HOLY FATHER
Please Stop the Persecution of this Faithful Priest and His Fatima Apostolate!
Please Stop the Persecution of this Faithful Priest and His Fatima Apostolate!
Most Holy Father:
We write to you
on behalf of Father Nicholas Gruner, who has devoted his life to making known
the Message of Fatima. Surely no one on earth understands the importance of
that Message better than Your Holiness.
In 1917 the
Mother of God and Queen of Heaven, to whom you have dedicated your entire
pontificate, and Whom you love with such filial devotion, appeared at Fatima to
three shepherd children to deliver a divine summons to the Church and the
world. That summons, the Message of Fatima, calls the entire Church to
Eucharistic devotion and reparation, recourse to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
and personal conversion. At Fatima the Mother of God also called
for the collegial consecration of Russia to Her Immaculate Heart as God's
appointed means to bring peace to a warring world. She also imparted what has
come to be known as the Third Secret of Fatima, whose mysterious contents have
yet to be disclosed to the faithful at large, but which many believe is a grave
warning about the state of the Church and the world in the latter part of this
century.
Even secular
history records that on October 13, 1917, Our Lady confirmed the authenticity
of the Message of Fatima beyond all doubt: At the moment predicted by the three
shepherd children, the most prodigious public miracle since the parting of the
Red Sea was witnessed by more than 70,000 souls—believers and non-believers
alike—who had gathered at Cova da Iria to see if the children were telling the
truth about "the Lady".
As your
predecessor of blessed memory, Pope Pius XII, told a group of Fatima pilgrims
38 years later:
"If we are to
have peace, we must obey all the requests made at Fatima. The time for doubting
Fatima is long passed. It is now time for action."
Holy Father, we
recall vividly your two pilgrimages to Fatima following the attempt on your
life on May 13, 1981—the very anniversary of Our Lady's first apparition at
Cova da Iria. During your May 1982 Fatima pilgrimage you expressed the
conviction that none other than Our Lady of Fatima had intervened to spare you
from death on that fateful day, and you gave Her thanks. Echoing your
predecessor, you declared that:
"Our Mother
Mary's appeal at Fatima causes the whole Church to feel obliged to respond to Our
Lady's requests . . . The message imposes a commitment
on her..."
On that same
occasion, Holy Father, you also made it clear that the Message of Fatima has
not lost its importance over time but is today more important than ever:
"Because of the
continuing increase in sin and the dangers, such as nuclear war, now
threatening humanity, the Message of Fatima is more urgent and relevant in our
time than it was when Our Lady appeared 65 years ago."
Given the
undeniable importance of the Message of Fatima in the life of the Church
today—and in your own life, Holy Father—we cannot imagine a worthier apostolate
than promoting a greater awareness of and adherence to that Message.Your Holiness,
for the past 20 years—his entire priestly life—Father Nicholas Gruner has been
engaged in just such an apostolate. He has tirelessly preached the Fatima
Message and promoted Marian devotion around the world, following his conscience
and acting always within the law of the Church.
Yet today the
good standing of this faithful priest, and the very existence of his Fatima
apostolate, are being threatened by a few Vatican bureaucrats.
Your Holiness
will recall that on July 12, 1995, an Archbishop and a bishop, plus a number of
priests and religious, as well as more than 9,000 concerned members of the
laity published an Open Letter to Your Holiness, covering two full pages in Il
Messaggero, Rome's largest daily newspaper. The Open Letter pleaded for
your intercession on behalf of Father Gruner and his Fatima apostolate.
Your Holiness, as
we explain in this appeal, the situation which prompted our first Open Letter
has grown even worse. The basic procedural rights and respect for priestly
dignity accorded to other priests, even those who notoriously promote false
teaching or commit grave moral offenses, have been denied to Father Gruner. The
campaign against Father by these Vatican bureaucrats has exceeded the bounds of
reason and the strictures of Canon Law, developing a life of its own unrelated
to any possible good of the Church. In short, it appears to have become a vendetta—against
proclamation of the Fatima Message and the priest who is its most visible
proponent.Your
Holiness, before we decided to publish this second Open Letter, Father
Gruner and a prominent lay supporter of the apostolate traveled to the Vatican
in an effort to personally lodge with you two written canonical petitions.* One
from Father Gruner himself and one from several lay people who serve as
directors of his apostolate. Finally, the same formal petitions were
handed to you by two benevolent bishops and a lay person during your general
audience on November 20, 1996.
*Which according
to Canon 1405 and 1406 only the Pope can judge.
As of May 13,
1997,** six months later, there has been no reply. In fact, members of
your own staff, with apparent authority to receive documents for you, have
refused to give their names, and have made it plain that there is no likelihood
that you will ever read the petitions. We can only assume that even the
canonical petitions presented to you in due legal form, (including substantial
documentation) at the general audience have been whisked away and disposed of
by those who would deny Father Gruner and the members of his apostolate the
God-given right of all Catholics, even accused heretics, to have
ultimate recourse to their Pope.
** As of January
20, 1998, 14 months later, there is still no reply.
