Please Stop the Scandal of Catholics For a Free Choice

Your Holiness and Your Eminencies,

Catholics for a Free Choice was established in 1973 following the Supreme Court of the United States of America's Roe v. Wade ruling, which effectively legalized abortion on demand throughout the United States. Since then, Catholics For a Free Choice has relentlessly attacked the pro-life and pro-family teachings of the Church, issued polemical attacks against the American Bishops and the Pope, and mocked both the teachings and the practices of the Church.

Catholics For a Free Choice has a long history of active and public opposition to the Church. In 1974, for instance, one of Catholics For a Free Choice's founders, Patricia Fogarty McQuillan, crowned herself "pope" on the steps of St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. In more recent years, Catholics For a Free Choice has supported pro-abortion Catholic politicians in their endeavor to seek public office and has lobbied for the revocation of the Holy See's permanent observer status at the United Nations.

In light of all this, we, the lay faithful of North America, humbly present the following petition to the Holy See and to the Archbishop of Washington, D.C.:

WHEREAS Frances Kissling and Catholics For a Free Choice have supported the intrinsically evil practice of abortion; and,

WHEREAS Frances Kissling and Catholics For a Free Choice have publicly dissented from Church teaching on abortion and artificial contraception as found in the encyclicals Evangelium Vitae and Humanae Vitae, authored by Pope John Paul II and Pope Paul VI; and,

WHEREAS Frances Kissling and Catholics For a Free Choice have actively lobbied to have the Holy See's status as a permanent observer to the United Nations revoked; and,

WHEREAS Frances Kissling and Catholics For a Free Choice have engaged in polemical and uncharitable verbal attacks against the Holy Father, members of the Curia and the American Bishops;

THEREFORE WE PETITION His Holiness Pope John Paul II, His Eminence Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and/or His Eminence Cardinal Theodore McCarrick to take steps to ensure that Frances Kissling and Catholics For a Free Choice cannot further scandalize the faithful by promoting heresy and sinful actions as Catholics in good ecclesiastical standing.

We entrust this petition to the Ever-Virgin Mary, Mother of God, that she, through her prayers, may bring all people to true repentance and to a greater respect for the dignity of human life.

From the faithful in North America, on 1 January, the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, in the year 2005.