TFP:
Pressure Groups Call for Revolution not Restoration
(June 13, 2002)
Child abuse is not the only the item on
the agenda in Dallas. Pressure groups, with extensive coverage
from the secular media, are taking advantage of the crisis
to foment revolution inside the Church.
In the June 13 issue of The Dallas Morning News,
the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family
and Property (TFP) is publishing the text of a letter sent
to the bishops expressing precisely this concern. The TFP
claims an alliance of the secular media and reformist pressure
groups is expanding the problem from child molestation to
Church government and doctrine.
"What we need is a restoration of the true moral and
doctrinal teachings of the Church and energetic action,"
claims TFP president Raymond Drake who signed the letter.
"We
don't need calls for revolution."
The TFP letter cites as an example the
Boston-based Voice of the Faithful (VOTF), a movement that
sprouted up in the midst of the present controversy and
calls for reform of church structures. VOTF leaders see
themselves as American patriots, with allusions to "the
Boston Tea Party," and the use of slogans like "no
donation without representation."
Long-standing groups such as Call to Action
and others who hold positions that often clash with Church
teaching have also rallied around the groundswell of legitimate
concern with agenda in hand.
Far from denying the very real crisis inside the Church,
the TFP takes note of the manner in which the present crisis
is paraded before the public on every occasion. It also
points out that a veritable media-reformist alliance seeks
to undermine the trust of the faithful in all clergy.
By creating a "hurricane of pressure," reformists
create the conditions for presenting a range of demands
to the bishops: empower the laity; eliminate, curtail, or
render meaningless all priestly, episcopal, and papal authority;
make priestly celibacy optional; ordain women; and change
Church morality.
The TFP letter cites articles in the May
27 issue of America magazine where church figures
compare the present crisis to the Reformation and the French
Revolution. The letter claims that a general assembly of
lay people to be consulted on all issues demanded by groups
like VOTF is very similar to the French Revolution's Estates
General.
The American TFP insists that these reformist
pressure groups do not represent average American Catholics
who are extremely concerned with the crisis and their hearts
bleed for the victims of so much abuse.
"However, they stand by the Church's
hierarchical structure," Mr. Drake reiterates. "Their
hearts are not those of revolutionary firebrands but of
deeply hurt but faithful sons and daughters of the Church."
The American TFP, a civic organization of Catholic inspiration,
is currently involved in a campaign centered on an analysis
of the scandals titled "The Church, Holy and Immortal,
Shall Prevail!" The TFP has published it as a full-page
ad in newspapers throughout the country. In addition, hundreds
of thousands of flyers with the TFP statement are circulating
in Catholic parishes.
