Petition to His Holiness, Pope Francis, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church

Your Holiness,

As the children of God, baptized into Christ and sealed in Confirmation by the Holy Spirit, we approach you in humility and charity to present our petition:

Holy Father, we beg you to remember that the Papacy, having been instituted by Christ, is the Rock upon which Christ has built His Church, in order that the gates of hell should never prevail against her. (cf: Matt 16:18-19)

Holy Father, we beg you to remember that the office you hold, that of Vicar of Christ is the universal Church’s visible source and foundation of her unity; and, as pastor over the entire Church, he who sits on the chair of Peter enjoys full, supreme, and universal power over the same. (CCC 882)

Holy Father, look at the tears we have shed in reading the Testimony of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, released on August 25, 2018,[i] for it contains numerous and grave accusations against you, Holy Father, accusations from which mistrust and suspicion arise against you. These allegations include:

That though you had been warned that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was a “serial predator,”[ii] you nevertheless withdrew the sanctions which Pope Benedict XVI imposed upon Cardinal McCarrick following the discovery of a pattern of sexual abuse by him, thereby exposing young men to new abuse.
That there is an entrenched culture of sexual corruption within the Vatican and within a significant portion of the senior hierarchy of the episcopacy, a situation with which you are well aware.[iii]
That you have consistently appointed men with strong homosexual tendencies and/or a sympathy for what must be called a ‘pro-gay ideology’ into positions of significant power within the hierarchy, and that some of these men appear to our eyes as being intent on “subverting Catholic doctrine,”[iv] such as Father James Martin, S.J., who has been appointed Consultor of the Secretariat for Communications, and who was recently invited to speak at the World Meeting of Families, even though his statements promoting a LGBT agenda,[v] have an enormous number of the faithful confused, scandalized, and grieved.
Holy Father, we beg you to consider that Monsignor Jean-François Lantheaume, the former First Counsellor at the Apostolic Nunciature in Washington D.C., has affirmed that what Archbishop Viganò wrote in his Testimony, is “the truth.”[vi]

Holy Father, for all these reasons, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has even demanded that you, Pope Francis, accept for yourself that same safeguard which you have promised to us as a means of eradicating the corruption in the Hierarchy, namely the removal of those bishops who have failed to protect the flock entrusted to their care, and therefore asks that you resign as Pope and Vicar of Christ.

Holy Father, we want to affirm the love we have for you as the Successor of St. Peter, for Catholics in every time and place possess a unique filial love and reverence towards the person of the Holy Father. With all our hearts we desire that he who fills the Petrine Office be defended from anything that would harm his person or the effectiveness of his ministry. But the accusations of someone with the authority of Archbishop Viganò does just this. His allegations create an air of mistrust and suspicion against your person and the perception of your ability to continue to minister effectively in the Petrine Office.

Holy Father, these accusations multiply the same distrust in the secular world, thereby threatening your Christian witness and moral authority in the world.

PETITION
Therefore, as the sheep entrusted to your care by the Good Shepherd, conscious of our authority as children of God the Father who have been purchased by the Blood of His beloved Son, we ask for an immediate, full and exhaustive investigation be made into these allegations so that the moral witness of your person, and that of the senior hierarchy of the Church, may be exonerated of all suspicion of incompetence, neglect, and evildoing.

We ask that this investigation be conducted by persons whose authority, neutrality, and moral witness, be universally self-evident, so that its exoneration of you, Holy Father, will be effective in restoring your person and the sacred Office you hold to the Church and to the world.

With profound filial love,

Your Children in Christ

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