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(LifeSiteNews) — LifeSiteNews Rome correspondent Louis Knuffke filmed a video in which he updated viewers on the delivery of four important LifePetitions to the Vatican.
“They [the office of the Secretariat of State at the Vatican] assured me that one of their members will present these to the person of the Pope,” Knuffke said.
More than 12,000 signed the first petition demanding ethically produced COVID vaccines, and another similar petition appealing Catholic leaders to “reject abortion-tainted COVID vaccines and mandates also garnered more than 12,000 signatories. Despite approval by Pope Francis and the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, many of the Church’s prelates, scholars and laity opposed the COVID vaccines and signed on to the Bethlehem Declaration, saying that the shots are “morally illicit to facilitate, promote or mandate the mass reception of these dangerous, under-tested, under-monitored, abortion-tainted COVID-19 injections.”
The third petition, which was signed by more than 25,000 Catholics, called on Pope Francis to clarify his position on what “he told pro-abortion Joe Biden about Holy Communion.” The petition was launched after Pope Francis met with Biden on October 29, 2021, to which Biden answered a reporter’s question saying that the pope told him to “keep receiving communion.”
There has been a lot of media attention surrounding the reception of Holy Communion by pro-abortion politicians, especially with the release of San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s statement denying of Holy Communion to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Subsequently, several U.S. bishops have joined in support of Archbishop Cordileone, but Pope Francis permitted Pelosi to receive communion at a Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica. Recently, Francis acknowledged the “incoherence” of Biden as a Catholic supporting abortion but added that Biden’s support for abortion is a matter of his “conscience” and “let him talk to his pastor about this incoherence.”
The Council of Trent makes clear that worthy preparation for reception of the Eucharist is vital:
If anyone says that faith alone is sufficient preparation for receiving the sacrament of the most Holy Eucharist: let him be anathema. And that so great a Sacrament may not be unworthily received, and therefore unto death and condemnation, this holy Council ordains and declares that sacramental confession must necessarily be made beforehand by those whose conscience is burdened by mortal sin, however contrite they may consider themselves. If anyone moreover teaches the contrary or preaches or obstinately asserts, or even publicly by disputation shall presume to defend the contrary, by that fact itself he is excommunicated. (Council of Trent, Session XIII, Canon 11; Denz. 893)
More than 36,500 “faithful Catholics” signed the fourth petition calling on Pope Francis to “reinstate” the Traditional Latin Mass. The implementation of Francis’ Traditionis Custodes has had devastating effects on the worship of the traditional rite, with some bishops ending it in their dioceses and others such as Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago and Cardinal Wilton Gregory of Washington, D.C. severely restricting it.
The petition letter, as read by Knuffke, concluded with a hopeful message that “with your Cardinals you will follow the sensus fidelium and restore the Mass of the Ages to its proper place in the Catholic Church.”