Two meetings of conservative lay leaders were held in Washington, D.C. last week, pledging ecclesial reform efforts in the wake of this summer’s clergy sex scandals.
The “Authentic Reform” conference was sponsored by the Napa Institute, founded by California lawyer and businessman Tim Busch, a conservative organisation that hosts an annual conference of academics, activists and prelates. The group also hosts an annual conference promoting libertarian economics ideas at the Catholic University business school that is named for Busch, its major donor.
Some of the attendees advocated changes to canon law to permit greater lay involvement in decision-making while others urged the group to exercise their moral authority by withholding donations to their bishop. Many demanded that the Church adopt standard business practices. “If we don’t tolerate this in our own businesses, we can’t tolerate it in our Church,” Busch told the gathering, adding: “It [clergy sex abuse] needs to stop. And, we, the laity, are going to stop it. And we’re going to do it regardless of what the civil and canon law says.”
There was a panel of bishops at the meeting, featuring Cardinal Gerhard Muller, former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver, Colorado and Bishop Roberto Morlino of Madison, Wisconsin. The panel was moderated by EWTN news anchor Raymond Arroyo.
Earlier in the week a “Red Hat Cocktail Party” was held at the Catholic University of America to launch a project to compile dossiers “in the manner of political opposition research” on all cardinal electors in advance of the next conclave. The group is assembling teams of researchers consisting of academics, former FBI agents and others. The organisation claimed that 40 researchers are already on the job including 10 former FBI agents.
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