St. Joseph's Battalion - May Campaign

The bishops we will be writing are:

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput Archdiocese of Philadelphia

Archbishop Alexander K. Sample Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon

Bishop John Stow Diocese of Lexington

Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas

Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone Archdiocese of San Francisco

Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski Archdiocese of Miami

Bishop Daniel R. Jenky Diocese of Peoria

Bishop Joseph E. Strickland Diocese of Tyler

Bishop Larry Silva Diocese of Honolulu

Bishop Robert F. Vasa Diocese of Santa Rosa

Bishop Robert J. Baker Diocese of Birmingham

Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted Diocese of Phoenix

Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki Diocese of Springfield in Illinois

Bishop Thomas J. Tobin Diocese of Providence

Auxiliary Bishop Alberto Rojas Archdiocese of Chicago

Why these bishops? As far as I was able to ascertain, all of these bishops support further investigation of Archbishop Vigano's claims, which mean they are our closest allies. They are the most likely of all the bishops to urge that this be done, however, we need to keep the pressure on them to maximize the probability that this happens. I have collected a number of email addresses that either go to the bishops directly, and/or to their executive secretary (or equivalent). I think it may be best if we blind carbon copy each of these addresses, i.e. choose the "bcc" option in your "To:" email address field. Best to keep all of them guessing about who else we are writing. Here are those addresses:

kabbey@cdlex.org,

info@archdpdx.org,

rjohnson@archdpdx.org,

shepherd@chs-adphila.org,

fr.cmoriconi@archphila.org,

archkck@archkck.org,

info@sfarchdiocese.org,

padazinskim@sfarch.org,

information@theadom.org,

Priestsecretary@theadom.org,

kicaza@theadom.org,

pgibson@cdop.org,

info@dioceseoftyler.org,

tbolton@dioceseoftyler.org,

bishop@rcchawaii.org,

lpeter@srdiocese.org,

cantram@dphx.org,

webmaster@dio.org,

vlisi@dioceseofprovidence.org,

arojas@archchicago.org

We should carbon copy "cc", and thus make visible the email address for the US nuncio and the USCCB president Cardinal Dinardo. The appropriate email addresses for these individuals are:

nuntiususa@nuntiususa.org,

jzuniga@archgh.org

Below is a prewritten text of the letter that you should feel free to use in its entirety, modify to your liking, or replace with a completely original letter. The important thing here is that you write the targeted bishops over the next week.

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Your Excellency:

With sadness and concern for our Catholic Faith, I am writing this letter due to events that have unfolded since 2018. Given another explosive sexual scandal, along with its coverup and extended network, a mere 16 years since 2002, I now need to battle a sense of reduced trust in our episcopacy.

Since the publication of the Vigano’ Testimony last summer in the Wall Street Journal, and events since that time, namely the Bishops’ retreat in Mundelein and the subsequent Summit in Rome, my concern has not been quelled but instead these events provided a source for even greater anger and sadness. It appeared that those meetings were specifically designed as a “show for public consumption” and deliberately conducted to not address the underlying issues that confront the disordered church life within the episcopate. As you know, a handful of Bishops and Cardinals oppose investigating Vigano’s testimony, a somewhat larger number support the investigation, while the vast majority of bishops prefer the safety of silence.

I am appealing to you, to engage in robust action to earn back the trust of the laity. It is what your position deserves. There are a number of concrete steps you can take. I will outline them below.

1) Teach the Catholic Faith in its entirety, without regard to its popularity or its political (in)correctness; and in that regard, that you carry out your duty of office to address the accusation that Pope Francis has committed the canonical delict of heresy as described in the “Open Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church” dated Easter Week, 2019, and discuss the seven supposedly heretical positions the Pope has taken;

2) Immediately institute and lobby for a broad zero-tolerance policy (1 strike and the offender is out), effective against any bishop, priest, deacon or other employee or volunteer of the church, that engages in any inappropriate sexual contact with church attendees (regardless of age), seminarians or fellow bishops, priests, deacons, employees or volunteers;

3) Commission an objective body of investigators who are NOT employees of the Church, to aggressively investigate former Cardinal McCarrick’s influence throughout the hierarchy, and make ALL files everywhere, that are connected with McCarrick, available to these investigators and the public. Once a comprehensive investigation is completed, the findings also need to be made available to the public;

4) All seminarians and seminaries need to be vetted much more rigorously than they have in the past, and while in formation during their seminary training, seminarians need to have demonstrated 100% compliance with their future vow of celibacy and chastity.

