The Remnant's Letter.
An Urgent Appeal to Pope Francis to Either Change Course or Renounce the Petrine Office
December 8, 2015
Feast of the Immaculate Conception
Feast of the Immaculate Conception
Your Holiness:
Pope Celestine V (r. 1294), recognizing his incapacity for the office to which he had so unexpectedly been elected as the hermit Peter of Morrone, and seeing the grave harm his bad governance had caused, resigned the papacy after a reign of only five months. He was canonized in 1313 by Pope Clement V. Pope Boniface VIII, removing any doubt about the validity of such an extraordinary papal act,confirmed in perpetuity (ad perpetuam rei memoriam) that “the Roman Pontiff may freely resign.”A growing number of Catholics, including cardinals and bishops, are coming to recognize that your pontificate, also the result of an unexpected election, is likewise causing grave harm to the Church. It has become impossible to deny that you lack either the capacity or the will to do what your predecessor rightly observed a pope must do: “constantly bind himself and the Church to obedience to God’s Word, in the face of every attempt to adapt it or water it down, and every form of opportunism.”
Pope Celestine V (r. 1294), recognizing his incapacity for the office to which he had so unexpectedly been elected as the hermit Peter of Morrone, and seeing the grave harm his bad governance had caused, resigned the papacy after a reign of only five months. He was canonized in 1313 by Pope Clement V. Pope Boniface VIII, removing any doubt about the validity of such an extraordinary papal act,confirmed in perpetuity (ad perpetuam rei memoriam) that “the Roman Pontiff may freely resign.”A growing number of Catholics, including cardinals and bishops, are coming to recognize that your pontificate, also the result of an unexpected election, is likewise causing grave harm to the Church. It has become impossible to deny that you lack either the capacity or the will to do what your predecessor rightly observed a pope must do: “constantly bind himself and the Church to obedience to God’s Word, in the face of every attempt to adapt it or water it down, and every form of opportunism.”
Quite the contrary, as shown in the annexed libellus, you have given many indications of an alarming hostility to the Church’s traditional teaching, discipline and customs, and the faithful who try to defend them, while being preoccupied with social and political questions beyond the competence of the Roman Pontiff. Consequently, the Church’s enemies continually delight in your pontificate, exalting you above all your predecessors. This appalling situation has no parallel in Church history.
Last year, speaking of Pope Benedict’s resignation, Your Holiness declared that if you felt incapable of exercising the papacy “I would do the same.” On the first anniversary of Benedict’s resignation, you called upon the faithful to “join me in prayer for His Holiness Benedict XVI, a man of great courage and humility.”
With no little trepidation, being under the gaze of the One who will judge us all on the Last Day, we your subjects respectfully petition Your Holiness to change course for the good of the Church and the welfare of souls. Failing this, would it not be better for Your Holiness to renounce the Petrine office than to preside over what threatens to be a catastrophic compromise of the Church’s integrity?
In this regard we make our own the words of Saint Catherine of Siena, Doctor of the Church, in her famous letter to Pope Gregory XI, urging him to steer the Church aright during one of her greatest crises: “Since He has given you authority and you have assumed it, you should use your virtue and power: and if you are not willing to use it, it would be better for you to resign what you have assumed…”
Mary, Help of Christians, pray for us!
Your subjects in Christ,
Christopher A. Ferrara
Michael J. Matt
Dr. John Rao
Professor Brian McCall
Elizabeth Yore
Timothy J. CullenJudge Andrew P. Napolitano
Chris Jackson
Michael Lofton
Father Celatus
Connie Bagnoli
Susan Claire Potts
Robert Siscoe
John Salza, Esq.
James Cunningham
Vincent Chiarello
John Vennari
Last year, speaking of Pope Benedict’s resignation, Your Holiness declared that if you felt incapable of exercising the papacy “I would do the same.” On the first anniversary of Benedict’s resignation, you called upon the faithful to “join me in prayer for His Holiness Benedict XVI, a man of great courage and humility.”
