email from from my contact in Rome

You may recall that in March I wrote to the Holy Father, humbly suggesting that perhaps a new invocation could be added to the Litany of Loreto, which would name Our Lady as Mother and Queen of priests. I received a reply signed by the Assessor at the Secretariat of State. His letter made no mention of my request and I felt that it was simply a standard letter, and strongly doubted that the idea had been presented to the Holy Father. Others were in accord with this feeeling and I was given two contacts to write to, one at Ecclesia Dei and the other at the Congregation for Clergy. The former has replied to me by email and I wish to share with you the burden of what he says. It is not good news I'm afraid, in the sense that it tends to confirm my own suspicions and those of several of you who have emailed me privately.


Based on what my contact tells me, here is a brief description of how the Holy Father's daily mountain of incoming mail is filtered by the Secretariat of State. In a case like mine, where a suggestion is being made, the letter will not get past the Assessor (No. 3 in the pecking order) unless there have been several thousand, if not millions of letters suggesting the same thing. If you do break through this barrier your letter goes to the Substitute (No. 2) and beyond that, to the Secretary of State himself (No. 1). I apologise to those of you who already know of this system. I repeat it here only because I know that it will be news to some of you. (All this being said, the Holy Father seems to know how much support he receives in his mail, and therefore without any proof at all, I think the system must divide letters into pro and anti, so I know you will not stop writing to tell him how much you pray for him, support him and love him.)

Of course there has to be a system of this kind. It would be ridiculously naive to imagine that the Holy Father sees every letter that is written to him. The problem is that the reply I received from the Assessor did not even mention my suggestion. So therefore I must assume that mine was the only letter of its kind. I am left utterly in the dark about whether that assumption is correct. Fortunately I know that prayer and penance is the only true and reliable recourse. Nevertheless I felt driven, as one of their resutlts, to write the letter, in which I said as much. I did what I felt I must do. It has come to nothing for the time being and I accept that with no difficulty at all and continue to pray all the while that this addition willl be made to the Litany.

My contact acknowledges that he is a mere official at the PCED and although he is himself of longstanding in that capacity, and sympathetic to my request, he is painfully honest that he cannot help me to further the cause, because he has absolutely no hope at all, in his position, of getting through to the Holy Father. He hopes that I may receive a more positive and authoritative response from Archbishop Piacenza at the Congregation for Clergy. (As yet I have heard nothing from the Congregation.) His reply to me was gentle, kind and painstaking. I have replied, letting him know of my gratitude and that he has made a friend for life. (We are more or less the same age.) And that I believe is the most important thing.

In Christo pro Papa