Posted on 09/03/2018 9:36:20 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
August 30, 2018
His Holiness, Pope Francis
Vatican City
Your Holiness:
You have said that you seek “a more incisive female presence in the Church,” and that “women are capable of seeing things with a different angle from [men], with a different eye. Women are able to pose questions that we men are not able to understand.”
We write to you, Holy Father, to pose questions that need answers.
We are Catholic women deeply committed to our faith and profoundly grateful for Church teachings, the Sacraments, and the many good bishops and priests who have blessed our lives.
Our hearts are broken, our faith tested, by the escalating crisis engulfing our beloved Church. We are angry, betrayed and disillusioned. The pain and suffering of the victims never ends, as each news cycle brings more horrific revelations of sexual abuse, sexual misconduct, cover-ups, and deceit—even at the Church’s highest levels.
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò’s recent statement impels us to reach out to you directly for answers. His testimony accuses you, Holy Father, and highly placed cardinals of turning a blind eye to former Cardinal McCarrick’s egregious behavior, and promoting this predator as a global spokesman and spiritual leader. Is this true?
These are devastating allegations. As USCCB President Cardinal Daniel D. DiNardo recently stated, “The questions raised deserve answers that are conclusive and based on evidence.” We agree.
Several crucial questions raised by Archbishop Viganò’s statement, however, require neither lengthy investigations nor physical evidence. They require only your direct response, Holy Father. When reporters questioned you recently about Archbishop Viganò’s charges, you replied, “I will not say a single word on this.” You told reporters to “read the statement carefully and make your own judgment.”
To your hurting flock, Pope Francis, your words are inadequate. They sting, reminiscent of the clericalism you so recently condemned. We need leadership, truth, and transparency. We, your flock, deserve your answers now.
Specifically, we humbly implore you to answer the following questions, as the answers are surely known to you. Archbishop Viganò says that in June 2013 he conveyed to you this message (in essence) about then-Cardinal McCarrick:
“He corrupted generations of seminarians and priests and Pope Benedict ordered him to withdraw to a life of prayer and penance.”
Holy Father, in your letter to the People of God on the scandals, you wrote: “An awareness of sin helps us to acknowledge the errors, the crimes and the wounds caused in the past and allows us, in the present, to be more open and committed along a journey of renewed conversion.” That’s why we expect you, our Holy Father, to be honest with us.
Please do not turn from us. You’ve committed yourself to changing clerical ways in the Church. That a cardinal would prey on seminarians is abhorrent. We need to know we can trust you to be honest with us about what happened. The victims who have suffered so greatly need to know they can trust you. Families, who will be the source of the Church’s renewal, need to know we can trust you, and thus trust the Church.
Please do not keep us at arm’s length on these questions. We are faithful daughters of the Church who need the truth so we can help rebuild. We are not second-class Catholics to be brushed off while bishops and cardinals handle matters privately. We have a right to know. We have a right to your answers.
We are wives, mothers, single women, consecrated women, and religious sisters.
We are the mothers and sisters of your priests, seminarians, future priests and religious. We are the Church’s lay leaders, and the mothers of the next generation.
We are professors in your seminaries, and leaders in Catholic chanceries and institutions.
We are theologians, evangelists, missionaries and founders of Catholic apostolates.
We are the people who sacrifice to fund the Church’s good work.
We are the backbone of Catholic parishes, schools, and dioceses.
We are the hands, the feet, and the heart of the Church.
In short, we are the Church, every bit as much as the cardinals and bishops around you.
Holy Father, we are the “incisive presence” the Church needs, and we need your answers.
With love for Christ and the Church,
Mary Rice Hasson, JD
Kate O'Beirne
Fellow in Catholic Studies
Director, Catholic Women’s Forum
Ethics and Public Policy Center
Sarah Bartel
Consultant for Marriage and Family Life
Archdiocese of Seattle
Author, Speaker, Radio Show Host
Kari Beckman
Executive Director and Founder,
Regina Caeli K-12 Programs
Executive Director and Founder,
Veritatis Splendor Consortiums
... and (as of Sept 3)
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...but I won't blow the whistle on non-Catholics if you want to constructively discuss how to get more Catholic women's signatures on this Open Letter to the Pope.
In the meantime, report n when you've gotten your Catholic wife and all of her Catholic lady friends to sign the letter, OK?
Even if PF does not take notice, it will help the secular press to take notice, and in this case the press should not be siding with secrecy, they should be demanding disclosure.
When I was sexually abused at age 7...Saint Luke’s Barrington RI by a visiting pedopriest...
Monsignor O’Gara knew
Father Brennon knew
All the nuns knew
They talked my parents into not pressing charges. For my own sake.
Nice con job
However...as noted before to you....this is the opinion of a Roman Catholic Canon Lawyer.
Unless you're a RC Canon lawer, I'm going with what she says.
e, you are correct. Regardless of what’s printed in a big book, this pope will not be judged. He has not been, nor will he be. Laws are irrelevant. He is pope and no one will touch him.