With no little trepidation, being under the gaze of the One who will judge us all on the Last Day, we your subjects respectfully petition Your Holiness to change course for the good of the Church and the welfare of souls. Failing this, would it not be better for Your Holiness to renounce the Petrine office than to preside over what threatens to be a catastrophic compromise of the Church’s integrity?
In this regard we make our own the words of Saint Catherine of Siena, Doctor of the Church, in her famous letter to Pope Gregory XI, urging him to steer the Church aright during one of her greatest crises: “Since He has given you authority and you have assumed it, you should use your virtue and power: and if you are not willing to use it, it would be better for you to resign what you have assumed…”
Mary, Help of Christians, pray for us!
Your subjects in Christ,
Christopher A. Ferrara
Michael J. Matt
Dr. John Rao
Professor Brian McCall
Elizabeth Yore
Timothy J. CullenJudge Andrew P. Napolitano
Chris Jackson
Michael Lofton
Father Celatus
Connie Bagnoli
Susan Claire Potts
Robert Siscoe
John Salza, Esq.
James Cunningham
Vincent Chiarello
John Vennari
Who are they do decide the pope should step down? They need to do some serious time. In Adoration.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what Papa Benny would say if he got wind of this letter and other letters like it from the self-proclaimed Catholic Remnant? I trust Papa Francis will pray for them and commend them to the Lord.
DeleteTerry, all I see before me is Papa Benny radiant and happy in our Holy Father's presence before they both walked through the door of Mercy. Nothing these sad folks have to say or do will change my mind/heart otherwise.
I think I'm going to go stick my head in the stand after reading this article: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-35040477
ReplyDeleteI'm going to close my eyes, stick my fingers in my ears, and sing lalalalala all day long. Praying, too, of course.
Wow.
DeleteSecular Environmentalists: "developing nations need to stop breeding to save the planet"
Cardinal Turkson: "developing nations need to stop breeding to save the planet but without contraception."
How could that ever be a proper Catholic response?
My question to population-purgers is, if a person is a net economic loss, how is there any economic value at all? Huh? Riddle me that, your Eminence.
I think he later back-tracked and said he meant it in a sort of NFP sense - natural spacing of children. He obviously 'mis-spoke' - Haha!
DeleteBetween him and the Bose prior Bianchi - the Pope's advisors reputations are the real disaster. I'm happy to ignore them. BTW - it's not a new thing - even in Benedict's pontificate there were some loose canons he had appointed.
I misspoke too - Turkson did correct himself. Still worried about the pror from Bose however. Well, not worried.
DeleteI know he meant NFP or whatever. Nothing illicit. I still think asking the developing world to just cool it with all the babies is terrible.
DeleteWho the h$&@ do these people think they are?!
ReplyDeleteAngela these people are the real perpetrators of the Works of the Devil in the Church .... Gossip! slander! calumny! Their love for Jesus is false like the people who cried "Lord! Lord!" But He does not hear their cries as they are the Neo-Pharisees of today.
DeleteThese people are almost, if not truly, separating themselves from the Church in "Self-schism" from Rome's busom. They are a whose who of Radicals Misrepresenting Traditonalists, with no authority and not one word of importance that deserves to be listened to.
Remnant: Against papal resignations, before they were for them.
ReplyDeleteI guess they're just doing what they gotta do to pay the electricity bill...
It's about time someone speak up and say what most of us are thinking. Pope Francis has done nothing but confuse the faithful. He is not helping the Church but hurting it. He should resign.
ReplyDelete"It's about time." Hahahahaha. Like this is a new thing that started last week. You're a funny guy.
DeleteIf only we had a Donald Trump, but for the Church...
