Dear Friends & Supporters,
In just 5 days we have achieved 90 supporters from around the world!
While this is far short of our goal, it gives us a great chance to spread the message in a dynamic way, if each one of you show your support by liking it on Facebook & forwarding to many of your friends. With this and an urge for your friends to spread the word we could get well into the thousands quickly.
When each person signs the petition 2 emails are sent one to Hans Zollner SJ, the Jesuit priest who is coordinating the meeting on abuse at the Vatican 21-24 February. The other is to an Archbishop who has been the lead prosecutor at the Vatican for Canon Law violations related to abuse, is a close confidant of the Pope and is also coordinating this meeting. They both & Pope Francis received personalized letters a couple of weeks ago, delivered via DHL. The emails are to show how many of us believe in real substantive change, now not later.
We want to flood their email system so they can't ignore us.
I know it's uncomfortable discussing your thoughts about religious subjects with your friends or strangers. However it really isn't about religion, it's about simple right & wrong. We all know how the Church has handled the abuse wrongly for the past 100 years, and probably a thousand years before that. Now is the time to put an end to it and put in place a clergy that is not inclined to sexual misconduct. The victims deserve it and the future children deserve it.
This petition supports openness and a full accounting of the abuse, payment & support to the victims, immediate excommunication of the offenders and allowing clergy to marry. This isn't too controversial.
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A simple link with a very short/neutral note is all it takes:
"With all the problems the Catholic Church has had, I found this worldwide petition to the Pope worth looking at: http://chng.it/vb6SKLs7 via Change.org"
The other way is to go to the Petition link and share it on Facebook or Twitter with the same or similar wording.
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I have really big news to share with you tomorrow.
Sincerely,
Chris Tolton