24 March 2012 St.

Gabriel the Archangel Lenten Feria His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI The Apostolic Palace 00120 Vatican City Your Holiness: I am writing this letter on behalf of all concerned and worried Catholics in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, in particular those faithful residing in the Archdiocese of Boston and the Diocese of Worcester, in regards to the weak Episcopal leadership in the two dioceses. First of all, the Archdiocese of Boston, under the supervision of His Eminence, Sean Patrick Cardinal OMalley, OFM Cap., has been mismanaged both financially and spiritually. From 2004-08, several parishes have been closed and merged or sold, causing uproar and cries of sacrilege from the faithful. Ever since, laypersons employed at the archdiocesan chancery (known to them as the Pastoral Center) have been hired to fill positions that were traditionally held by priests, religious brothers, and religious sisters. Since 2006, the number of senior lay executives earning over $150,000 per year has grown from three to seventeen, while over fifty lower-level employees have been layed-off, with the threat of more to come. To make matters worse, the laywoman who serves as Catholic Schools superintendent earns approximately $325,000 per year, plus benefits, and several Catholic Schools have closed or merged while the children enrolled in these schools have no clue what the basic tenets of the Roman Catholic Faith are (e.g. Original Sin, the Mass as a sacrifice, the Sacraments, the lives of Christ, Mary, the Apostles, and the Saints; Latin as the official language; etc.). While the Catholic Schools are far more superior academically than their public school counterparts, they lack the spirituality that defines the Church Militant. Furthermore, the archdiocese has a plan to eliminate forty percent of the current amount of parishes (290) by the year 2017. Such a move will further weaken the Catholic identity in Massachusetts and the Catholic influence in everyday life, which is already weak in itself. Only seventeen percent of baptized Catholics attend Mass on a compulsory basis, with most of them attending services that are filled with various liturgical abuses. According to the Boston Catholic Insider, a blog written by an anonymous journalist, the archdiocese lied that they achieved a balanced budget while in actuality they had a deficit of about $4.2 million. A sinful act like this one could result in potential legal troubles. In the Diocese of Worcester, His Excellency, the Most Reverend Bishop Robert J. McManus has closed several parishes since 2008 and has sold them to anti-Catholic worshippers. Currently, Worcester only has about 101 parishes remaining, covering mostly rural communities, with most people claiming to be Catholic residing in those rural areas. The Catholic School situation is similar, despite the only Catholic School dedicated to the Traditional Latin Mass and Sacraments is located at the Saint Benedict Abbey in

Still River, a village located about 15 miles away from the Cathedral of Saint Paul in Downtown Worcester. I am happy to say that the Diocese of Worcester does not employ seventeen people at six-figure salaries at the Chancery, to my knowledge. Both ordinaries do not promote the use of the Traditional Latin Mass and Sacraments (which you call the Extraordinary Form) within their dioceses, nor do they allow all priests to obey your orders in Summorum Ponfificum. While I technically still live in Worcester and attend a Traditional Latin Mass parish in the Archdiocese of Boston, for which I wish to relocate to for professional reasons, not even one-quarter of the parishes in both dioceses offer the Extraordinary Form, and most Novus Ordo Masses in both dioceses are full of liturgical abuses, including the use of female altar servers, Eucharistic ministers, communion standing in the hand and under both kinds, and so forth. Bishop McManus has even gone the extra step to ban the Traditional Latin Mass at all diocesan parishes, while one parish, Saint Pauls Parish in Warren, a rural community, still continues to offer the Extraordinary Form. Saint Benedict Abbey is independent of the diocese. With the financial health and stability of the Archdiocese of Boston and the salvation of souls in both dioceses at stake, I highly and impartially recommend the following: (1) That the Diocese of Worcester be suppressed, the Eastern part of the territory be merged with the Archdiocese of Boston, and the Western part of the territory be merged with the Diocese of Springfield; Bishop McManus can be easily transferred to another see. (2) That His Eminence, Cardinal OMalley, be relieved of his duties as Archbishop of Boston. (3) That a new Archbishop be appointed for the Metropolitan See of Boston, providing that he will uphold the Magisterium of the Church with orthodoxy, celebrates all liturgical ceremonies using the 1962 Missale Romanum, etc., and be faithful to the Holy See. In the Name of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,

Christopher R. Whittle

cc:

His Excellency The Most Reverend Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano Apostolic Nuncio to the United States of America Apostolic Nunciature 3339 Massachusetts Avenue NW Washington, D.C. 20008