In relation to item 4), Professor Fr. D. Paul Sullins, Ph.D. of The Catholic University of America published an academic report in November 2018 entitled, “Is Catholic Clergy Sex Abuse Related to Homosexual Priests?” The report can be downloaded for free here: http://www.ruthinstitute.org/clergy-sex-abuse-statistical-analysis. The data Fr. Sullins used came from 4 sources, a) the data collected by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice (commissioned by the USCCB) investigating the clerical abuse of minors between 1950 and 2002; 10667 cases of alleged victimization by 4262 perpetrators, b) Annual audit reports collected by the USCCB between 2004 and 2017, 4465 new allegations; c) The Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report of 6 Pennsylvania dioceses; 924 alleged abuse victims by 263 priests between 1924 and 2016; and d) the LA Times 2002 survey of 1854 randomly selected Catholic priests. The title of this report poses a poignant question since self-reporting Catholic clergy indicate that the proportion of same-sex attracted clergy increased from 2.8% in the 1940s to 16% by the early 1990s (See Figures 7), a rate 8-fold higher, at this later date, than the general population. Furthermore, there is a 90% correlation in the rise in the number of priests reporting a homosexual orientation and the number of current abuse allegations between 1950 and 1999 (Figure 9); and a 96% correlation between the rise of reported “homosexual subcultures” at seminaries and abuse incidence between 1950 and 1999 (Figure 10)! These are not “hypotheses,” as one notable Cardinal asserted during the Sex Abuse Summit in Rome earlier this year. These are mathematical realities, not interpretations of data. Without interpreting any data, any reasonable individual will see that there is a profound quantitative relationship between the population of self-professed same-sex attracted priests and an over 80% preferential abuse of boys, particularly between the ages of 8 and 17, which represent 95% of abuse cases. At ages less than 8, which only represent the remaining 5% of abuse victims, the ratio of male/female abuse was closer to 1/1. Please pay particular attention to Figures 2, 3, 4, 6. There has been a very marked decline in abuse reported between 1975 and 2009. Bishop Barron in his interview with Dave Rubin earlier this year said that the 2002 Dallas Charter addressed clerical sexual misconduct “massively well,” likely referring to this statistic. While this is a cause for celebration, it should not be forgotten that abuse is usually reported several decades after it occurred, so the dramatic decline observed in the 1990s and early 2000s may not be as impressive when viewed 20 years from today. However, the observation that a rise in abuse is already being detected since 2010 in all of these datasets is particularly chilling. Any representative of the Church who is truly serious about the current state of Christ’s Church should make themselves uncomfortably familiar with this report.

Unfortunately, the ambiguity, apparent moral fluidity and evasiveness emanating from numerous Cardinals and even the Holy Father have sown seeds of confusion. It therefore goes without saying that we have become “suspicious of our leaders,” and as I mentioned earlier, work needs to be done to once again earn our trust. One refreshing clarion voice during these times has been Archbishop Athanasius Schneider, describing the ills of the hierarchy in no uncertain terms. Despite the worry you may experience when preaching an uncomfortable message to those in the pews, we within the Church need you to be such a voice, as Bishop Schneider is in Kazakhstan, here in the United States. We commit to doing a holy hour for you, interceding for the Lord’s direction and blessings in your life.

Respectfully yours,

YOUR NAME

St. Joseph’s Battalion (https://stjosephsbattalion.com)

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List of emails:

Bishop Thomas J. Tobin Diocese of Providence vlisi@dioceseofprovidence.org,

Auxiliary Bishop Alberto Rojas Archdiocese of Chicago arojas@archchicago.org

Bishop Robert F. Vasa Diocese of Santa Rosa lpeter@srdiocese.org,

Bishop Larry Silva Diocese of Honolulu bishop@rcchawaii.org,

Bishop Joseph E. Strickland Diocese of Tyler info@dioceseoftyler.org, tbolton@dioceseoftyler.org,

Bishop Daniel R. Jenky Diocese of Peoria

pgibson@cdop.org,

Archbishop Thomas G. Wenski Archdiocese of Miami information@theadom.org, Priestsecretary@theadom.org, kicaza@theadom.org,

Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone Archdiocese of San Francisco info@sfarchdiocese.org, padazinskim@sfarch.org,

Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas archkck@archkck.org,

Bishop John Stow Diocese of Lexington

kabbey@cdlex.org,

Archbishop Charles J. Chaput Archdiocese of Philadelphia shepherd@chs-adphila.org, fr.cmoriconi@archphila.org,

Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted Diocese of Phoenix cantram@dphx.org,

Archbishop Alexander K. Sample Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon rjohnson@archdpdx.org, info@archdpdx.org,

Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki Diocese of Springfield in Illinois webmaster@dio.org,

Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, Archdiocese of Houston

jzuniga@archgh.org

Bishop Robert J. Baker Diocese of Birmingham