In its increasingly panicked effort to remain relevant -- and solvent -- Catholic dissident group Voice of the Faithful (VOTF) has announced a new program: the Voices in Action Campaign. How, you ask, does this differ from the normal activities of VOTF? Good question. According to the press release that dropped into my Inbox an hour ago...

Voices in Action focuses on improving parishes and dioceses; fostering greater accountability in Church leaders and in the laity as well; ensuring financial transparency; healing survivors; protecting children; supporting clergy working together with laity; and encouraging systematic transformation and growth in the universal Church.

Uh... ok. But again, how is this different from VOTF's regular activities? Compare that description with the organization's mission statement and goals, taken from its Website:

To provide a prayerful voice, attentive to the Spirit, through which the Faithful can actively participate in the governance and guidance of the Catholic Church.... To support survivors of clergy sexual abuse.... To support priests of integrity.... To shape structural change within the Catholic Church.

Sounds like the same thing, rephrased. And that has been VOTF's problem all along. The group emerged in the wake of the sex abuse scandal claiming to be something new: a non-ideological gathering of fed-up Catholics working to find original solutions to old problems... and then proceeded to advocate the rewarmed agenda of 1970s Catholic dissent.

No-one's buying it anymore. VOTF's days are numbered.

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