Archive for September, 2023
Voice of the Faithful names Leslie Scales as its new executive director
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Voice of the Faithful on September 6, 2023
Boston, Mass., Sept. 6, 2023 — Voice of the Faithful, a worldwide non-profit organization of Catholics seeking greater lay participation in Church governance, has named Leslie J. Scales as its new executive director. Donna B. Doucette, executive director since 2007, retired Aug. 31.
Scales comes to VOTF with 23 years of leadership experience in non-profit environments. A graduate of Babson College, Wellesley, Mass., she was president of The International Leadership Institute for Women, Inc., Leominster, Mass., a division of management consulting organization Leadership Dynamics, Inc., where she later became director.
She also served as Northeast regional director of the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center at Salem State University and, most recently, was executive director of the New England Affordable Housing Management Association, Braintree, Mass., which advocates for affordable housing and provides training and education on legal, legislative and management-related topics for members.
She has served on the Bertolon School of Business advisory board and the Salem State University Center for Entrepreneurial Activity executive board. In 2015, she published “Seven Steps to a Life of Significance.”
Mary Pat Fox, VOTF president, said, “I am excited to be working with Leslie. She joins Voice of the Faithful with enthusiasm for its mission and goals and is an experienced executive director with broad expertise in leading non-profit organizations.”
Fox said Doucette’s contributions to the organization over 16 years have been “too numerous to list.” Doucette will remain active with the organization after her retirement. She will continue VOTF’s collaboration with the Association of U.S. Catholic Priests as the only lay person on its board of directors. She also will continue to be involved in VOTF’s efforts for the Synod on Synodality, which will culminate a three-year process in two meetings at the Vatican in Rome in October 2023 and October 2024.
Voice of the Faithful is a lay organization of faithful Catholics, who organized in 2002 as a response to the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church. The organization started in the basement of a church in Wellesley, Mass., and has since expanded to thousands of members worldwide. VOTF’s mission is to provide a prayerful voice, attentive to the Holy Spirit, through which the faithful can actively participate in the governance and guidance of the Catholic Church. Goals include supporting survivors of clergy sexual abuse, supporting priests of integrity and shaping structural change within the Catholic Church. VOTF’s website is at https://www.votf.org.
Developing the Voice of the Laity: moving the synodal concept from ideal to reality / Commonweal
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in laity, Voice of the Faithful on September 5, 2023
If the Church is truly a sign of God at work in the world, then it needs to model listening to those in society and in the ecclesial body whose voices have gone unheard and whose needs have been overlooked.
By Kayla August, Commonweal
“The synodal listening sessions opened the door to hearing the voice of the laity in a new way, as parishes across the world were asked to share their stories, hopes, and disappointments about living within the Catholic Church in order to guide where it goes next.
“Yet, according to the 2023 U.S. National Synthesis Report, dioceses entered the process with ‘a combination of excitement, confusion, and skepticism.’ In fact, ‘several dioceses noted some apprehension and even opposition as they began their synodal listening’—due, in part, to a feeling the process would be futile.
“This sense of futility reflects a Church that is communal in nature but not yet communal in participation. Though we speak of a united Body of Christ, the synodal proceedings reveal the limits of the laity’s words and actions in the face of ecclesial structures. In a Church where laypeople have been fashioned to receive and not to share, it’s understandable that many are not simply unwilling but actually unable to make their voices heard. Breaking centuries of silence in the space of a four-year synodal session is bound to be a challenge, especially given that we perhaps failed to consider one of the preemptive needs for the synodal process: training lay voices to speak. I propose the laity may be experiencing what I call “acute ecclesial laryngitis,” the inability to contribute to the life of the Church due to a lack of capacity to speak. In this synodal moment, we find the voice is a muscle, and the failure to use it results in a stifled and hesitant voice.”
By Kayla August, Commonweal — Read more …
I am a woman who serves like a deacon. Will I ever share St. Phoebe’s title? / National Catholic Reporter
Posted by Voice of the Faithful in Religious Women, Voice of the Faithful, Women Deacons, Women in Catholic Church, Women in the Church on September 5, 2023
In some places, there is hesitation to seek the intercession of St. Phoebe, a hesitance to recognize her as a deacon. We know that the deacons of today are not the same as the deacons of the first centuries. But why are we afraid of this dream of women received as deacons? Women like me are already doing such work — just without the title.
By marie Philomene Pean, National Catholic Reporter
“As a young girl growing up in Haiti, I remember feeling like I lived in a paradise as I rested easy in my mother’s lap. She and our community made me feel safe, loved and seen. It was not hard for me to come to know God as a loving mother who cares for all his children. I sensed that God knew me and called me by name to go out and proclaim his word.
“By the age of 8, I was serving as a lector in our parish, and by the age of 18 was leading retreats for the Legion of Mary and speaking to groups of all ages. I felt welcomed to share who I was and bring forth my gifts.
“I had a vision of Jesus when I was about 15 years old, seeing him as a handsome Black man who patiently asked me the same question he had asked Peter in John’s Gospel: “Do you love me?” (John 21:15-17). I sensed then that Jesus was asking for my whole life.
“It has not been a straightforward path. I came of age in the 1990s, when the clearest way for a woman to live a deeper call and commitment to the church was through religious life. I spent years discerning becoming a nun — first volunteering with a community of sisters, then entering as a novice.
“The regular prayer, sisterhood and studies was enlivening. But I struggled, especially when service to the church too closely looked like servanthood. There were real constraints that limited how we could develop our gifts and capacities as women.”
By Marie Philomene Pean, National Catholic Reporter — Read more …
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Voice of the Faithful
A lay movement for governance reform in the Roman Catholic Church, responding to the clergy sexual abuse scandal and supporting survivors.
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