Letter to Pope Francis from Catholic Men

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Clearly this group of men is composed of Americans, or largely so. I’m not persuaded that the Pope thinks about the U.S. a great deal, or have the regard for it that Americans tend to think everyone should.
 
With regard to the criticism above that this is by American men, the letter is addressed to the American bishops as well as the Pope–the people with jurisdiction in America and therefore the power to provide the aid they request. Likewise, the Vigano controversy is heavily focused on the USA.

The American bishops should obviously have care for their flocks here, so this is directly relevant to them. The Pope has care for all the Churches, he should not consider any of them irrelevant. It is not unreasonable or self-important for portions of his flock in a particular place to implore his aid.
 
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This investigation should be carried out by faithful lay men and women.
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The active homosexuals and their supporters are hardly going to allow this.
 
I think some of the American bishops will care. I am not sure it’s the majority. American Catholics are, what? About 66 million out of a billion-member Church? Some of the other things the Pope has said incline me to think he does not really understand the U.S. very well or think terribly well of it.
 
I approve of this letter. It’s respectful but asks for firm and concrete action.
 
I like it and it doesn’t begin with that cliche “I’m angry.”
 
Ridgerunner said:
I think some of the American bishops will care. I am not sure it’s the majority. American Catholics are, what? About 66 million out of a billion-member Church? Some of the other things the Pope has said incline me to think he does not really understand the U.S. very well or think terribly well of it.
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Or Poland either.
 
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I’m not sure we should be encouraging the ‘angry internet petition’ culture. Goodness knows how many petitions exist on the internet. Who pays any attention to them? There must be a better way.
 
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anikins said:
Agreed. This group is mostly men from the USA. The Church is so much bigger than these US men may believe it to be. America is irrelevant to Her and so is this letter.
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The men signing that letter may or may not be aware of how “big” the Church is but you believe that those in the body of Christ in the US are irrelevant to the Church? Seriously? If one child in a single diocese in the smallest country in the world is placed at risk, it matters to the Church. If this grave evil across the Church universal doesn’t matter because it is just American men demanding transparency and justice then the Church is in need of much greater reform than I originally believed.
 
Explain this if you would. Because of Poland’s resistance to immigration perhaps?
 
I think most of us here would recognize three of the signees of this letter.

Scott Hahn, PhD
Professor of Biblical Theology and the New Evangelization, Franciscan University

Al Kresta
President & CEO, host, Ave Maria Radio

Doug Barry
Founder/Director of RADIX-BATTLE READY Catholic Apostolate
EWTN Battle Ready
 
Michael96 said:
I’m not sure we should be encouraging the ‘angry internet petition’ culture. Goodness knows how many petitions exist on the internet. Who pays any attention to them? There must be a better way.
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There ought to be a better way. There used to be a better way. The two prior popes tried to appoint at least some people with different views, and tried to keep people arguing at the same table, rather than firing people just for being liberal or conservative.

They worked with and kept open communication with bishops conferences, even where there were philosophical differences.

They didn’t allow “papal advisors” to over rule bishops, or publicly.trash bishops as one is now. Bishops could be fired for poor performance, but not for different opinions.

Today the lines of communication are less open. Laity have to resort to the bad communication route because the good routes that we had in recent decades are not open
 
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“You’ve misunderstood. I don’t believe the US is irrelevant. The Church does.”

Just one view from outside the US…

We had similar problems with abuse in England. But the response of the Church in England was to bring in an external reviewer (Lord Nolan). The Church then implemented the recommendations of the Nolan review. It was, and is, not perfect. But it’s pretty good. I think in the UK we saw problems as our problems - we didn’t seek to push them onto the Pope or the Vatican. From outside of the US it can seem (from just my perspective) that a certain group of people are looking to transfer culpability from the US Church onto Rome. The US Church is surely big enough to take responsibility for itself. If the much smaller UK Church can (as it did), then I think the US Church can, and should.

In short, to the US Church - pray, sort yourself out, and stop trying to dodge culpability.
 
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I do think the Pope cares about the scandals. But while those in the U.S. might be more highly publicized than some, it’s still in a country with only 6% of the whole Church population.

It isn’t that. I just get the feeling that Pope Francis doesn’t think too well of the U.S. It’s just not the same as with Pope JPII or Pope Benedict. Pope JPII was practically a “political ally” of the U.S. Poland and the Church depended a great deal on the U.S. and, besides, the U.S. was and is very popular in Poland.

Pope Benedict is a German. The largest single ethnicity in the U.S.is German. Cultural affinities don’t just disappear overnight.

Pope Francis isn’t exactly from the Third World, but Argentina is definitely “second world”. There is a lot of hostility toward all things American in Argentina.

And I think Pope Francis’ negative comments about “populism” and “nationalism” are more directed at the versions of those things prevailing in places like Argentina or even Russia rather than what they are in the U.S.
 
Michael96 said:
In short, to the US Church - pray, sort yourself out, and stop trying to dodge culpability.
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With all due respect, I think CAtholics in the U.S. are furious about the clerical scandals and in no way intend to dodge culpability. But it has to be recognized that the Vatican does have its share of responsibility. Back when JPII was Pope, the American bishops more or less chose themselves for their offices; a practice that didn’t work out too well. They just named their own friends and people like them.

The Pope Benedict took that “self-selection” away, and we saw some improvements in appointments. If I’m not terribly mistaken, I think we’re back to “self-selection” and some of the recent appointments have not been too sterling.

The American Church can’t just go it alone here and clean out the corruption all by itself. No church in any country can.
 
I fear Pope Francis is going to be scapegoated over the decades of abuse and cover up. These pervert priests thrived dating back to at least the Pontificate of Pius XII - likely long before that. The Pope is being set up to be the fall guy by a coordinated effort by those critical of his Pontificate from day1… It is very sad.

On Vigano’s letter… I find it shameful that he used the media to inflict maximum harm to the Pope. I hope that he had the decency and courage to communicate in a formal way to the Pope well before resorting to resort to media pressure… although hope for that has diminished substantially as he has not made any reference to it. I’m sorry to see so many people - lay, priest and bishop - taking sides before any actual evidence has been presented regarding Vigano’s account of things… although many, many holes have emerged in his story.

On the sexual abuse crisis… the Pope clearly needs to continue taking action. This is his mess to clean up now.
 
There are too many letters being bandied about .

Some of them containing matters which are of a confidential nature and being handed over to journalists .

This is not , or ought not to be , how the members of the Church conduct themselves .
 
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