Signing a purely symbolic petition like a bunch of petulent, whiny liberals....and I thought these guys were supposed to be trads.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
DeleteSorry ~N - I have to remove your comment. Like I said - I know some of these people, They are not what you say, they do not have small you know whats, their wives are beautiful and I willing to bet they do not have mounting debt.
DeleteBe nice.
Pat Archibold isn't a named signatory? Good for him.
ReplyDelete"Hey, those are some prestigious lay people." - Fr. Z
ReplyDeleteOK. I'm done with my comments on this.
Deep breaths. Serenity now. Serenity now.
Thanks be to God they are without any authority whatsoever except to those who follow them and I dare not think where either. I am going to sit with the huddled masses of the third world. I stand in the rain with mis hermanos/hermanas from the Phillipines while I listen with an open heart as to what our Holy Father is saying. I rejoice with the brethren in South America as one of their own brings the joy of the Risen Lord to them. I dance and sing for joy before the Lord's Vicar in Africa who comes to tell me I am loved and not abandoned by the One who made heaven and earth. The Church is no longer white nor is she eurocentric. The Church is universal and belongs to the Lord Jesus entrusted to us to love and defend and to share.
DeleteLet the proud have their day in the sun as evidenced by that smug letter. Those of us who far outnumber them, well, let's do as Papa Francis does and pray, trust, hope, confirm and love.
Terry, thanks for bringing this letter to light since it only serves to prove once again just who is wailing and raging against the Church.
I should note that this wouldn't concern me if the editors of the Remnant were not from here - I know some of the people connected with the family as well as sympathetic priests and faithful. They are good people, nice people. Well spoken, successful, devout, stable upright citizens. Deeply traditional and devoted to the Extraordinary Form, as well as suspicious of all things Vatican II - they nonetheless remain faithful to the Church. Perhaps sympathetic to SSPX, they are not sedevacantist - not saying the SSPX are - I'm just using it to demonstrate their deep attachment to Rome - despite the abuses resulting from Vatican II. They are good people. They are smart people, they know the Catholic faith - they may even be intellectual people - to some extent, they pride themselves on that, they pride themselves and assure themselves they are indeed more Catholic than the Pope. They politely value their knowledge above others, so to speak. They look down on the ignorant Novus Ordo folk - deluded by relativism as they are - they reject them out of hand because they just don't understand true worship in the Tridentine tradition. They have told me as much - I'm a liberal in their eyes - steeped in sin since birth, as it were.
ReplyDeleteThat said, it is very sad to see how far their attachment to traditionalism has taken them. The letter is well written - even rather respectfully written - which is scary because it may be attractive for those who are afraid of what is happening in the Church and/or misunderstand the Holy Father. I once wrote about a cult effect at a local parish - it seems to me this is part of it. It's fundamentally a rejection of Vatican II.
Actually it breaks my heart - because it sows and cultivates seeds of division.
I pray Our Lord will intervene. As he said in the Gospel, time will tell where wisdom lies/wisdom is vindicated by her works - the rest of us seem to be like those in the marketplace wanting either a dirge or a dance - in other words - a Church that suits our taste.
The whole thing is sad and deeply alienating.
I agree. I know many of these people as well, and although I find their tactics and attitudes revolting, I try to maintain a bit of apathy. I'm every bit a trad as they are, but having only been part of the movement for around five years, I guess my perspective is a bit different.
DeleteI became a trad in a post-Summorum Pontificum Church, so I didn't have to live through the many travesties and injustices that were done to traditionalists in the past several decades. With the Remnant crowd, I think the bunker mentality became so ingrained through the 1970's, 80's and 90's (rough times for the trad movement), that it's probably hard for them to acknowledge or accept that things are improving. Despite the fact that the number of EF Masses are growing, that traditional Catholic piety is making a comeback among millenials, that numerous Bishops and Cardinals worldwide are regularly celebrating EF Masses, etc. (all of these things being unthinkable even ten years ago), the rad-trad crowd still clings to the perception that the Church is in a state of utter hopelessness. Perhaps it's almost a bit of a Stockholm Syndrome affect. They're not content unless they're angry. Anger and bitterness is what they know....it's what they're comfortable with.
