Tom Doyle's Letter and VOTF's response

VOTF, like any organization , has internal conflicts about direction and policy. Progress is difficult when dealing with the giant that the hierarchy is and the natural tendency of people to remain passive. Tom Doyle and others want VOTF to be more radical while others feel that VOTF is too agressive. How much is our opposition to VOTF an act of our subservience to the hierarchy? So it is always a matter of insight and information.

We should not get discouraged with the internal conflicts within VOTF. This is unrealistic, in my opinion. In any human institution there is the same human nature working. Yet VOTF is the most viable, accross the board, reform group of our times and we should work with it rather than to roam into off the cuff criticisms.

No one has worked harder than Tom Doyle in stopping and preventing abuse of children by the clergy. As he frequently points out, if the bishops listened to him from the beginning much abuse would have been prevented and the hierarchy would have saved a lot of money and reputation. At the same time, the counter attack by the bishops and others in the church has taken its toll on Tom. I understand his disillusionment but he should stay within the church and work for reform. Perhaps his wounds are too great for that to happen.

In the midst of all this we must not forget that VOTF educated so many of us into becoming adults rather than Father knows best Catholics. VOTF will have its growing pains but it is our most visible collective voice in letting unruly clerics know that the gospel comes first over privilege and aristocracy.