Hence this second
public plea to Your Holiness.Holy Father, over
the past two years a few Vatican bureaucrats have been systematically carrying
out what they apparently believe is a foolproof plan to silence Father Gruner
and destroy his Fatima apostolate without due process of Canon Law.
First, the
bureaucrats ruthlessly blocked Father Gruner's “incardination” by a series of
bishops who offered to foster the good works of his apostolate by making him a
priest of their dioceses. Every time an offer of incardination was
extended to Father Gruner by a benevolent bishop, the Vatican bureaucrats
privately and illicitly pressured the bishops into withdrawing their offers.
Next, the
bureaucrats caused Father Gruner to be summoned from Canada, his home country,
back to the diocese of his ordination in Italy after an approved absence of
nearly 20 years. The only reason given for the order to return was Father
Gruner's supposed “failure” to find another bishop—a “failure” which the
bureaucrats themselves had arranged!
Now the
bureaucrats have given Father Gruner, at age 55, exactly 29 days to
abandon his Fatima apostolate, including an orphanage devoted to the Immaculate
Heart of Mary, his home, his personal affairs and all of his other attachments
and commitments, and return to live in exile for the rest of his life in
a remote Italian diocese which has not supported him or requested his services
since 1978!
It is even worse,
Your Holiness. When Father Gruner appealed this incredibly unjust
sentence in a Church tribunal, his judges were the same bureaucrats who are
trying to force him into exile! And when Father Gruner requested
that these bureaucrats excuse themselves from his case because they were
obviously not impartial judges, they replied that Father is not entitled to an
impartial judge in "administrative proceedings"!
These biased
judges then issued a decree stating that since Father Gruner had "failed" to
find another bishop, this "failure" alone was good cause to order him back to
Italy after 20 years. In essence, the bureaucrats have punished Father Gruner
for failing to do what they themselves have prevented him from doing!
In short, Your
Holiness, for the past two years these bureaucrats have been torturing Father
Gruner like a cat with a mouse—supremely confident that he has no means to
resist their power over him.
But the
persecution does not end even there, Your Holiness. Using the vast apparatus at
their disposal, the bureaucrats have actually taken measures to prevent bishops
from obtaining visitors' visas to travel to Fatima conferences
organized by Father Gruner's apostolate! For good measure, they have placed in
the diplomatic pouches of the papal nuncios communiqués to every bishop in the
world, directing them not to attend the apostolate's conferences even
though the conferences were in full compliance with the Code of Canon Law.
But the
bureaucrats were still not satisfied that they had done enough to ruin
Father Gruner and his work: Calling upon the mass media at their disposal they
issued misleading “declarations” in L'Osservatore Romano, Avvenire and
on Vatican Radio stating that Father's apostolate does not have "approval of
ecclesiastical authority", when they know that no such approval is required by
the law of the Church! (Canon 212, 215, 216) Of course, private
apostolates operating without "approval of ecclesiastical authority" are
commonplace in the Church today because Your Holiness himself has encouraged
their formation in keeping with Vatican II's declaration on the
apostolate of the laity, and the Code of Canon Law which Your Holiness
personally promulgated in 1983. (Canons 208-229)So many
unprecedented actions against a lone Marian priest and his Fatima apostolate in
Canada! A worldwide apparatus is mobilized against him! Yet, throughout the
Church today faithless clerics and heretical associations are causing scandal
and openly defying the teaching of Your Holiness on faith and morals, while the
bureaucrats take no action against them.
Your Holiness, we
do not believe the measures taken against Father Gruner have ever been taken
against a priest who is guilty of no offense. Indeed, we do not believe
such measures have been taken against any priest in living memory. We
dare say that even Martin Luther was treated with more regard for his
procedural rights and priestly status after he publicly mocked the Pope and
rejected numerous defined doctrines of the Magisterium!
We can only view
with amazement, Your Holiness, the spectacle of Father Gruner being treated
like the worst kind of ecclesiastical criminal when he has committed no
offense whatsoever against faith and morals. What can account for this
incredible spectacle? It can only be Father Gruner's fearless proclamation of
the full Message of Fatima. There is nothing else about this mild-mannered
priest which could possibly excite such enmity.
It is certainly
true, Your Holiness, that the collegial consecration of Russia and disclosure
of the Third Secret are intensely controversial subjects in the Church today.
Yet it is also true that many Catholics who are utterly loyal to Your Holiness,
including Father Gruner, remain sincerely convinced that these two elements of
the Message of Fatima are crucial to resolving the current crisis in the Church
and the world.
As you know, Your
Holiness, Jesus said to Sister Lucy regarding the Consecration of Russia
requested by Our Lady of Fatima: "Make it known to My ministers that given they
follow the example of the King of France in delaying the execution of My
command, they will follow him into misfortune." (August 1931)
Impelled by this
grave warning of Our Lord to His Church, Father Gruner shares the conviction of
many of the faithful that until the question of the collegial consecration has
been settled definitively, Catholics must continue to do everything in their
power to assure the full realization of Our Lady's requests at Fatima.
