Officers List

Officers:
Dee Dee Smith, President
:
Charles McDonough, Treasurer

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	VOICE OF THE FAITHFUL NATIONAL
	BISHOPS ACCOUNTABILITY
	VOICE OF THE FAITHFUL SO. CALIFORNIA REGION
	VOICE OF THE FAITHFUL SANTA BARBARA
	SURVIVORS FIRST
	SACRED SPACE

Our Mission Statement

To provide a prayerful voice, attentive to the Spirit, through which the Faithful can actively participate in the governance and guidance of the Catholic Church.

Our Goals

1.To support those who have been abused

2. To support priests of integrity

3. To shape structural change within Church






Prayer for the Healing of Survivors of Child Abuse



Lord God, giver of life and love, beauty and goodness, I thank you for your countless blessings. In this moment, I thank you for the wondrous gift of children. They are the fruit of our love and the hope of our world. They are most precious and worthy of our love, care and protection. They are also very vulnerable. Sadly, many are abused and violated by violent or predatory adults. They easily become victims of physical, psychologial and devastating sexual abuse, which wounds them for life.

I humbly but lovingly lift up all those victimized to you. Bring them healing and comfort through caring, understanding and loving people. Give them strength and determination to recover and to lead productive and happy lives. Bring all perpetrators of abuse and their protectors to conviction for the terrible consequences of their actions and inspire in them the need to make amends for the evil and hurt they have done.

Raise up in society at large an unwavering and practical commitment to care and protect all children and meet their needs for love, compassion, guidance, protection and education.

Amen.

Who We Are

Voice of the Faithful, Inc. is an organization composed of Catholics striving to be faithful to the teachings of Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Joining VOTF is a commitment to strengthen and renew the Church.

• We are faithful Catholics in communion with the universal Catholic Church.

• We love and support our Church and believe what it professes.

• We accept the teaching authority of our Church, including the traditional role of the bishops and the Pope.

• We will work with our bishops, clergy, and other members to strengthen unity and human moral integrity in our Church.

• We believe that sexual abuse by clergy and the response of bishops, protecting abusers and forsaking the abused, have caused great human suffering and damaged the moral authority of our Church.

• We believe that the laity has the graced dignity, intelligence, responsibility and obligation to cooperate in Church governance in a meaningful way according to the norm of law (cf. Canon 129) to correct the profound flaws that have been revealed in the human institutional life of our Church.

• We believe that the council documents of Vatican II illuminate the pathway for lay involvement in the Church.

• We urge that the openness and mutual respect advocated by Pope John Paul II in Ut Unum Sint ("That All May Be One") be the model for meaningful dialog among bishops and laity.

AN INVITATION FROM VOTF
SOUTHERN LOS ANGELES AREA

Thursday, June 12, 2008, 7-9:30 p.m

FR. BISHOP GEOFFREY ROBINSON

Retired Auxiliary Bishop of Sydney Australia will speak on

“CONFRONTING SEX AND POWER IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH: RECLAIMING THE SPIRIT OF JESUS”

“Through the story of sexual abuse and the church's response, I came to the unshakable belief that within the Catholic Church there absolutely must be profound and enduring change on the two subjects of power and sex.”

Join us on Thursday evening for

AN EVENING WITH BISHOP ROBINSON

SPONSORED BY VOTF, CTA, IHM AND DIGNITY

This event will take place at the Four Points by the Sheraton, 5990 Green Valley Circle, Culver City. Parking is $4. Free will donation at the door.

Copies of Bishop Robinson's book will be available for purchase.

Contact: Tom Honoré at 310-559-7577