VATICAN SUMMIT NEWS: Two Cardinals Intervene, Lay Catholics Demonstrate in Rome

Michael Matt, reporting from Rome, before Francis's farce of a 'sexual abuse summit'.

From The Remnant

By Michael J. Matt

Flanked by Michael Matt and 100 Catholic activists, Professor Roberto de Mattei leads the Stop the Silence demonstration in Rome today, two days before the Vatican Summit on clerical sexual abuse.

I’m writing tonight in the shadow of St. Peter’s Basilica, having just participated in the Stop the Silence public demonstration organized by our friends and allies of the international coalition called Acies Ordinata here in Rome. This demonstration concluded with a press conference in which Catholic representatives from Poland, Canada, the US, Italy, France, and England addressed mainstream media reporters from the AP, ABCNews, the Tablet, and many others.

View Michael Matt’s statement at today’s press conference:

The goal of this event was to call on the Vatican to address the root cause of the clerical sexual abuse crisis in the Church—homosexuality in the priesthood—not merely the abuse of minors. The demonstration itself included about 100 Catholic activists taking over the Piazza San Silvestro, in silent and prayerful witness to the many hundreds of thousands of Catholics around the world who have lost confidence in the Vatican’s desire and ability to confront this crisis.

Tomorrow our RTV team here in Vatican City will present video coverage of this extraordinary event, but tonight I wanted to share with our readers the exciting news that the prayers of Catholics around the world have been answered in the form of a poignant and powerful intervention against Vatican silence on the part of two high-ranking cardinals of the Catholic Church.

The letter appears below. We encourage our readers to continue to pray that this letter has the desired effect that its courageous authors intend. God bless and protect Cardinals Burke and Brandmüller.

OPEN LETTER TO THE PRESIDENTS OF THE CONFERENCES OF BISHOPS

Dear Brothers, Presidents of the Conferences of Bishops,

We turn to you with deep distress!

The Catholic world is adrift, and, with anguish, the question is asked: Where is the Church going?

Before the drift in process, it seems that the difficulty is reduced to that of the abuse of minors, a horrible crime, especially when it is perpetrated by a priest, which is, however, only part of a much greater crisis. The plague of the homosexual agenda has been spread within the Church, promoted by organized networks and protected by a climate of complicity and a conspiracy of silence. The roots of this phenomenon are clearly found in that atmosphere of materialism, of relativism and of hedonism, in which the existence of an absolute moral law, that is without exceptions, is openly called into question.

Sexual abuse is blamed on clericalism. But the first and primary fault of the clergy does not rest in the abuse of power but in having gone away from the truth of the Gospel. The even public denial, by words and by acts, of the divine and natural law, is at the root of the evil that corrupts certain circles in the Church.

In the face of this situation, Cardinals and Bishops are silent. Will you also be silent on the occasion of the meeting called in the Vatican for this coming February 21st?

We are among those who in 2016 presented to the Holy Father certain questions, “dubia,” which were dividing the Church in the wake of the conclusions of the Synod on the Family. Today, those “dubia” have not only not had any response but are part of a more general crisis of the Faith. Therefore, we encourage you to raise your voice to safeguard and proclaim the integrity of the doctrine of the Church.

We pray to the Holy Spirit, that He may assist the Church and bring light to the Pastors who guide her. A decisive act now is urgent and necessary. We trust in the Lord Who has promised: “Behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world” (Mt 28,20).

Walter Cardinal Brandmüller
Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke