New Group Urges Catholics to Send the Bishops a Message
Dec 2, 2008 --
Tucson, AZ – Dec 2, 2008
"Send the Bishops a Message" is a group of reform-minded Roman Catholics who advocate that Catholics withhold their normal Sunday Mass financial (cash, check, and credit card) donations on December 21st, the second international "Withholding or Me$$age Sunday," and re-direct that donation to a charity that helps children, not one that protects child predators. The group suggests that Catholics give to organizations that support clergy sex abuse survivors, the homeless, the poor, and/or the unemployed.
Catholic Church officials’ ongoing failures both to protect children from dangerous clerical predators and to provide acceptable levels of stewardship for Catholics' hard-earned donations compel the group to take this action. Church officials have adamantly refused to accept responsibility for their grave moral failures in the clergy sex abuse crisis. They repeatedly "apologize," but never admit to covering up sex crimes against children nor accept their part in the horrendous scandal affecting Catholics everywhere.
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--using parishioners’ donations to pay for expensive lawyers and public relations firms—even though these priests are a threat to children and a criminal and financial ticking time bomb. If Church officials don’t change, more children’s lives will be ruined, the financial hemorrhaging will continue, more parishes will be closed, and the people of the Church will continue to bear the burden of this madness.
Catholics have no elections, recall procedures, or impeachment processes that allow them to replace those in power. Re-directing 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 exercise the power of the purse. We urge Catholics to re-direct their normal Sunday Mass donation to a charity of their choice on December 21st, sending 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
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The group has three goals:
Make Catholics aware that they have the power to change Church governance policies by selectively re-directing their 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
