"Send the Bishops a Message" is a group of reform-minded Roman Catholics who are disappointed, saddened, and exasperated enough with unaccountable and secretive Catholic bishops to take targeted action.  

The group plans to get its message across by advocating that all Catholics withhold financial donations (cash, check, and credit card) on designated "Withholding Sundays."

The ongoing failure of Catholic Church officials to protect children from dangerous clerical predators and to provide acceptable levels of stewardship for Catholics' hard-earned donations compels us to take this action. These 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 against children nor accept their part in the horrendous scandal brought down upon Catholics everywhere.

More than 6 years after the Dallas Charter of 2002, high-level Church officials still protect both clerical sexual predators and those who shield these predators. Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law enjoys a high-profile, 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 still uses 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.

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, yet there seems to be no end in sight. Why? Because bishops and other high-level Church officials still believe it is their duty to shield perpetrator priests, even though they are a criminal and financial ticking time bomb. If Church officials don’t change their ways, more children’s lives will be ruined, the financial hemorrhaging will continue resulting in more parish closings, and the people of the Church will continue to bear the burden of this madness.

We Catholics have no elections, recall procedures, or impeachment processes that allow us to replace those who have cost us so much. Withholding donations is the best way for a disenfranchised laity to send, with one voice, a message to church officials in the only language they understand--MONEY!   

The bishops have squandered our trust. Now is the time to send them a strong message. We urge all Catholics to Send the Bishops a Message by withholding cash, check, and credit card donations on designated "Withholding Sundays."

The first Withholding Sunday is November 16, 2008.

We understand that many Catholics will find it culturally and psychologically difficult to withhold their donations. However, if we fail to use the only power bishops listen to, the power of money, we will have more abuse, 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? Clearly, we cannot.   

Therefore we urge you to exercise the power of the purse on Withholding Sundays, starting on November 16^th , 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. We want our children safe. 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 selectively withholding financial donations
  
• Give Catholics an opportunity to speak with a strong united voice
  
• 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
  

CONTACT--Frank Douglas at (520) 404-2489

FOR MORE INFORMATION--Visit our website at www.sendthebishopsamessage.com