text: The laity HAS taken up its task. Because the Church hierarchy refuses to surrender its ideas of privilege and superiority, because the Church hierarchy refuses to treat and accept women with equal status as men in the organization, because the Church hierarchy continues to demean and dismiss homosexuals and continues to provide moral cover for vengeful people to take hateful action against them, and because the Church hierarchy continues to treat abuse of children as secondary to protecting the image of the organization and saving their own hides, the laity, more and more, is withholding contributions, withholding the support of the organization's outrages and evils their presence at Mass symbolizes, and finds alternative ways to live and express their more authentic Christianity and Catholicism.