Ss. Peter
& Paul Roman Catholic Mission
P.
O. Box 7352
York,
PA 1740
717-792-2789
www.saintspeterandpaulrcm.com
January 2, 2008
Most Holy Name of Jesus
Bishop
Kevin C. Rhoades
Diocese
of Harrisburg
4800
Union Deposit Road
Box
2153
Harrisburg,
PA 17105-2153
Dear
Bishop Rhoades,
After
reviewing your last letter, I must confess that I am disappointed in your
reply. When we say that you have a
“serious moral obligation to respond,” it means that the duty imposed by your
office requires that you respond with a formal judgment in the name of the
Church by virtue of your office regarding the claims of Ss. Peter and Paul
Roman Catholic Mission. What you have
offered is your personal canonical opinion.
You
implied in your letter of November 18, 2005 that you were a man of conscience,
that is, a man who insures the formation of a conscience that is both true and
certain and then acts according to that conscience. Surely you must know that as Catholics we have
a right to an authoritative judgment from the Church on our claim because it
touches upon the very nature of our faith.
You have the obligation to either institute your own adversarial
canonical process against us from which judgment a direct appeal to Rome can be
made, or you must simply refer the matter to Rome asking directly for the
authoritative judgment of our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI. Either course of action would fulfill your
obligation, but this you have refused to do.
A canonical opinion was neither solicited nor wanted from you.
I
am fully aware of the canons that you cite in your letter. You know as well as I that canon law is human
law, is hierarchical, and does not bind in cases of necessity or impossibility,
has no power against a conscience that is both true and certain which every
Catholic is obliged to follow, and most importantly, can never be employed
against the proper end of the Church which is the teaching of the Catholic
Faith for the salvation of souls. To
quote these canons to us after we have submitted our claim to you is just one
big begging of the question.
You
recently permitted St. Patrick Cathedral to be used for the installation
ceremony of a Lutheran “bishop.” This
man is not a bishop and does not possess a salvific faith. Permitting this sacrilege to take place in a
Catholic church is a grave sin. No
Catholic is permitted to act outside a conscience that is both true and
certain. In this matter, as with the
question of the traditional Mass that you held to be illegal, you have acted
upon a false conscience. You may have
the power as the bishop to do so, but you do not have the authority or right to
permit the desecration of a Catholic church.
The altar railing at Ss. Peter & Paul Chapel, dedicated
to Thomas Ignatius Smith, a deceased founding member of our Mission, says in
part, “who having witnessed the destruction of countless sanctuaries over the
last 40 years gave of himself helping to build the one before you. May the good God grant us the grace that we
rather die than permit its desecration.”
What you permitted at St. Patrick Cathedral will never be permitted at
our chapel. Herein lies, I believe, your true opposition to our Mission.
You
cited canon 301, §1 in your letter, “It is for the competent ecclesiastical
authority alone to erect associations of the Christian faithful which propose
to hand on Christian doctrine in the name of the Church or to promote public
worship, or which intend other purposes whose pursuit is of its nature reserved
to the same ecclesiastical authority.”
We happen to completely agree with this canon. This very issue was previously addressed to
Cardinal Ratzinger as Prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith in March of 2004 in
a letter posted on our web page. The
problem today is the same as it was then.
In the conflict of rights, an accidental right possessed by virtue of
office cannot destroy a right possessed by virtue of nature and grace. As clearly demonstrated by the available
statistical data, you and your predecessors have failed to pass on the Catholic
faith and have persecuted those Catholics who have promoted true worship for
the last 40 years. This canon does not
forbid the teaching of Catholic doctrine or restrict Catholic worship in the
face of incompetent exercise of authority.
The
problem with discussing the current crisis in the Church, whether doctrinal,
moral, liturgical, or canonical, with modern clerics is that they reject the
perennial realist philosophy preferring rather the modern liberal constructs
that deny the immutability of truth. They begin by denying the first principles
of the understanding and offer in their place a subjectivist construct,
divorced from reality that seems to revel in holding contradictory opinions in
the same head at the same time. I am
getting the impression that the claims we have made regarding our rights as
Catholics are wholly incomprehensible to you.
Nevertheless,
we have demanded from you as our bishop, by virtue of your office, that you
fulfill your duty toward us and render a formal judgment in the name of the
Church addressing our claim, either directly from you or by submitting our
claim to the authoritative judgment of Pope Benedict XVI. Failure to do so permits liberty of action on
our part. We have submitted our claim
for judgment both to you and to Rome that we as baptized Catholics have by
virtue of our baptism the right to the ecclesiastical traditions of our Church
as the perfect outward expression of our Faith which we are morally bound to
profess, particularly, the right to receive the sacraments according to the
“received and approved” traditions of our rite.
Further, while recognizing that rights can be duly regulated, we hold
that these rights can never be conditionally exercised in a manner prejudicial
to the Catholic Faith and that they are not grounded in the grant of any indult
or privilege granted by positive human law.
We have received no judgment from you or from Rome regarding this claim. Therein lies the essence of our legal
presumption of approval and your personal canonical opinion to the contrary
does not alter this. We have done all
that is morally required for us to do.
You cannot say the same.
In
closing, I would like to add that in the future when you reference a private
letter that was not copied to you, you copy the letter in your correspondence
so that I can be sure that what you received is what I sent.
Your
name and the name of our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, are remembered in each
Mass offered at Ss. Peter & Paul Chapel as well as in the Rosary of
reparation to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary
offered each day before the Blessed Sacrament.
Sincerely
in Christ,
David Drew
Chairman
Ss.
Peter & Paul Roman Catholic Mission