THE FRANCISCAN SISTERS OF THE IMMACULATE
Official Notification From The Institute
20th December 2014
We prefer prayerful listening to The Word of God Incarnate, the only True and Eternal Word of the Father, to the voices that pass through the mass-media.
With regard to an article that concerns us, published in the magazine “Rogate ergo” (no. 11/2014) – an article which we take the liberty to place in doubt the complete trustworthiness – as well as other news circulated by the mass-media about our Institute
WE SPECIFY THAT:
The commissioning of our Institute has never been notified, inasmuch as the Apostolic Visit which began on the 19th of May 2014 has still to be concluded. An appeal is still open, which in part has revealed the reason for our request, so that the General Council at present can set in motion acts of government without prior approval of the Apostolic Visitor, as the Decree of the Visit provided.
Our compactness with regard to liturgical choices – documented in detail by an official survey and by Chapter votes in every single community of the Institute with an unanimous result of predilection for the Liturgy according to the Vetus Ordo – by some is considered a veil under which to hide a desire for seclusion equal to not “sentire cum Ecclesia” which would even reach heretical and schismatic positions of opposition to the Magisterium of the Church and disunity with the Holy Father.
In response, especially, we underline that such aberrations have never been contested against our Institute, nor that of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, nor to our Founders, towards whom our loyalty [considered]by some is wrongly and unexplainably in contrast to that which is due to the See of Peter.
Moreover, we insist that the Institute has never denied the validity and legality of the ordinary form of Holy Mass – which is also the one adopted at present in almost all of our communities – but rather has promoted active participation with the distribution of numerous copies of missalettes, which was carried out for years all over Italy. Further, the Institute has never proclaimed non-recognition of the authority of the documents of the Second Vatican Council nor of the post-council Magisterium.
We add that on the subject of internal formation, in conformity with Pope Benedict XVI’s teaching regarding the hermeneutic of continuity, we have always cautioned against interpretations which being set in discontinuity, reveal themselves to be damaging and unacceptable.
With respect to union with the Holy See, as has been officially expressed in certain letters addressed by our Superior General to the Holy Father, Francis, our religious life is entirely spent and offered for Mother Church and Her Supreme Pastor and wants to remain so, in conformity to our specific vocation which comes directly from our Seraphic Father, St. Francis, implemented by the Vow of unlimited Consecration to the Immaculate.
CHRIST, THE WAY, THE TRUTH AND THE LIFE, IS THE ONLY AND DEFINITIVE “WORD” WHICH WE TRUST AND IT’S UP TO HIM TO JUDGE OUR HUMAN “VOICES”.
[Source, in Italian. A Rorate Translation by Contributor Francesca Romana.]
