Open Letter of Roberto de Mattei demanding the resignation of Fr. Volpi

A group of sites and of associations of lay Catholics have started to collect signatures to ask for the dismissal of Fr. Fidenzio Volpi from his duty as commissioner of the Franciscans of the Immaculate.   All those who wish to sign this appeal may do so by clicking here.

We ask for the resignation of Fr. Volpi, commissioner of the Franciscans of the Immaculate We ask for the dismissal of Fr. Fidenzio Volpi from his duty as political commissioner of the Franciscans of the Immaculate.   In the space of five months, Fr. Volpi has destroyed the Institute, provoking chaos and suffering within, scandal amongst the faithful, criticism from the press, uneasiness and perplexity in the ecclesiastical world. 

It is of little importance to know whether Fr. Volpi is the artifice or the executor of the plan of destruction.   What is certain is that if the plan is not brought to a halt, the consequences will be disastrous and it is to avoid one disaster being added to another that Fr. Volpi must be dismissed. After the decree commissioning the Institute, dated 11th July last, Fr. Volpi, with the help of a maniple of unrestrained sub-commissioners, amongst whom are Fr. Alfonso Bruno and prof. Mario Castellano, started to bring down his hatchet upon the institute. 

He prohibited the celebration of the holy Mass and of the liturgy of the hours in the extraordinary form, provided for by the Motu proprio Summorum pontificum; he deposed the entire general government of the order, starting from its founder, Fr. Stefano Maria Manelli, who finds himself under house arrest without even knowing the reasons why; he has deprived of authority and transferred, one after the other, the most faithful collaborators of Fr. Manelli, all people of intellectual and moral standing, giving their duties to dissident Friars, often uncultured and deprived of experience in governing; he   has threatened and punished the Friars who sent a petition to the Holy See and who refused to withdraw it; lastly, with a diktak dated 8th December 2013, he has closed the seminary, suspended the priestly and diaconal ordinations; struck the publications of the Casa Mariana with an interdict, prohibiting their distribution in churches and sanctuaries entrusted to the religious; he has extended his personal war to the tertiaries and laity who sustain the Institute, suspending all the activities of the MIM (Mission of the Immaculate Mediatrix) and of the TOFI (Third Order Franciscans of the Immaculate); he has threatened to have the Franciscan Sisters of the Immaculate commissioned and removed from them and from the Poor Clares of the Immaculate the spiritual assistance of the Friars; finally he wants to impose upon the Friars a “modernistic vow” of faithfulness to the Novus Ordo Missae and to the II Vatican Council (to read the letter click here).

Fr. Volpi accuses all those who criticise him of being against the Pope, but this tyrannical regime, apart from being unknown in the history of the Church, is it not in complete contrast to Pope Francis, who has recommended the avoidance of every kind of   authoritarianism and the use of mercy and tenderness towards friends and enemies? An objective expert on Vatican affairs, Mark Tosatti, also took note of this, asking himself in La Stampa dated 4th December “But what have these poor religious done? Have they gambled, abused minors, led an immoral life? They have done none of these things.” The truth is that Fr. Volpi, on his own initiative, or through a third party, wants to normalize the Franciscans of the Immaculate, making them similar to the other religious orders who are going astray. To achieve this, it is necessary to transform their spiritual and moral doctrine, destroy the internal discipline, put an end to the regaining of the traditional liturgy and for them to become open to the corruption of the world, just as he and his Capuchin order have done, with disastrous results.

Paul VI in his Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelica testificatio, of 29th June 1971, addressed to religious, reminds that one must obey their superiors, “with the exception of an order that is manifestly contrary to the laws of God or to the constitutions of the institute, or that would implicate a grave and certain evil – in which case, in fact, the obligation to obey does not exist.” If Fr. Volpi will not be dismissed, there will inevitably be a conflict of conscience for those religious, male and female, who want to maintain the charism of the Franciscans of the Immaculate and faithfulness to the Tradition of the Church.

(by Roberto de Mattei, translation by Lepanto Foundation).