Edit: we don't place much stock in petitions, but here it is from the Remnant.
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.”
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?
http://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/2198-the-year-of-mercy-begins
I believe I could understand the Editor(s) lack of enthusiasm for petitions if the success or failure of a petition were entirely judged on whether or not the stated object of the petition was achieved.
ReplyDeleteI have signed this petition of The Remnant (and an earlier one circulated by One Peter Five) because I believe that ultimately, if not principally, it serves as a public form of fraternal correction and charitable duty much like that spoken of by the prophet Ezekiel:
"When I threaten I the sinner with doom of death, it is for thee to give him word, and warn him, as he loves his life, to have done with sinning. If not, he shall die as he deserves, but for his undoing thyself shalt be called to account. If thou warn him, and leave his rebellious sinning he will not, die he shall as he deserves, and thou go free. Or if the upright man leaves his innocence, and I take him unawares in his wrong-doing, dies he for want of warning? Die he shall, his good deeds all forgotten, but thou for his undoing shalt be called to account." Ezekiel 3:18-20
I myself recommend prayerful contemplation of The Remnant's petition and thereafter adding one's name to the signatories.
Peace.
This version of the text from Ezekiel (below) may prove easier to read than the version by Msgr. Ronald Knox referenced above:
Delete"When I say to the wicked, 'You will surely die,' and you do not warn him or speak out to warn the wicked from his wicked way that he may live, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand.
Yet if you have warned the wicked and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his wicked way, he shall die in his iniquity; but you have delivered yourself..."
Well said, Liam. We act because it's the right thing to do, not because we are likely to succeed in the request made. God bless.
DeleteWell said ! May God bless with abundant grace and wisdom all at The Eponymous Flower and all that defend our beloved Catholic Faith.
DeleteThe point is that is Catholic Action. To paraphrase and draw from was said by a militia leader after the battles of the Vendee Valley..."We have not restored Thy throne and Altars, but we have defended them!"
ReplyDeleteAlready had signed, together with my husband...!!! Thank you for placing it here... We need CHANGE OF THE COURSE! This pope is a pure shame...
ReplyDeleteThe current papal incumbent has only one principal objective which is to bring about the ultimate liberal modernist policy of pantheism. He has no time for Roman Catholicism - he is its avowed enemy.
ReplyDeleteHmmm, should I sign it? Let's see what it says:
ReplyDelete"Your Holiness:..."
Whoops, that's it. I'm out.
signed it some days ago. Thank you Tancred for helping get the word out.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone really think this pope will be affected or moved by such a petition? Recall what he said about the holy rosary bouquet...
ReplyDeleteNo, none does, he's a heart of stone....
ReplyDeleteAfter seeing him speak on the video in the Lutheran Church on Communion for the Lutherans recieving in the Catholic Church,I have to agree. He should resign.7
ReplyDeleteI signed even though I've become a sedevacantist. He, at least, bodily occupies the chair of Peter so I guess there's the remote chance that he could convert, abolish Vat 2 and return the church traditionalism.
ReplyDeleteHowever the Bergoglio head is just one of many heads of the evil hydra of cardinals. If the Bergoglio head is cut off, another ugly hydra head will likely replace him.
Seattle Kim