| Editor: Brother Bruno Bonnet-Eymard | N° 91– April 2010 |
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Friday, 19 March 2010 the feast of Saint Joseph |
| Jesus! Mary! Joseph! | |
OPEN LETTER TO MGR STENGER, BISHOP OF TROYES
Your Excellency,
I thank you for your letter, written with a touching benevolence that moves me, including your paternal reproaches which I accept. If I have made rash judgements, I humbly ask you to forgive me for them. If this is so, however, am I to believe that all these rebuffs that we suffer everywhere – recently in Turin – on the basis of information obtained « at the bishopric of Troyes », are inflicted on us without your knowing it…?
You rightly emphasise that the Abbé de Nantes, our Father, was buried from our chapel, in Christian earth, and by a Catholic priest in communion with Rome. What, then, remains of the « reasons » for the refusal of the nunciature, which you claim to have « no difficulty in understanding » ? What you write to me in a private letter must be made public, in order that reparation may be made for the harm done to the reputation of the Abbé de Nantes by the nunciature denying him access to the parish church as though he were an excommunicate. We will not rest until we have obtained reparation for the injustice of which he has been a victim throughout his life, from the suspension incurred in 1966 without prior judgement to death without burial, including his exile in 1996 during which he contracted Lewy Body Parkinson’s disease that brought about ten years of paralysis. The sanctions inflicted by your predecessor on him in 1997, also without prior judgement, are likewise not to be forgotten.
Given this iniquity that has lasted almost a half a century, the « dialogue » to which you invite me has as its necessary preliminary condition the rehabilitation of the Abbé de Nantes.
As I have already requested on several occasions, it lies with you, as bishop of the Diocese of Troyes in which the Abbé de Nantes died, to address yourself to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in order to present to it the well-founded and rational conscientious objections of a part of your flock. It is admittedly a minority, but I read in the Express of 4 to 10 March that you willingly stand up for persecuted religious minorities. We are simple baptised laymen who live as religious; the community is not recognised by the hierarchy, but this recognition is not required to practice the evangelical counsels. If our doctrine is contrary to the faith and morality of the Church, let the Church judge, according to her duty and her law. We are ready to reply to the questions of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
We are prepared to take the oath that was imposed by the motu proprio of 1998 on any member of the faithful who exercises a function in the Church, because we adhere in mind and heart to all the revealed dogmas and to all « definitive Catholic truths ». Our opposition concerns only certain doctrinal novelties that were taught by the Second Vatican Council and Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI, which contradict the dogma of the Catholic Faith.
Since the Abbé de Nantes knew that these novelties were not the object of any infallible definition, he had the right, recognised by the code of Canon Law, to oppose them and to appeal to the Roman authorities. They ought to have replied within the time limit and according to canonical forms. The Abbé de Nantes, a priest of the Roman Catholic Church, must therefore be rehabilitated, and our consciences enlightened. It is not a question for us of “dialoguing” about the Faith, but of obtaining that the Church teach us the Catholic Faith on the disputed questions, with all the guarantees of the infallible assistance of the Holy Spirit.
In this expectation, and with respectful devotion,