Ss. Peter
& Paul Roman Catholic Mission
P. O. Box
7352
York, PA
17408
717-792-2789
saintspeterandpaulrcm@comcast.net
Very Rev. Robert M. Gillelan,
Jr.
Vicar
General
Diocese
of Harrisburg
4800
Union Deposit Road
Harrisburg, PA 17111-3710
September
29, 2012
+Dedication of St. Michael
Encl:
Rev. Robert Gillelan's letter to Mr. David C. Smith, August 20, 2012
Dear
Rev. Gillelan,
In
your letter to Mr. David C. Smith, August 20, 2012, you said that you "presume"
Rev. Samuel Waters’ "ordination to be valid" because he was ordained
by "John Cardinal Kroll." Firstly, he was not ordained by Cardinal
"Kroll." He was ordained by
Cardinal Krol.
And secondly, the definition of "presume" is "to accept
that something is almost certain to be correct even though there is no proof of
it, on the grounds that it is extremely likely." The word implies taking something for granted
or accepting it as true, usually on the basis of probable evidence in its favor
and the absence of proof to the contrary.
Since you only “presume” Fr. Waters’ ordination to be valid, do you then
only "presume" Bishop Joseph McFadden's "ordination to be
valid" for the same reason?
Which
raises the question, how is it then, after raising the possibility that Fr.
Waters’ ordination (and thus Bishop McFadden's) is less than certain, you can
affirm without a question of doubt that Saints Peter and Paul Roman Catholic
Mission is a "schismatic church"?
On
our web page entitled, "Canned Answers
to Stale Objections," is the following reply to the allegation
that we "are a group in schism from the Catholic Church":
Are
they? Then why do they pray for the Pope
and the local bishop by name in the Rosary of Reparation recited daily in their
chapel? Why do they pray for the Pope
and the local bishop in every Mass offered in their chapel? Schism, as an ecclesiastical crime, is
defined as failure to hold communion with the Pope in Rome or with those in
communion with him. If it is true that
the members of Ss. Peter & Paul have failed to hold communion with the
local bishop and the pope, why have they formally petitioned for their official
judgment regarding matters of Faith and Morals?
Where is the evidence of the findings of fact and legal judgment
determined from a formal canonical judicial case against them? The Masses offered at Ss. Peter & Paul
Roman Catholic Mission are open to the public. Since you are advising Catholics not to
attend their Masses, are you refusing “communion” with them? Who then is guilty of “schism”?
The
accusation of "schism" is a criminal charge. It is a criminal charge that has been
publicly denied for years. But for
someone who cannot take the time to check the correct spelling of Cardinal Krol's name I do not suppose you have taken the time to
look any deeper into this question before you bother smearing someone's
reputation.
When a
criminal charge is denied, you cannot, without sin, canonically or morally
affirm that the accused is a criminal, while at the same time denying due
process. Due process has been demanded
from Bishop Nicholas Dattilo, from Bishop Kevin
Rhoades and now from Bishop Joseph McFadden.
Since our local ordinary has historically demonstrated a prejudicial
bias and incompetency in evaluating the theological questions involved, we have
asked for a judgment from the Chair of Peter from which every faithful Catholic
is entitled. We have yet to get a local ordinary in Harrisburg with the
requisite virtue of charity, which always and necessarily entails the attribute
of devotion to duty, to bring a formal canonical case that can be directly
appealed to the Chair of Peter.
You
said in your letter that you "do not want to be uncharitable." Then my advice is that you stop being
uncharitable for without charity nothing else has value. Charity firstly requires that you keep the
commandments and calumny is a grave sin.
Secondly, charity requires that you fulfill the duties proper to your
state in life. Your duty, and Bishop
McFadden's, is to bring a canonical case against the doctrinal, liturgical,
moral and canonical positions publically professed in the documents published
by our Mission. For if they are true, we have not only a right but a duty to do
what we are doing, and if they are determined from the infallible Chair of
Peter to be false, then your obligation in charity will have been fulfilled. After all, the purpose of a canonical
judicial procedure is to discover the truth, and the purpose of imposing a
canonical penalty is to bring back those who have erred from the truth, thus it
is an act of charity. When truth is
divorced from charity, charity ceases to exist.
