level, where they can stimulate lay thought about important issues in the church.”

Notice this, we need to push dissident rags but also, yes, those pesky right wing journals as an afterthought-just so people don’t think we are a bunch of dissidents.

This same speaker then goes on to talk about how he would abolish the College of Cardinals! According to the VOTF-LI website, an open mike then followed and many of the comments seem to question Dr. Lakeland’s beliefs and VOTF’s agenda. There are two separate references to “Katherine of Sienna”. One person questioned the groups’ choice of Richard McBrien as a speaker since he is a dissenter. I would have loved to have attended and questioned the choice of McBrien on the grounds that he was also chosen to speak by Bishop McGann years ago. McGann was the Bishop for over 20 years during which he personally transferred pedophile priests while forcing “conservative” pastors to resign. Why follow McGann’s example when you claim to be a group that is against his type of leadership? I asked this very question in an email to the co-leaders of VOTF-LI but they never answered. So much for “dialogue”.