(LifeSiteNews) — The following is an open letter from Father Janvier Gbénou, also known as Father Jesusmary Missigbètò, to Pope Francis asking for his priestly faculties to be restored to him. Fr. Gbénou has publicly corrected the Pontiff’s theological errors, and as a result has been dismissed from his religious order and suspended. Fr. Gbénou is also in immanent danger of being dismissed from the clerical state.
In his letter, Fr. Gbénou observes that Pope Francis himself had told the Italian Bishops that it is not a sin to criticize the Pope, and also that a number of priests openly contradicted both John Paul II and Benedict XVI without losing their ministerial faculties.
BENIN
22 August 2024
Memorial of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary
To the Reigning Pontiff
Pope Francis
VATICAN
Subject: Request for priestly ministerial faculties
O Dearest Father, may Jesus and Mary bless you abundantly! I am writing to you with love, trust, humility and respect to ask of your high benevolence that my priestly ministerial faculties be granted to me once again. Thank you for receiving this letter through His Eminence Lazarus You Heung-Sik, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Clergy! Thank you also for allowing me to make it public so that cardinals, bishops, priests and lay people can write to you through Cardinal Lazarus You to support my request ([email protected] / +39 06 69 88 41 51)! I pray to God that Catholic journalists and intellectuals will do the same.
Having desired the priesthood at the age of 13, ordained at the age of 32 in Rome on 5 May 2012, I humbly beg you to put an end to the injustice that has prevented me from serving the Church and humanity with my priesthood for the past four years. The Church needs priests! Humanity needs priests! My ministerial faculties were unjustly withdrawn by His Excellency Fernando Ocáriz, Prelate of Opus Dei, on 4 March 2021 (ban on public celebration of Mass, preaching, confessions) and on 1 February 2022 (ban on private celebration of Mass), because I “published texts and commentaries criticising the Roman Pontiff” [1].
O Dear Father, why is this decision unjust? First reason: Before the date of 4 March 2021, I always asked the Catholic faithful to pray for you, since you yourself usually encourage us to do so, and I never used the Mass, preaching or confessions to criticise you negatively. All those who have listened to me and frequented me in my pastoral work in Yamoussoukro (Ivory Coast) can testify and confirm to you that I am not lying. Second reason: Criticism is not a canonical infraction; there is no canon in the Code of Canon Law that forbids criticism of the Roman Pontiff. In fact, you yourself told the Italian bishops on 21 May 2018: “Non è peccato criticare il Papa, si può fare” (It’s not a sin to criticize the Pope, one can do it). This means that you have given Christians the right to criticize you when it comes to the good of the Church and souls. All Catholic journalists and intellectuals regularly do this without receiving any sanction. For a long time, several priests criticized Popes St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI negatively on the Church’s traditional moral teaching concerning sexuality (Thomas Reese, S.J.; James Martin, S.J.; et al.). Have they been deprived of their ministerial faculties? No!
O Dear Father, according to the dictionary, a criticism can refer to the positive or negative aspects of a thing, an individual or a situation. As far as the negative aspects are concerned, there is a moral obligation to avoid slander (defaming by asserting the untrue) and backbiting (talking about a real fault publicly and without justice or charity). For public criticism to be morally acceptable, we must therefore ask ourselves whether it is true and necessary. Personally, I have not slandered you or spoken ill of you because the content of my public criticism is true and this criticism is necessary because of justice and charity towards you and the Christians of the whole world (2.4 billion). In my public interventions, I have spoken about both the positive and negative aspects of your pontificate so that all Christians are well informed about your errors which, with the remarkable help of Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, attack marriage, the family, the Sacraments and the unity of the Church (ecumenism): Amoris laetitia (2016), Hysterectomy (2018), Abu Dhabi Declaration (2019), Homosexual cohabitation laws (2020, 2021, 2023 and 2024), Traditionis custodes (2021), Eucharist given to all publicly pro-abortion and unrepentant Catholic politicians (2021), Fiducia supplicans (2023), Dignitas infinita (2024). I have explained your half-truths which, through relativism and situation ethics, seriously distort the moral conscience of Christians and are already being taught to future priests in seminaries around the world. All morally and intellectually honest people can confirm that the accusations I have made publicly against you are true, since I have always presented proof of them: your words and your actions.