Your Holiness, is
this a crime?Your Holiness, in
November 1995 Father Gruner received a formal decree of incardination from a
kindly Archbishop—one of the several prelates who have offered Father a haven
from his persecutors. In this decree an Archbishop of 25 years' standing
attests to the reality of Father Gruner's persecution by the bureaucrats:
"Evil forces have conspired
to put an end to your work of love. But you go ahead trusting in the Lord.
His love is steadfast and He will never fail, though you may be subject to many
a trial and even persecution. God will also give you great
comfort and consolation through innumerable friends and well-wishers. Bureaucratic
forces cannot stifle God's work. It is my prayer that you
continue in your God-given mission in spite of great opposition." (Letter 4
November 1995)
It was not long
before the Archbishop was caught in the bureaucrats' inexorable machinery of
reprisal. Soon after he issued his decree incardinating Father Gruner, the
Archbishop received a private communiqué from the bureaucrats directing him not
to incardinate Father Gruner in his Archdiocese. The bureaucrats
did not even feel obliged to give any specific reason for this unprecedented
interference in the prerogatives of an Archbishop!
And so, yet
another friend of Father Gruner and his Fatima apostolate is browbeaten into
submission, as the cat-and-mouse game of the bureaucrats proceeds toward what
they evidently believe to be its inevitable conclusion.For the past
several years, Your Holiness, we have watched helplessly as the bureaucrats'
plans to silence Father Gruner and his Fatima apostolate unfolded, while
priests who busily undermine the common good of the Church with false teaching
or unspeakable scandals are accorded their "rights" under Canon Law, or simply
ignored by the same bureaucrats who have been hounding Father Gruner for years.
We appeal to you
now, in this extraordinary forum, because it has become clear that Father
Gruner will never receive justice in the Vatican congregations which these
bureaucrats manipulate. Your Holiness, they have already “decreed” that Father
Gruner is not even entitled to an impartial judge! The result in this
case has already been determined, and the proceedings reduced to an empty sham:
Father Gruner is to be silenced by any available expedient—unless, of course,
Your Holiness intervenes.Please stop the
persecution of Father Gruner, Your Holiness. We ask this not because of
any inordinate attachment to one man, but because the injustices being heaped
upon this good priest by those who abuse their ecclesiastical offices cry out
for rectification—all the more so at a time when assiduous respect is shown by
these same bureaucrats for the reputations and procedural rights of faithless
clerics who are inflicting incalculable harm on the Body of Christ. But
there is an even larger question of justice and truth at stake in Father
Gruner's case, Your Holiness. Since 1975 more than five million members of
the Church have signed petitions pleading for the public and definitive
collegial consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.Your Holiness,
the signers of these petitions are not dissident Catholics, like those in
Germany and the United States who are even now circulating petitions
audaciously demanding changes in the settled teaching of the Church on faith
and morals—as if that were possible!No, the Catholics
who petition for the collegial consecration of Russia are utterly loyal to their
Pope. And they know, Your Holiness, that the infallible
Magisterium of the Church teaches that the faithful must have recourse to their
Pope for ultimate redress of just grievances in the Church.
Your Holiness,
Father Gruner has given voice to the concerns of many of these loyal Catholics,
including all of us. Can we not be heard in a matter which concerns the good of
the Church and the salvation of souls? Or will it really be the case that the
ever-multiplying voices of dissent continue to be tolerated, while Father
Gruner is mercilessly hounded, exiled and silenced for preaching the
Message of Fatima?Holy Father, for
the sake of this good priest, for the sake of the many faithful who share his
sincere convictions, for the sake of justice in the Church, we beseech
you to bring an end to the persecution of Father Nicholas Gruner. We pray that
you will do so by graciously exercising your supreme Apostolic authority in his
favor with these acts:
- Order the
bureaucrats who are persecuting Father Gruner to cease and desist their
unprecedented abuse of authority against him, and that they cease publishing
lies and innuendo against him, and allow him to exercise freely his God-given
rights as a priest and a member of the Catholic faithful to proclaim the full
Message of Fatima, and to engage in a Fatima apostolate of clergy and laity.
- Decree that
Father Gruner has the right to be released for service to any benevolent bishop
who wishes to accept him, without fear of reprisal by the bureaucrats.
- Order the
bureaucrats to cease their unprecedented and illegal interference in the
jurisdiction and prerogatives of the benevolent bishops who have offered to
incardinate Father Gruner in their dioceses, or who wish to support Father
Gruner's apostolate in other ways, including attendance at its conferences.
We, the friends
of Father Nicholas Gruner, humbly request that Your Holiness bestow these small
tokens of your justice and paternal protection upon this priest, and by so
doing give a sign of hope and encouragement to all of us—who are loyal to Your
Holiness, who struggle daily to keep the Faith, and who will never forget the
Heaven-sent Message of Fatima.
Humbly submitted
this 27th day of May in the Year of Our Lord, 1997.
6 Archbishops, 14 Bishops, over 600 priests and religious and in excess of 10,000 people have signed this Public Appeal to the Pope.
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