This note, which is published here with the author’s permission, might provide some ideas for your note to the Nuncio. It is not intended for cutting and pasting.

We believe your note should come from the heart and be based on your personal experience of the clergy sex abuse and cover up scandal.

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June 20, 2010

Dear Papal Nuncio,

I am enclosing this “pence” to protest the handling by the Catholic hierarchy of the sexual abuse of children. I will resume my regular Peter’s Pence donation to the Vatican when three things happen:

1)    Cardinal Law is removed from any and all significant and honorary assignments in Rome. American Catholics are furious that he is still enjoying an exalted position when it has been shown that he moved pedophile priests from parish to parish with no concern for the children that he was putting in harm’s way.

2)    The papacy must apologize to American Catholics for perpetrating the view that America is an amoral society, a breeding ground for sexual depravity, knowing full well that clergy child abuse was a world-wide aberration.

3)    Detailed and specific procedures for removing pedophile priests from contact with children and from their ministry, turning them over to civil authority, must be enunciated clearly and vigorously on the world stage and from every parish pulpit.

An incident happened about 2 years ago in my parish that haunts me to this day. Our pastor absconded with church funds – living lavishly, in control of the collection money and bookkeeping in a community that is not well to do. The minute the Archdiocese of Chicago discovered this, he was removed from ministry. I mean the next day! He was not assigned a therapist; he was not sent to another parish to see if he could resist walking off with its money; he was physically removed from the rectory and his ministry.

It became clear to me that financial malfeasance trumped child abuse. This is not something I wanted to know about my Church.

Sincerely,

Marguerite Delacoma

2460 W. Estes Ave., #2                   

Chicago, IL 60645

margydel@aol.com