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MINNESOTA, January 16, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) — Catholics throughout the United States have been invited to a very special spiritual event.

Inspired by the Polish Rosary to the Borders, the American Rosary to the Interior is the work of laypeople frightened by the state of the Church today. They are encouraging Catholics to ask priests to make their churches available for a public recitation of the Rosary for the purification of the Church.

The chosen day for the Rosary to the Interior is February 2. Traditionally known as Candlemas, the day marks the double Feast of the Presentation of the Lord and of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. (By going to the Temple to be purified, Mary was obeying Mosaic Law.) The hour of the Rosary is up to each individual group or interested parish priests.

The organizers stated on their website, “Recognizing that the Catholic Church alone in this world was blessed and commissioned with the Light of Christ necessary for triumph over the Darkness of sin and error, and that this Light has now been severely obscured by the sin and errors of its own members, this Rosary asks us to turn our eyes inward in order to effect that interior purification which alone can once again make Christ’s Light manifest in its fullness to the world.”

‘Darkness descending … especially over our nation’

A model letter for pastors to read from the pulpit is as follows:

“On February 2, 2018, we will be participating in a national event, titled Rosary To The Interior: For the Purification of the Church. I would ask all the Catholics of this parish, if it is at all possible, to journey here on this day at [insert time] in order that, in union with the rest of the Church, we might pray this Rosary for the Purification of the Church and the Triumph of Christ’s Light over the darkness that now appears to be descending at an accelerating pace over our world, and especially over our nation. The Church will be open all day, and into the evening, for those who cannot be present at the above time.”

A spokesman for the group, Hans Kroll, told LifeSiteNews that the reference to the darkness “especially” falling upon the U.S. has to do with the nation’s export of abortion funding and pornography to the rest of the world. He also mentioned the woeful state of the faith among American Catholics.

American Catholics have assimilated to secular culture

“There’ve been polls that have shown that almost 50 percent of American Catholics don’t believe in the True Presence,” Kroll said. And they haven’t remained untouched by American’s exported pop culture, either.  “… A very high percentage of Catholics have assimilated to the (secular) culture so much,” he sighed.  

The founders of the event wish to remain anonymous so as not to take the focus from Jesus Christ and His mother Mary. Kroll did, however, admit that the idea for the Rosary for the Interior came to life in the great state of Minnesota.

On their website, the organizers state that they are united by “a deep love and concern for the Church and a strong belief that only Our Lord and Our Lady (especially through her Rosary) can sort out all of this (scandal) in the Church, and supply the grace and power necessary for the purification of each one of us, and the Church as a whole.”

“Purification has to be on a personal level, in our own hearts,” their spokesman told LifeSiteNews. “We need to begin with the personal struggle while admitting to the darkness that has crept into the Church. We can’t just point fingers.”

Kroll spoke also of the pain the Church feels at the parish level when children grow up and suddenly stop going to church, or when parish families break apart. That’s why the Rosary for the Interior should be said in participants’ parish churches.

Perhaps fearful of creating further division, the organizers of “Rosary to the Interior” have not mentioned specific, recognizable scandals in the wider Church, such as decades of homosexual abuse of boys and young men by Catholic priests, the honoring of pro-abortion grandees by Catholic leaders and institutions, and flagrant violations of perennial teachings regarding the transmission of life as defended in Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae.

However, the organizers stated that in the Rosary they would place themselves and the whole Church within Our Lady’s Immaculate Heart and “allow her to reveal thoughts, crush heresy, expose injustice and error, purify us of our prostitutions to the world, heal wounds and usher in Light and true peace and unity to Her Church.”  

'It’s all about Our Lady doing the work'

“We’re hoping this will become an annual event,” Kroll told LifeSiteNews. He encourages everyone to read the “Rosary to the Interior” website so they will know what to do when they organize at their own local level. The set program includes a Holy Hour, with a Statement of Intention, the Nicene Creed, a recitation of the Beatitudes and the Rosary.

Whereas the organizers are happy to receive comments, there is no registration form on their site. Kroll told LifeSiteNews that they may never know how many people joined their movement, but they don’t mind.

“It’s all about Our Lady doing the work,” he said.

The website has had 9,000 views since it was founded just over a week ago. The team   doesn’t take any credit for that.

“It’s all been a small effort here,” Kroll said. “Our Lord and Our Lady have been doing all the work.”

The Polish Rosary to the Borders, held on the Feast of the Holy Rosary, attracted more than a million Polish Catholics and many other Catholics around the world who prayed the rosary in communion with them. It inspired another border rosary in Italy, the Irish Rosary to the Coasts and the American Rosary on the Coasts and Borders.