Dear Holy Father,
I urgently need your help and so do others. I have heard all you have been saying for months and I want to believe it is true. I want to believe the you want to decentralize the authority of the Church. I know that you don’t want us to be hung up rules that limit our worship to just one way of doing things, that you want to do away with arbitrary rigidity. I know that you are concerned about the little guy, those in the Church with no voice.
Well, this is where I need your help. Holy Father, there is a group within the Church that currently has no voice and is being abused by that arbitrary, rigid, and centralized Church that is so destructive of evangelization.
Holy Father, the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate need your protection from that very Church.
December 18, 2013 at 3:54 pm
I am beginning to have trouble believing his words now. The dismantling of a holy order for specious reasons and with his approval is most disconcerting. To stop the Marian apostolates…days of prayer, Holy Mass, confessions and processions to honor Our Lady by one who says he loves her, is confusing. The appointments of "pastoral" ( to be charitable) ones to high places means more of the same we have had for years. No clean up of a certain lobby either. But a faithful order gets smashed and the holy, prayerful, and faithful religious and laity are now the criminals to be exiled and defamed? This is seriously wrong and a very bad sign. May the holy father relent and show his mercy at at this point seems to be for everyone but the very faithful. And may he stop the name calling too.
December 18, 2013 at 4:05 pm
Matt and Magdalene you both need to step back and try to relax. I too was upset and angry about this whole issue mostly because the secular media even reported it last weekend. However I saw a clarification on Gloria TV a couple of days ago and a link to a report on Catholic World News. It is very long and it talks about the how the Group got started until the last couple of years and the actions taken in July. CWN I assume would be accurate in their reporting but when you read it makes some sense . Please go to their site at Catholic World Report. Ignatius Press prints these reports so please read it.
December 18, 2013 at 6:25 pm
The Catholic World News report is far from a thorough assessment of the situation, nor does it even pretend to be. Moreover, it bears not the slightest mention of the real elephant in the room: how Vatican authorities look upon decadent (Jean Danielou’s apt term) religious congregations with passivity, yet employ virtually unheard of disciplinary measures against the Franciscans. The juxtaposition is nothing short of disturbing.
The CWN article, alas, cannot be taken seriously.
December 19, 2013 at 10:30 am
Bless you but this is like the starving Ukranians forlornly saying, "If only Stalin knew what's going on!" Rome already knows and does not care.
December 19, 2013 at 4:02 pm
Think about this for a minute. The Pope not too long ago was talking about the Council of Trent and also about the importance of UNA VOCE and their work. Was he just putting on an act? We have yet to hear from Michael Vorris or Fr Z on this issue as a reason to be concerned. Michael would speak up but yesterday he defend Francis on his AE. Ditto for Cardinal de Hoyos.
December 24, 2013 at 8:31 pm
Sorry but for me Francis is simply the first true Pope of the post Conciliar Church and as he has said himself, the will be no place for Revisionists in the Church of today. What could be more revisionists than the FFI. Francis reads his post, checks the internet and calls who he likes on the phone, even calling a reporter who criticised him in the press. He knows what is going on with this poor order and I have no doubt he approves otherwise it would stop. The hermeneutic of continuity had its chance and as much as I still truly love him Benedict abandoned us, and Francis is now going to make sure that the hermeneutic of rupture will have its chance. His previous statements and recent curial appointments say all that need to be said about where he's taking the Church. Other bloggers will spin his words and deeds to high heaven, but they're just burying their heads in the sand. If you are a traditional Catholic Francis is not your friend – if he was, we wouldn't be having this conversation.