Petition started calling for Pope Francis to convert or abdicate

A petition with an attached and very long and detailed list of grievances is being circulated (not sure if promoted is the right word, perhaps it is) by The Remnant. I imagine it’s going to stir quite a bit of excited reaction in some quarters.  I’ll just get right to it, released on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception:

Your Holiness:
Pope Celestine V (r. 1294), recognizing his incapacity for the office to which he had so unexpectedly been elected as the hermit Peter of Morrone, and seeing the grave harm his bad governance had caused, resigned the papacy after a reign of only five months. He was canonized in 1313 by Pope Clement V. Pope Boniface VIII, removing any doubt about the validity of such an extraordinary papal act,confirmed in perpetuity (ad perpetuam rei memoriam) that “the Roman Pontiff may freely resign.”

A growing number of Catholics, including cardinals and bishops, are coming to recognize that your pontificate, also the result of an unexpected election, is likewise causing grave harm to the Church. It has become impossible to deny that you lack either the capacity or the will to do what your predecessor rightly observed a pope must do: “constantly bind himself and the Church to obedience to God’s Word,in the face of every attempt to adapt it or water it down, and every form of opportunism.”

Quite the contrary, as shown in the annexed libellus, you have given many indications of an alarming hostility to the Church’s traditional teaching, discipline and customs, and the faithful who try to defend them, while being preoccupied with social and political questions beyond the competence of the Roman Pontiff. Consequently, the Church’s enemies continually delight in your pontificate, exalting you above all your predecessors. This appalling situation has no parallel in Church history.

Last year, speaking of Pope Benedict’s resignation, Your Holiness declared that if you felt incapable of exercising the papacy “I would do the same.” On the first anniversary of Benedict’s resignation, you called upon the faithful to “join me in prayer for His Holiness Benedict XVI, a man of great courage and humility.”

With no little trepidation, being under the gaze of the One who will judge us all on the Last Day, we your subjects respectfully petition Your Holiness to change course for the good of the Church and the welfare of souls. Failing this, would it not be better for Your Holiness to renounce the Petrine office than to preside over what threatens to be a catastrophic compromise of the Church’s integrity?

———End Quote———

It continues for a bit and includes a list of signatures.  Then follows that long and detailed libellus.

I had no idea this was coming, though I am not completely surprised that it has.  I am of two minds.  I think we are witnessing a follow-on to the revolution of the 60s-70s that could more permanently cement radical novelties and frankly anti-Catholic belief into the life of the Church.  Certainly, any move towards restoration seems to drift further and further away.  I very, very much understand the feeling that urgent action is absolutely necessary.

But it is difficult for me as a Catholic to speak to the Pope in the manner seen in this presentation.  And even while saying that, I recognize a certain degree of hypocrisy on my part, a certain lack of consistency, maybe, because I’ve certainly been critical in the past.  Mind, I’m not saying I oppose this effort, per se, but I also don’t feel comfortable signing onto this at this time.  I feel a need to pray and reflect about it.

I’m sure there will be a wide variety of opinions on this.  I don’t know if even in the darkest days of the early 70s if Catholics counselled – in private, because I know of no public effort along this line – Paul VI to abdicate.  This effort has a novelty all its own. But then again, the times we are in are unprecedented in the life of the Church.

It’s interesting to juxtapose this petition with Archbishop Fisichella’s comment’s yesterday.  I can imagine some gaskets getting blown, if this ever gets back to Pope Francis.

I’m probably not contributing much of interest.  Sorry if that’s the case. I’m interested to hear what you think.  I’m terribly concerned about this pontificate but I’m having a hard time directly telling the Pope that he’s a heretic and failure and to get out of office.

My other question is………what difference will it make, other than to perhaps make the signers feel better?  I’d have to think any positive response would be miraculous, so since we’re talking about a spiritual affair, why not just pray?

Like I said, I’ll pray about this.