Remember St. Catherine of Siena, she let the Pope in her time have it. If she could have walked this earth today, she would this hashtag:
#Catholicmetoo .
I have come to the realization that Cardinal Borrego is an antiPope.
In segregating yourselves this way you are defying God’s intent for men and women.
If there were no other theological problems with it, it echoes the actions and ideology of feminism, itself of and from Satan.
Besides that, it’s just fricking obnoxious.
The Church is in schism/civil war.
I did take a quick look and it is from Catholic women with positions and ministries.
Sorry but I still don’t understand.
I understand that but that wasn't my concern.
What my concern is that in signing the letter all you have to do is give your NAME, your EMAIL, STATE and COUNTRY.......And there you go, you're a "Catholic" who supports whatever this letter is citing......
While I'm not an atheist, I'm also not a Catholic but I can sign the letter and claim to be...............
Creating bad will between the sexes is on the agenda of every front group that Satan has up and running, including the communists.
Limbaugh listed a bunch of reasons for feminism, but the primary goal was to turn women into things that are incapable of being good wives and mothers.
Every time women announce a “women’s this” or “women’s that,” it contributes to that goal. Just as whites are sick of being persecuted for the sake of ungrateful and undeserving minorities, men are sick of being persecuted and disadvantaged in every walk of life for the sake of resentful, hostile, and closed-minded women.
It does not have an anti-Catholic tone, content or intention in the least. If I were an infected, overheated anti-Catholic I would find it much, much too constructive.
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Right now the focus is not only on the direct offenses, but on the widespread shielding of perps within the institution.
This was, in part, corrupt institutional self-protecting. They were protecting the institution, not the abuse victims. This is disgusting, sinful and in some times criminally actionable.
But it was also IN PART, AT ONE TIME, wrong-headed but well-intended. In the 60’s-80’s the main focus in both the Church AND the State was the therapeutic model. Not only didn’t bishops turn the perps in: parents didn't either. They begged not to have it go through the legal system, didn’t want their kids dragged through this in public, didn’t want kids re-traumatized by the trial process, AND agreed that both their kid and Fr. Judas A. Huggybear probably needed psych intervention or counseling.
Police didn’t want to arrest, just like they didn’t want to arrest in domestic violence incidents: they wanted “community corrections” and “pre-trial diversion.” Prosecutors AND JUDGES didn’t want to prosecute: they wanted to refer to remediation outside of the court system.
I remember this all through the 1970's in the Diocese of Erie (Pennsylvania) when I was an active volunteer both in juvenile and prison issues.
All that has gone by the wayside because it is NOW recognized that offenders actually don’t respond well, long-term, to counseling: they-offend. Plus, people under-estimated the long-term harm this did to the victims. Some actually thought “making a big thing of it” would harm the children: the kids might be temporarily upset but best just smooth it over and all memories will heal.
I was told that by psychologists!! --years ago when I worked as a volunteer in shelter work for kids who were in protective residential placements, and prison justice initiatives.
I do not at all think “most” of (today's) priests or “most" of (today’s) bishops are either abusers or concealers. What we’re getting is a telescopic picture of the mid-to-late 20th century and its lingering consequences; not an ongoing pattern for the future.
As I see it.
The main thing now is to uproot the real corrupt-o-crats in the higher clergy, who are mostly wizened, pampered old reprobates who have been in CYA mode for decades. They are hell-bait. I hope they repent before they die.
It may take criminal indictments to do it.
I am all for criminal indictments for perjury, concealing of evidence, obstruction of justice and related crimes, even if it goes all the way up to the Pope.
Big problem with petitions: those who write them think they are saying something powerful and important, when actually they sound like petulant and ignorant whiners. Add the inevitable demands (which the signers usually have no right to make) and it does get obnoxious. Petitions are ordinary people writing to extraordinary people and making fools of themselves. No matter your momentary thrill of self-importance, you achieve nothing by signing an internet form most use to vent spleen, nothing more.
Signed!
If it were not for you and the Church Militant, I’d have much less knowledge about what is going on in my world. Thank you so much.
This is the opinion of a Roman Catholic Canon lawyer.
If something has happened many time historically, it is absurd for you to say it is impossible.
Again...I do not say it....a Roman Catholic Canon lawyer does.
So that's why my advice to you is, as always: in matters Catholic, ASK us, do not TELL us, what we can and cannot do.
I did. I went to canonlawmadeeasy.com for the answer to my question.
You so often make puerile pronunciamentos as if you knew a lot about the matter at hand, when, so frequently, you demonstrate that you do not.
Again...I went to canonlawmadeeasy.com for my answer.
Getting off that high horse of yours might take a while.
The opinion of the Roman Catholic Canon lawyer is there is nothing that can be done to remove Francis from office....hence why I say you can collect 100,000,000 signatures.
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