Your Holiness has been Christ's Vicar for seven months now. Things tend to grind slowly in the Vatican but be that as it may it is now long past the time for Your Holiness to put an end to this ridiculous persecution of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate. Surely, enough is enough.
This whole miserable charade is a blot upon the Church and, with all the respect due to your sacred office, it is a blot upon Yourself. Unless all written reports on this case are totally false, which would be difficult to believe, then what has been done to this Order is an act of rank injustice which must be corrected by Your Holiness, and without delay. We here join our voice with many others in calling for the immediate dismissal of Father Volpi who has acted in a way that does no credit to him either as a man or indeed even as a priest of God. The dismissal of this man would be only a first step in bringing some charity back into this whole sad episode.
What the world sees, Your Holiness, is simply this: that a religious order which has availed itself of the use of the exquisitely beautiful ancient rite of Holy Mass is being dragooned into abandoning their rights as Catholics to this Mass, as guaranteed by your predecessor, and being forced to conform exclusively to the banalities inherent in the misbegotten Novus Ordo Missae, and furthermore that it is actually being punished severely for its attachment to the Usus Antiquior. That is what the world sees, Your Holiness, and that is a terrible thing for Catholics and those sympathetic to the Church to have to see.
The One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church is a Monarchy. When a gross injustice has been committed in the Kingdom, the Monarch must act. When a scandal rears its ugly head in the Church that scandal must be ended promptly. We as Catholics do have some rights, too, that need to be respected. In the case of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate we have two rights that need to be addressed: first, we have a perfect right to the Traditional Mass, and have always had that right; second, we have the right to know the facts of this case. If there has been some real wrongdoing by this Order we need to know what that is. And following upon this, whatever fault they may or may not have committed, Catholics want to know why their punishment consists of refusing them their God-given rights to Holy Mass in the Ancient Rite of the Church and in purging the Order of anyone associated with its founder, Father Manelli.
This chicanery vis-a-vis the traditional Mass has to cease now. The Church has suffered forty uninspiring years of the new Mass. It has been a spectacular failure. Let those who wish to cling to this failure continue to do so. But the persecution of those who do not want to cling to it needs to come to its ignoble end.
The Vicar of Christ can put a stop to this outrage. The Catholic world awaits the justice that must be done.
12 comments:
Excellent AP, thank you.
Nice try, Aged Parent, but surely you do not expect the pope to respond positively were he to read that. According to Fr. Volpi (and taken from the Rorate Caeli website), the intervention into the Franciscans of the Immaculate was "specifically ordered by the Vicar of Christ".
Thank you for the effort though, Aged Parent. You have at least tried to do something.
You are correct, Anon. But sometimes it is good for the higher ups to know that a)we expect a little more from them, and b)we sometimes get justifiably angry. Obviously I have no hopes whatsoever that the Pope will see this but perhaps others might and might begin to realize how utterly rotten this situation is. I was, of course, fully, aware that the Pope ordered the intervention, which is another reason why I phrased it the way I did.
But thanks for the very kind comments, and thank you, Richard and Joe for your comments.
You have spoken the truth. You have cried out that the Emperor has no clothes. The general silence in the face of apparent injustice and great scandal, through fear or malice, is appalling. First, they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew ...
Aged Parent, as always you are most gracious in your responses. Maybe you can say a little prayer each day for those of us who are lacking in that virtuous quality?
Some while ago I among many signed a petition to Pope Francis concerning the Franciscans of the Immaculate but since then the situation only became worse.
Pope Francis is no friend of the Catholic Church. Still, we have to speak up, sign petitions, etc. and pray and do penance. If evil seems to prevail during our lifetime, let it not be said that it was because we did not do our part to try to stop it.
I am reminded of a quote of a general of the Catholic militia from the battle of the Vendee Valley. "I have not restored Thine altars. But I have defended them."
Advent Elf,I like your quote. I've been trying to defend Pope Francis and the Church to people who think that this Pope and others, The Three Popes and the Catholic Church are Zio-Christians whom they generally loathe. I say nae nae and then go on to defend with lies. I have received a book published in 2013 titled The Vatican Against Israel. I have just begun reading and am hoping that it might give some evidence that our recent Popes are not Zio- Christians so nor are we. But two days after receiving this book I am alerted to this book titled Open Mind Faithful Heart, writings by Cardinal Bergoglio. The cover is the painting by the Jewish Marc Chagall The White Crucifixion. I guess I have to stop lying.
Thabk you for speaking the truth.
Excellent letter. You're such a good writer. But I'm afraid that Pope Francis is the one initiating the witch hunt.
Once again I am most grateful for the responses.
I was indeed aware that it was the Pope himself who set the machinery in motion against the Friars but I wrote the post anyway the way I did in the hopes that if by some miracle he should see it he would be able to "read between the lines". And even if he never sees it I hope others will read it and perhaps redouble their efforts to bring sanity and holiness back into the Catholic mainstream.
Thank you, Lacking, for the kind words. I do try.
Thank you, Advent Elf, for your remarks and for that magnificent quote which I shall never forget.
I hope all those who wrote, and all those who occasionally read our blog, have a Blessed Advent and may the blessings of the Christ Child be with you and yours.
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