Please consider signing the petition below, if you are a parishioner of the Diocese of Peoria, IL. We hope we can quickly get hundreds of Peoria parishioners that will sign this petition, regardless of their views on conservative priests, such as Father James Altman, the keynote speaker for the March. When signing the petition please enter the name of the church you attend in the COMMENTS section.  The app does not allow a separate entry, so please include it there. Our diocese needs to hear from us.

PETITION TO NOT CANCEL 'NATIONAL MARCH FOR CATHOLICS' IN PEORIA, IL

Most Reverend Bishop Louis Tylka,

The signatories of this petition respectfully ask you to allow the National March For Catholics (www.ourwarpath.com/marchforcatholics to use one of our local churches for group prayer during the event to be held on September 29-30, 2022.  The organizers chose our city for this first year's event.  A big reason for choosing our city was its central location and the proximity to the museum of the late Bishop Fulton Sheen.  We are confused and saddened by the apparent rejection of the request for the participants of the March to pray at one of our local churches.

The group organizing the event in our city is composed by Catholics in good standing with the church.  They have not been excommunicated.  They are not the enemy.  They are baptized, confirmed, and active Catholics.  While you may disagree with some or many of their views, we ask you to please reconsider the refusal to allow even praying by the group in our churches.   They are not asking for an endorsement or for diocese priests to celebrate mass at during the event.  They are only asking to be allowed to gather in church to pray.  It would of course be much better and more appropriate for such a large group of Catholics coming from across the country to be able to celebrate mass, but if you object to that they would settle for prayer only.  It is so difficult to understand why they have been rejected from using our churches even just for this.  

In this cancel culture era where free dialog is censured by many in the secular world, we urge you to please allow open and respectful dialog to occur in our diocese.  Dialog between us Catholics.  Let us not be part of 'cancel culture' that we have been experiencing for the last few years.  Let us set the example as the Universal Catholic Church.

If for some reason you do not want to reconsider your decision, we ask you to please make a public announcement giving the reasons why the organizers have been told they cannot use any of our churches.  We are aware that they have asked for a written notice for the rejection and the request was denied.  

Respectfully,

Signed Parishioners of the Catholic Diocese of Peoria
July, 2022