O Dear Father, in acting in this way, I have fulfilled a double duty of conscience: the duty of Christian charity (spiritual work of mercy) in order to help ‘the pope of mercy’ to get out of the grave errors that he has refused to correct for eight years; the sacred priestly duty of preaching the truth to the People of God. My moral conscience is therefore in line with obedience to God’s commandments and the example of the saints. God demands that we live the Eighth Commandment and avoid the sin of adulation [2]. Jesus asks us to make public fraternal and filial correction [3]. God the Father repeated this advice to all Christians through St. Catherine of Siena [4]. In Antioch, for an error far less serious than your many moral and doctrinal errors, St. Paul made a public filial correction (public criticism) to St. Peter and informed all Christians of all times of this in his Letter to the Galatians [5]. Christian Tradition, as well as St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, have praised Paul’s attitude [6]. St. Maximilian Mary Kolbe said that “obedience… is the sure sign to us of the divine will”, but “the only exception to the duty to obey is if the superior were to order something that would manifestly involve, even in the slightest way, a violation of divine law: in that case, he would not himself be a faithful interpreter of God’s will” [7]. As numerous university professors and experts in History, Theology, Morality and Canon Law have shown [8], you are not a faithful interpreter of the divine will, since you are leading Christians to act immorally against that will. Obedience to a superior has a limit: sin.
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O Dear Father, in concluding this letter, let us remember that blinded by pride, the old scribes, Pharisees and Jewish leaders (60-70-80 years old) were obstinate in their errors. Hurt by the public criticism of the young Jesus (33), they considered him impolite, insolent and arrogant. Yet they were wrong, for Jesus loved them deeply and was motivated only by love for their eternal salvation in everything he said and did, even when he got angry in the Temple [9] or used strong expressions such as “whitewashed tombs” or “serpents, brood of vipers” [10]. Thanks to their humility, St. Nicodemus and St. Joseph of Arimathea understood this and loved Jesus. St. John the Baptist also publicly criticized the Pharisees, the Sadducees and Herod. Today, you have a choice: Will you follow the path of St. Nicodemus and St. Joseph of Arimathea by correcting the half-truths of your magisterium and cancelling the unjust sanctions against priests and bishops who defend the truth of the Church’s traditional teaching? Will you follow the path of Herod and the Jewish leaders (Annas and Caiaphas) who did not accept the truth preached by Jesus and John the Baptist? Your answer has heavy consequences, because the first path leads to Heaven while the second leads to Hell: “Dear children, my Jesus loves you, but… He is the Just Judge… Those who sow half-truths causing spiritual blindness in many of my poor children will not enter his Eternal Sanctuary… Love and defend the truth. Accept the Gospel of my Jesus and listen to the teachings of the true Magisterium of his Church” (Our Lady of Anguera, 5.216, 14 December 2021). The same applies to your favourite theologian: “Walter Kasper: behold, because of him many will die” (2.570, 3 September 2005). United with many Christians throughout the world, I pray for you with faith, hope and charity: as long as there is life, humility is always possible.
Affectionately,
Your African son, Fr. Janvier Gbénou
Pen name: Fr. Jesusmary Missigbètò; [email protected]
Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Truth, Threads, Instagram, TikTok, SoundCloud: @fatherjesusmary
_______________________
[1] Decree of the Regional Vicar of Opus Dei in Ivory Coast (Serge Abdoulaye Sissoko), 1 February 2022
[2] “Reprove your neighbor openly so that you do not incur sin because of that person” (Leviticus 19:17); “Every word or attitude is forbidden which by flattery, adulation, or complaisance encourages and confirms another in malicious acts and perverse conduct. Adulation is a grave fault if it makes one an accomplice in another’s vices or grave sins” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2480)
[3] “If your brother sins, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone… If he does not listen, take one or two others along with you… If he refuses to listen to them, tell the Church.” (Matthew 18:15-17)
[4] “if he persists in not correcting himself… you can… let it be known to the mystical body of the holy Church” (Libro della divina dottrina: volgarmente detto Dialogo della divina provvidenza, Trattato dell’orazione, p. 212, Editori Laterza, 1928)
[5] “when Kephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he clearly was wrong” (Galatians 2:11)
[6] “if there were any danger to the faith, superiors would have to be rebuked by inferiors, even in public” (Summa Theologica II-II, q.33, a.4)
[7] Breviarium, Officium lectionis, Sancti Maximiliáni Maríæ Kolbe, 14 Augustus, Lectio Altera
[8] Cf. Open Letter to the College of Cardinals, 29 June 2016, 45 signatories; Filial Correction to Pope Francis, 16 July 2017, 62 signatories; Open Letter to the Bishops, April 2019, 20 signatories; Declaration ‘Vírgen Santísima de Guadalupe, Mater Veritatis Salutaris’, 12 December 2021, 58 signatories; Filial Appeal to all the Cardinals and Bishops of the Catholic Church, 2 February 2024, 511 signatories; The unanswered concerns about Amoris Laetitia: Why the Apostolic Exhortation remains a danger to souls, 29 September 2021; Praise for defending the Faith against presente heresies, Arouca Press, 2021; Tradimento della sana dottrina attraverso “Amoris laetitia”, Fr. Tullio Rotondo, Youcanprint, 2022; etc.
[9] Cf. Matthew 21:12-13; Mark 11:15-18; Luke 19:45-48
[10] Matthew 23:27.33
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