Send the Bishops a Message  ( www.sendthebishopsamessage.com ) is a grassroots group of Catholics deeply disappointed, saddened, and exasperated about the ongoing failure of church officials to 1) reach out to heal wounded survivors of clergy sexual abuse; 2) protect children from dangerous clerical predators; and 3) hold accountable bishops and superiors of religious orders who enable and provide safe haven to these predators.

The group gets its message across by advocating that Mass-going, donation-giving Catholics use money as the best way to communicate to church officials that they they find the Church response to failures of moral will is with money--for example by withholding financial (cash, check, and credit card) donations on designated “Withholding Sundays.”

Church officials have adamantly refused to accept responsibility for their grave moral failures in the clergy sex abuse crisis. They repeatedly "apologize," but neither admit to covering up sex crimes by priests against children nor accept their part in the horrendous, shameful scandal of criminal cover up, which has brought horror and shame to Catholics everywhere.

Almost a decade after the bishops published the Dallas Charter of 2002, we are still witnessing new disclosures about more abuse and cover up--in the U.S., Ireland, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and elsewhere. High-level church officials still protect using the cruel tool of secrecy both clerical sexual predators and those who shield these predators.

Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law enjoys a high-profile, influential, and comfortable job in Rome even though he habitually transferred serial pedophile priests from parish to parish without notifying parents their children were at risk. Los Angeles’s Cardinal Roger Mahony approved a $660 million settlement with clergy sex abuse victims, yet to the bitter end used every legal maneuver at his disposal to maintain the secrecy of church files he agreed to hand over to victims’ attorneys as part of the settlement. Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George, the current head of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), refused to follow his own sex abuse review board’s recommendation that he, George, suspend a priest who had been arrested for sexual abuse of a minor. Three months after Cardinal George’s refusal to act against the priest, the priest molested at least three more boys in Chicago’s inner city. One of the children, prosecutors say, had been assaulted “on an almost daily” basis. 

In other words, the top cardinals in the USA were the worst offenders--which one would expect from top papal loyalists in the country.

The emotional, physical, and spiritual destruction of so many lives must stop. The compassion and justice that Scripture teaches must be restored. The hierarchy has cost the Catholic people billions of dollars in legal fees and settlements, with no transparency or accountability, and there seems to be no end in sight. Why? Because the pope, bishops, and other high-level church officials still believe it is their duty (because they must protect Holy Mother Church) to shield perpetrator priests, even though these criminal sociopaths pose real risks to our children and are a ticking time bomb that threaten the very existence of this same Church. If church officials don’t change, radically, more children’s lives will be ruined, financial hemorrhaging will continue, parishes will continue to be closed, and more Catholics will leave the Church.

In the eyes of Church officials, lay Catholics have no rights. They are to pray, pay, and obey. That's it; Rome has spoken. The reality is quite different, especially among the educated.

Lay Catholics have no elections, recall procedures, or impeachment processes that allow them to replace those in authority. Withholding donations is the best, indeed the only way for a disenfranchised laity to send a message to church officials in the only language these clerics seem to understand--MONEY!   

The bishops have squandered our trust. We need to send them a strong message. We urge all Catholics to Send the Bishops a Message by using the power of the purse, the power of the checkbook, and the power of the credit card to withhold or significantly decrease the amount of money they donate to a Church that no longer does the Lord's will for children. 

We understand that many Catholics will find it culturally and/or psychologically difficult to withhold or significantly decrease their donations. However, if lay Catholics fail to use the only power bishops listen to, the power of money, we will have more abuse, more ruined lives, more scandal, and more financial mismanagement. Ask yourself, can we afford to put more children at risk? Can we afford to bear the brunt of more sexual abuse settlements? Can we afford to have more parishes close because of financial mismanagement? Can we afford a secretive, unresponsive, unjust system of governance any longer?    

Therefore we urge you to exercise the power of the purse on the next Withholding Sunday to send a unified message to the church hierarchy: 

Business as usual will no longer be tolerated.

We want to be clear: we are not opposing any Catholic doctrine or dogma. What we do want is for our children safe to be safe. We want criminals clerics who rape and molest kids in jail where they can no longer harm young innocents. We want bishops who shield criminal priests to be thrown out of office. Today. We want our parishes intact. We want our donations to be managed openly according to the principles of good stewardship, accountability, and transparency.

Our Goals  

· Make Catholics aware that they have the power to change Church governance policies by significantly reducing or selectively withholding financial donations.

· Give Catholics an opportunity to use the power of the purse/checkbook/credit card to Send the Bishops a Message.  Loud and Clear. In a language they understand. Money.

· Send a message to the bishops that business as usual--abusing our children, covering up these crimes, putting children at risk by shielding criminal priests, and mismanaging financial resources--will no longer be tolerated.