Letting His Holiness Know

[JRKH]

A couple of other threads prompted me tow start this one. The first was the news of the Holy Father’s visit. Second was a question on how to notify Rome of liturgical abuses. The third was a thread where a catholic has stopped attending Church due to abuses and his inability to get satisfaction from the Bishop.

Thus:

The Holy Father is coming to the US in April.
One of his visits will be to the USCCP.
Wouldn’t it be nice if His Holiness and those close to him had, fresh in their minds the great number of American Catholics concerned with the state of defiance in the American Church.

Therefore:

We should conduct a letter writing campaign with 2 goals

1. Expressing our joy over the Moto Proprio on the TLM
2. Inform His Holiness of the grave instances of abuse seen in the various diocese in the US.

Those who do write of abuses should have these things documented and be clear. Don’t just write a rampaging diatribe.
Document the abuses and the canons they violate. Document your attempts to correct them and the answers (or lack thereof) you received.

I think it would be a good thing to do individual letters rather than “petitions” because of the “volume” effect. Let’s do this now so that His Holiness will hsave time to adjust his itinerary and spend more time with the Bishops.

What do you think?

James

 

[benedictgal]

A couple of other threads prompted me tow start this one. The first was the news of the Holy Father’s visit. Second was a question on how to notify Rome of liturgical abuses. The third was a thread where a catholic has stopped attending Church due to abuses and his inability to get satisfaction from the Bishop.

Thus:

The Holy Father is coming to the US in April.
One of his visits will be to the USCCP.
Wouldn’t it be nice if His Holiness and those close to him had, fresh in their minds the great number of American Catholics concerned with the state of defiance in the American Church.

Therefore:

We should conduct a letter writing campaign with 2 goals

1. Expressing our joy over the Moto Proprio on the TLM
2. Inform His Holiness of the grave instances of abuse seen in the various diocese in the US.

Those who do write of abuses should have these things documented and be clear. Don’t just write a rampaging diatribe.
Document the abuses and the canons they violate. Document your attempts to correct them and the answers (or lack thereof) you received.

I think it would be a good thing to do individual letters rather than “petitions” because of the “volume” effect. Let’s do this now so that His Holiness will hsave time to adjust his itinerary and spend more time with the Bishops.

What do you think?

James

If I can break free form my Bare Escentuals vice , I will certainly make the trek from Texas to be there. Some folks down here wrote a letter to Cardinal Arinze some time back and have not seen anything, yet, because our local ordinary has not taken much of a stand on anything. I do not underestimate His Holiness not knowing we’ve got problems down here. I think he will use this to shore up the faithful and get us moving in the right direction. I’m just afaid of what the rebellious folks who hold fast to heretical beliefs will do. He wasn’t very well received in New York the last time he was there.

 

[Michael_Welter]

Our Bishop, and therefore our parish, have “overridden” instructions from the Vatican on many ocassions, and continue to do so. Personally, I would love to see something done about it. Do you have an address where we should write these letters?

 

[JRKH]

Our Bishop, and therefore our parish, have “overridden” instructions from the Vatican on many ocassions, and continue to do so. Personally, I would love to see something done about it. Do you have an address where we should write these letters?

A thousand Pardons for not posting the link.

There was a post just recently on the subject:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=2961895#post2961895

I copied this from one of the other threads:

To write a letter to the pope address your envelope like this:

His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI
Vatican City
Rome, Italy

In your letter begin with: Your Holiness,

And conclude with: I have the honor to be, Your Holiness, (your name)

Update: Another forum member has pointed out that the Vatican web site includes a link to email a greeting to the Holy Father (or just use this email address: benedictxvi@vatican.va).

---

Jim Blackburn
Catholic Answers Apologist

James

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Its sad that the Pope has chosen not to visit the Archdioceses of Boston, where the largest sex abuse scandal in the US, caused so much pain and damage to the Church.

His visit to Boston could’ve brought much healing, but for whatever reason, this is not going to happen.

Jim

 

[benedictgal]

Its sad that the Pope has chosen not to visit the Archdioceses of Boston, where the largest sex abuse scandal in the US, caused so much pain and damage to the Church.

His visit to Boston could’ve brought much healing, but for whatever reason, this is not going to happen.

Jim

Jim: the Church in America doesn’t revolve around Boston. He’s got some deeper issues to settle here. Of course, he could have visited Dallas, which brought all of this mess to the fore, and that’s in Texas, but I’m not complaining.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Jim: the Church in America doesn’t revolve around Boston. He’s got some deeper issues to settle here. Of course, he could have visited Dallas, which brought all of this mess to the fore, and that’s in Texas, but I’m not complaining.

So you find things like, singing"Glory and Praise to Our God," the priest facing the people at Mass and other things you’ve been complaining about in this forum, as being a serious issue, but not the sex abuse scandal?

Jim

 

[benedictgal]

So you find things like, singing"Glory and Praise to Our God," the priest facing the people at Mass and other things you’ve been complaining about in this forum, as being a serious issue, but not the sex abuse scandal?

Jim, you may not care about how the Mass is celebrated (BTW, your posts betray you), but a great many of us do. Everything we are as a Church centers around the Mass. Mess that up and you’ve got problems galore. You may not regard the Mass with the same passion as many of us on the forum do. That’s your problem. The sex abuse scandal is serious, but, it’s not restricted to the Church.

If you want to rant and rave about the sex scandals, there are other threads. Don’t hijack the original purpose of this thread.

Jim

 

[benedictgal]

Jim, as perplexed as I am with you, I certainly did not mean to include my statements into your quote. I just don’t know how to work this button yet.

 

[otjm]

It might be time to remind everyone that there are what - a billion Catholics in the world? 2 billion?

In any event, the Pope does not micromanage the Church. when he is here - or anywhere, for that matter, he has a very full schedule. He has at least one if not more than one personal secretary, and among the jobs of a personal secretary is to filter out what he receives and what he doesn’t receive.

If you want to write a letter, then send it to someone who has control over the issues you wish to take up; there are a number of dicasteries in Rome, charged with responsiblity for various aspects and functions of the Church. Sending it to the correct one will at least see that it gets there; sending it directly to the Pope and the secretary might send it there, and they might not.

People have been writing letters to Rome for nigh on 40 years now, and we have how many problems going on around us? And those letters did what?

There was one diocese that was having particular problems, and someone was smart enough to video tape the issues, and got it to the right dicastery; and some of the more gross issues were cleaned up.

Some. Not all, by any stretch of the imagination.

 

[JRKH]

otjm,
Thank you for your post.
Of course you are right in that the Holy Father will, as always, have a very tight schedule. I guess I just hope he takes the opportunity to “explain” to the bishops that they are at risk of losing a great many more sheep if they do not become better sheperds. After all a sheperd doesn’t let his flock go wandering off all over the place just because the sheep think they know best. The sheperd who thinks that way may soon find himself with no flock at all.

James