If you would understand this you would understand why over the last
fifty years there has been the greatest collapse of the Catholic faith beyond
all compass in the entire history of the Church.
Would
it be fair if we were to publicly declare as fact that Bishop McFadden was
guilty of aiding and abetting Cardinal Krol in the
felonious scandal of covering up the sexual molestation of Catholic adolescent
boys based upon the Philadelphia Grand Jury findings in 2005 and 2012 because
Bishop McFadden served as Cardinal Krol's personal
secretary, without giving Bishop McFadden an opportunity to defend his
name? Schism is a greater sin than
pederasty and pederasty is a crime for which "it were better for him that
a millstone should be hanged about his neck, and that he should be drowned in
the depth of the sea" (Matt. 18, 6).
We
are beginning the 'Year of Faith" and the "new evangelization"
to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of Vatican II. The last "year of Faith," two years
after the end of that same council, in the heady days of the new
"springtime" of the Church, began June 29, 1967, the feast of Ss.
Peter and Paul. The suppression of the
Oath Against Modernism followed in July 1967. Then we got the updated Bugnini
edition of the Novus Ordo Missal and the year closed
with the publication of the "Credo of the People of God," heavily
footnoted to this same non-dogmatic pastoral council. Since then, the greatest decline in the
Catholic Faith and practice in the history of the Church,
has occurred. If you dispute this claim
I would recommend that you borrow the Index
of Leading Catholic Indicators by Kenneth Jones that was sent to Bishop
McFadden August 18, 2010. For this you
and Bishop McFadden will unhappily have, in part, to answer.
While
others in their dotage are still searching for the "true meaning" of
Vatican II, we at Ss. Peter & Paul Roman Catholic Mission have spent our
time more profitably. We publicly affirm
that God has imposed upon us, by virtue of our baptism, the obligation to
profess our faith and worship Him in the public forum. Therefore, we possess by right the unimpeded
use of the immemorial Ecclesiastical traditions of the Roman rite which are the
perfect outward manifestation of the faith we hold in the internal forum. These Ecclesiastical traditions, the most
important of which is the immemorial Roman rite of Mass, are not, and never
could be, matters of simple discipline. That these immemorial traditions are necessary and integral
elements of the Faith by which it can be known and communicated and without
which, "it is impossible to please God" (Heb. 11, 16). Furthermore, the regulating of these
traditions to mere accidents of the Faith that can be legally discarded at the
whim of any legislator is a modern error that is one of the most important
reasons why the faith is dying throughout the world. We have affirmed that no ecclesiastic of
whatever rank or dignity possess the authority to damage the Faith. Since no one seems to understand why the last
"Year of Faith" was followed by ruin and desolation, how can this
coming "Year of Faith" and "new evangelization,"
established upon the same first principles, bear anything but the same fruit?
We
petition again that the claims of Ss. Peter & Paul Roman Catholic Mission
on questions of Faith, worship, morals, and canon law be respectively submitted
to the See of St. Peter for a definitive judgment
from the infallible Chair, or, that the diocese of Harrisburg bring their own
canonical censors against us on these questions that will serve as a means to
appeal to the judgment of Pope Benedict from the infallible Chair of St. Peter.
Failing
to get the canonical process which we have demanded, perhaps we can get
something less from you. We have for
years publically posted an open invitation for a cleric from the diocese to
enter into a public written debate on the liturgical, doctrinal, canonical and
moral claims of Ss. Peter and Paul Roman Catholic Mission. Perhaps you would be interested in doing so?
Sincerely
in Christ,
David
M. Drew
Chairman
Ss.
Peter & Paul Roman Catholic Mission
cc:
Bishop Joseph McFadden
Board members, Ss. Peter & Paul Roman
Catholic Mission