A mother writes the pope - and
still awaits any answer after months
Translated from
November 30, 2017
It is not just cardinals, theologians, university professors or persons with a professional interest in following the affairs of the Church who write this pope to express their perplexity and unease in the face of his apparent abandonment of basic and well-consolidated moral principles.
The simple faithful too have had the courage to do this on their own, sending letters to the pope. Some of them, who have not received any answer, have written me, thinking that perhaps through me, there may be a 'privileged' way to get through to the Pontiff. I received two in the past few days, one from the United States and one from Italy, but certainly there must be many others whom we will never know about.
A few days ago, someone with whom we have been in contact through Twitter, though we do not know each other personally, sent me a direct message after I had published on this blog a letter from a colleague and friend who gave vent to his frustrations with this pontificate.
My Twitter acquaintance whom I shall call Maria said: "I read the last letter you published and something came to my mind:
Would it be doable to publish letters from so many 'simple folk' who have written to the pope just this year alone? Above all, is it allowable to do so? Without using real names, obviously… I personally wrote him in February 2016 [two months before AL!], and to my bishop, in the same vein, a few months ago." She claims she has not received any reply from either.
Therefore Maria suggests the creation of a rubric (column or blog) where the 'ordinary' faithful can publish the letters they have sent that have not been answered, and concludes:
"If there were a chorus of voices rising from the flock, perhaps cardinals and bishops would find the courage to break the silence behind which, in my opinion, they have been hiding in cowardice… I thought of the fable in which a child cries out "But the emperor is naked!"… In a tweet where I said this, others wrote to say that they would have wanted to write the pope as well, some even asking for the best address to send it to. And that is why I make this proposal".
But what did Maria write the pope, to which she did not even receive the usual little note of acknowledgment from some functionary at the Secrtariat of State - whose office, it must be remembered, made the headlines for sending a letter that conveyed a blessing to a lesbian couple in Latin America in the name of the pope.
[And who knows what letters this office may have been sending in the name of the pope to Bergoglians who are as anti-Catholic as the pope?] Here is Maria's letter:
Holy Father,
I am a 'normal' woman, wife and mother.
I present myself this way because I would like you, in reading my letter – if they will let you read it personally – to think of your mother who would most certainly have been a 'normal' woman, wife and mother.
So I am not a lesbian who wants to have a child, nor a remarried divorcee who is supposedly shunned in her parish. I am just a normal person. Perhaps that is why I am afraid that you would not deign to answer me.
But, I ask you, would you not answer your own mother?
As a normal woman, wife and mother, I cannot be silent about all the pain that I experience from what I am seeing at the beginning of the third millennium – in the world, in the family, and most of all, in the Church.
I am married to the only man in the world alongside whom I shall grow old for good or bad. We have the gift of two daughters, now both adults, whom we sought to raise above all with respect for those inalienable values that, with great difficulty and day to day, my husband and I have sought to defend despite everything, for them and in them.
I shall cite merely the latest episode to give you an idea what I am referring to. My daughters have heard you say on TV that "avoiding pregnancy is not an absolute evil in some cases", which gave rise to a discussion in the household.
Obviously, my daughters quickly added 2+2, and said, "So therefore, contraception is not evil; committing impure acts which we would consider 'acts of love' is not evil, as long as we avoid getting pregnant".
You see the point? But that is just one example. I could make you a thousand other examples which have now become daily routine.
I know – because one day I confided at a meeting of catechists, stating the sin but not the sinner – how much a poor priest of my acquaintance had to do battle in order to convince a boy that performing homosexual acts was a sin, that he had to ask forgiveness in confession, while the boy insisted to him , "But the pope said… the pope said…"
This has seemed to become the scenario of every day for every problem: on the one hand, there is what the pope says about freedom, joy and sin; on the other hand, there are the poor priests who, in silent prayer, fight sin with all they can do yet who do not feel that the Vicar of Christ is with them in this battle.
It is maddening!
I realize perfectly well the 'weight' it must be – for any human even if assisted with God's grace – to guide 'the barque of Peter'. But do you, Holy Father, realize the 'weight' that each word of yours would have – and the evil it may produce for the soul - of those who listen to you?
I would like to hope that all this is not being done out of 'sheer calculation' but is the result of your excessively ingenuous, though horrible, spontaneity!
Because if this were deliberate calculation, I would feel myself completely betrayed by the Holy Father who has received from Christ the task of confirming his flock in the faith, not to instill doubts and to destroy that faith.
In conclusion, I would like to ask you then: Do you think that your mother – who is certainly observing you from heaven and therefore is now in full possession of the Truth – would be happy with you now?
While assuring you of remembrance in my humble prayers, I thank you for the time you would have given to read what I wrote, hoping that it may help you in deciding to convert.
With tears in my eyes, I offer you, Holiness, my filial greetings.
I think that such trust deserves an answer – and reassurance.
[Modificato da TERESA BENEDETTA 07/12/2017 02:49]