Thank you, redbetta!
I am not sure I understand the point. What kind of weight do you expect this to have in combating the extremely vocal and well-funded local anti-Cordileone effort?
I am not sure I understand the point of petitions in general. I never personally sign them. I feel they carry little or no weight. I also feel, nay I know, that they are a sneaky and manipulative way to gather contact information for SPAM and other nefarious purposes.
So why should I sign petitions in general, and why should I sign yours in particular?
Interesting questions. I’ll do my best to answer them! The weight we have rather depends on the number of signatures we get! But I do think a collection of 150 signatures from young Catholics around the world would be a noble stand, and, in particular, a heartening sign for Archbishop Cordileone himself.
I think petitions can send out strong messages, similar to rallies and marches. The fact that 56,000 people have signed the LifeSiteNews petition in support of Archbishop Cordileone, that sounds out a mighty message! Our own petition is different and fall smaller, but there is still a point to it. Every little counts. Say each person who attended the March for Life in D.C. in January decided that, since there’s only one of them, they don’t make any difference. Well if they all did that, we’d have a pretty empty March for Life next year! And equally, because thousands of individuals across America decide to make their voices heard in unity with thousands of others, the March for Life can be even bigger next year. I say all this by way of analogy, because I think similar principles apply to petitions. As it is, the March for Life sounds out a really powerful message to America, to us in Britain, and to many other parts of the world. I believe petitions can do something similar, even if they’re not quite as substantive!
As for dodgy petitions, I’m sure there are some which do that, but with the service we are using, signatories opt in or out to receive additional materials (perhaps including spam), and I personally, as the petition creator, have no access to their email addresses.
Hope this helps!
