The Voice of the Faithful is an activism group that was created as a reaction to priests who had raped and abused little boys. Within months this group had grown into hundreds of participants and within their first year had members in more than 20 different countries. This sort of growth is a huge and amazing accomplishment for this group. Previously priestly abuse had been dealt with by the church, treated as an internal matter where the priest was just moved from one parish to the next instead of being punished. This is awful, before this group came into effect these priests, who are looked up to in their Catholic communities, were getting away with abusing children and were just relocated to places where their crimes were unknown so they could keep doing it.
With the emergence of the internet, crucial information like this can be spread rapidly through the community and beyond. It takes time to get a hard copy of an article and show it to others, an article written in a local paper will only reach the local audience. With the internet you can copy and paste a link onto a social media account, or forward an email to every person in your contact list with just a simple click of the mouse. Now this information is available to people across the world, making it more difficult for these disgusting people to move and start over in a new place. Also the growth of the VOTF owes part of its success to the internet, where it is easy to find information on all kinds of activist groups and how you can help the cause.
One of the most important elements of this is spreading awareness about the issue. People get away with doing terrible things because no one knows about it. Nothing will change if people do not act to change it. People should most definitely know if their priest has a history of abusing children, I think many would choose a different place of worship if they knew their Priest was involved in such a horrible act.
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For centuries Catholic priests have been sexually abusing little boys. It almost seems like it became routine among some priests, and that the Church covered it up because it had been happening for so long. The scandals made by John Geoghan and James Porter are unacceptable. They changed the lives of many children and families due to their harassment. Like you mentioned, they were a key figure in their community and families of the Church looked up to them and the advice they gave. If it wasn't for the community spreading the word via the web or by mouth, then these men would have never been brought to justice. Social media helped to bring these people to justice. The exchange of emails, the media coverage, and the numerous blog posts brought these men to justice. The most important element is spreading awareness, and social media can help us to do that.
ReplyDeleteI think for this particular example, its unfortunate that the church has these bad things spreading about them on the internet, along with protest groups, etc, However, for years the church has gotten away with just sweeping things under the rug and going unscathed. Social media allows for this news to spread (as it should) and allow people to know who is and isn't trustworthy in their community. A current example is WeinerGate, as its so affectionately called. Without twitter, the fact that this man is cheating and dishonest may have gone unnoticed. Twitter blew up with tweets about how [stupid] everyone thought he was for doing what he did. Initially, he thought he could get away with an apology. With the popularity of the issue online, he had to resign.
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