Carolus - you nailed it.
DeleteSSPX, Sedevacantists, Novus Ordo...who knew all this weird stuff existed (I didn't until I started reading these blogs) I say to them what our Priest used to say to us in school, "Just shut the hell up and go to Mass," (this was before everyone had to be hyper sensitive...now there would be parents screaming and sensitivity training...)
ReplyDeleteFirst I didn't know that we got to vote on the Pope. Second, nothing has changed so this all about "style," and that certain traddies don't like Francis is style.I wasn't really a big fan of John Paul II or Benedict's style but I respected the men and the position so you just..."go to Mass and shut up..."
The real big thing to mention is...not a damn thing has changed so move on and go back to your Tea Party Meetings and screaming about the gays and Obama or whatever is bugging them these days.
I like you so much. I like your priests advice to. If I were a priest I'd tell them the same thing - shut the hell up and go to mass. In confession I'd just say, knock it off and go to mass. I mentioned to a priest commenter that all he had to say to these people was "I don't know what the pope said, but the catechism says this and so get over it." Something like that.
DeleteBe gruff and tough - those were my favorite priests. When I first returned to the church/sacraments, the holy old - gruff - Capuchin told me, after I'd asked - 'yeah Fr. - what about the pope being infallible?' "Ah - don't worry about that - the last two infallible pronouncements were the BVM dogmas - he rarely speaks ex-cathdra. You'll figure it out. It's not a big deal."
So there you go - give straight answers or tell them to knock it off.
How many of you critics have read The Remnant's letter in full? There is quite a bit more than what is presented here. Can you truly read the letter, in full, with all of the specific issues and concerns it raises, and dismiss it? There has been a serious rupture with this pontificate. It is a break with all that has gone before.
ReplyDeleteWhat am I missing here? Is it some kind of religious crime to recommend that someone steps down from such an important post? Is it a crime to bring up a record of quotations and question them? Is it even unprecedented for this kind of thing (a letter requesting a resignation from the Pope) to happen? The answer to all of those things are "no". If St. Catherine of Sienna can ask a pope to resign, why shouldn't any of the faithful be afforded that same right?
ReplyDeleteI've read the letter, AND signed it. It doesn't mean that the Pope is a bad person, or that he is a heretic or that he is going to hell or that he isn't Catholic. All it means is that we don't feel that some of the issues being focused on here, are, like the letter says, within the realm of the competence of the papacy (climate change being one). It means that some of the off-the-cuff remarks are causing more problems in the world regarding its understanding of the truth (that the Church is becoming more tolerant and is heading towards acceptance of gay marriage, etc.). It doesn't mean that we aren't obedient to the Pope. It doesn't mean we are trying to force the Pope to abdicate. It doesn't mean that we are sedevacantist. It doesn't mean that we reject Vatican II (which if you actually look at the documents of Vatican II, it is most of the rest of the Church which actually has not implemented Vatican II reforms, but rather some kind of pseudo Vatican II).
Yes, it is the Holy Father's job to feed the sheep, but that does not mean that the faithful have nothing to offer intellectually or that the Holy Father by virtue of his office makes him a great pastor or intellectually superior to all the rest of the faithful. To paint the author's and signers of the letter as prideful people who feel they are "more Catholic than the Pope", etc., etc., is just plain wrong. Read the WHOLE letter, not just the small excerpt posted here. And just because you don't want to ask the Pope to resign doesn't make you more Catholic than the rest of us.
For what its worth I love this blog, but this post has painted your opposition as unfairly (in this case) as you seem to believe they are doing to the Pope. And for the record, I signed the petition not because I dislike the Pope, or even because I necessarily agreed with every penstroke in the petition, but because of the real-life confusion of people I meet in regards to what Pope Francis says. People who already have confusion over what the Church teaches are expressing even greater confusion in light of many of Francis's remarks. IMHO, that is not helpful for evangelization and unification.
The Vicar of Christ is not just "someone." He is Christ's personal representative here on earth. He is the one and only person on earth who has been given the Keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. Even though he may personally be the greatest of sinners, he cannot mislead the Church.
DeleteWe, as laity, do not have a right to sit in judgment of the Holy Father. We can certainly pray for him. In fact, it is our duty to pray for him. But we never, never, never have a right to sit in judgment of him. That is the sole prerogative of Jesus Christ.
By calling for the Pope's resignation, he has been reduced to no more than an politician. If that is what you think he is, then you have lost complete sight of what it means to be Catholic.
BTW - where did St. Catherine of Siena ask the pope to resign? She told him he needed to go back to Rome, not resign.
DeleteYou read different history books than I do.
Great defense Catholic in Brooklyn - I agree with you - I'm also just commenting to your reply because you pointed out the error in the claim concerning St. Catherine - she never ever asked the Pope to resign, but to return to Rome and continue to reign.
DeleteBy calling for the pope's resignation they are treating him as they would any temporal leader/politician, and they are acting like those Protestants who pick and choose pastors.
As the author of the comment you respond to said, people are already confused regarding Church teaching and this attempt by the Remnant has created even more confusion among them.
God bless you, Catholic in Brooklyn! I learned something today that both you and Terry clarified regarding St. Catherine of Sienna. I do hope these folks who are misquoting her remember that while she is a Doctor of the Church, she loved the Vicar of Christ and never assumed to disrespect him. I am glad to have my confusion cleared up as to what she actually meant when addressing the Pope of her time.
DeleteAnother thing, if these folks are what Z claims they are, "prominent lay people," why are they not addressing the confusion by setting up some courses on what the Church teaches and what she does not teach? How about a course on Mercy and love of neighbor and how to pray for those whom one dislikes? I am thinking they should do a novena for Papa Francis too. Put their vast knowledge of the faith to work not ass they believe it to be but as the Catholic Church and the Saints have taught down through the ages warts and all.
A rigid back will only break with time ... snap and become brittle too.
These comments need a LIKE button!
DeleteLet me just point out that Jesus himself said he came to bring division -- among family members certainly and are we not family in the Church? Many of the approved apparitions of the Church have pointed out that Rome herself would lose the faith. Was she just talking about the city? Or was she addressing the division in the center of the Church. It seems rather obvious to me in view of what we saw at the Synod and elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteYaya, I appreciate your sincerity, but I think you are being unfair. I know some of the people connected with the letter which I have not yet signed, but am considering it. They do address the doctrine. That's why they publish Catholic Family News. They also address "mercy and love of neighbor and how to pray for those whom one dislikes." Actually, I do not see them "disliking" anyone, but trying to promote the truth. Is it wrong to hate and try to correct error?
ReplyDeleteI do not see them making ad hominem attacks, but addressing scandals against Catholic doctrine. It is not rigid to believe in "absolute truth." There is such a thing and Jesus is its epitome. Pope Benedict XVI constantly preached against the dangers of moral relativism and The Remnant see this pope as its champion. Are they wrong? He often says things that support doctrine, but then he says something that undermines it. (He reminds me of Cardinal Bernardin in that way.)
I agree with DeusNobiscum above. Confusion is not a mark of Christ. And it is a danger to souls. I know several young people who no longer practice the faith because they have been so scandalized by the confusion. I pray for the pope every day, but there is something seriously wrong when the head of the Church is so thoroughly loved and approved of by the world.
The latest document on not evangelizingthe Jews is just one more example of the confusion. What does that do to the Gospel of St. Matthew who wrote explicitly for the conversion of the Jews? Are we more enlightened now? Or was St. Matthew simply wrong? It is all most disturbing.