Seriously speaking, if you don't take any action, I may carry this matter to the secular court of law of my country.

29 May 2006
Japan

The Congregation for Divine Worship
and the Discipline of the Sacraments
10 Piazza Pio XII 10
00120 Vatican City State
Europe

Dear Father,

I wish you still pay attention to my suit continuously by your remembering content of several letters which I have sent to you.

However, because there is a possibility that you don't remember my letters I repeat my problem and situation again here.
I am a Japanese Catholic faithful and I have a trouble in relation with my priest about the right of a Catholic faithful. He denies Holy Communion to me because I wish to kneel to Jesus by being led to the feeling of thanks and modesty for Jesus.
So to my eyes he seems to have lost saneness and love as a Catholic pastor.

I have already reported this problem to my parish bishop many times by letters and telephone, and I have asked him to give the right guidance to my priest. However, he did nothing. I still demand a meeting from him, but he does not seem to want to meet me. As the reason why he cannot meet me, his substitute priest always says to me; "He is in a period of conference of Church now." It seems to be abnormally long period of conference. I suppose that he may be reluctant of dealing with this problem, probably because he is old and is going to retire soon.

Therefore I cannot almost count on my bishop. And this means that there is no lowest local court of Church for me. Then how about Parish Court? The Japanese Catholic Church is separated in three large blocks of Parish, Tokyo Osaka and Nagasaki, and it has Parish Court in each parts. But I am anxious about whether they function normally. Then how should I do? I may not carry my lawsuit to your Tribunals of the Roman Rota, because I talk in neither Italian nor Latin and cannot almost speak even English. So, now I think whether I will carry this problem to a secular and public court of law of my country as lawsuit of a civil affair. Carry the issue of Liturgy of Church to the secular court of law? I'm sure that this is considerably strange. But it is surely possible that our secular and public court of law would accept any lawsuit if necessary documents were prepared according to a demanded form. So even if there is an unpredictable matter of whether I win or lose, I can accuse my priest at least of that I suffered psychological pain by his wrong guidance including unjust compulsion. And in fact, it is true.

However, I remember now that St. Paul said:

"Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous and not before the saints?"
"I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not among you one wise man who will be able to decide between his brethren, but brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers?"

Therefore I wish that you don’t let me judge my priest at secular court of law if possible.

I don’t write more than this today. But I want you to understand that I am very earnest about this issue under the Holy Name of Jesus Christ. Actually, I am not so emotional subjectively nor personally. However, because I am so, my will is rather still more firm.

In the present times, we have some convenient and quick methods of communication. Please give me an e-mail. Please don't be cold nor indifferent to me. And at the same time, please don't be too much nervous about working on the situation to help your sheep. Because the right answer of this problem is only one very clearly and simply.

I intend to continue handling this problem in my Web site too.

I appreciate heartily your attention to my matter.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Postscript

Dear Father,

Yesterday I read your words quoted from your book God's Invisible Hand in forum of a certain Catholic Web site.

"...then I begin to ask myself, 'Does this child love his mother?' If so, why go to the marketplace to discuss the defects of your mother?... why don't you do it lovingly in the family?"

However, dear Father, of course, basically, at the beginning of the thing, I don't put the best importance on discussing about the defects of our mothers in the marketplace. However don't you see that we lost a place to go? Don't you understand the situation that Catholic lay faithfuls stand in overwhelmingly weak position in our local church? Are you sympathetic enough to a child persecuted by parent? In fact, indeed, outside your view, many mistakes happen!

Even in the public and secular world, the child who is abused or neglected by his or her parent has a right to demand the help from some public organization (teachers, organizations for protection of children, police, court etc.).
Does Church have a law? If She has it, next, does She let the law function effectively in reality? I hope so. Or does She merely lay a law, just like laying a book on the desk of a quiet library or museum? Thus can you save your child? And if we cannot expect any help of higher public organizations including the charge ministry of the Apostolic See, it is very natural that we demand help from the public opinion.

Please pay your attention to the possibility of that lay faithful may be powerless child in our church and that our mothers (bishops and priests) may be not so good. If the pastors are our mothers, they are your daughters, and you are our grandma. And we all know that almost all grandmothers can't be looking at their crying grandchild indifferently with no action.

And, However, I think also that it is clearly impossible to expect that all difficult problems would be solved "lovingly" by being encouraged by family-like expression and example. What is there canon law for? Church is called "She" or "Her", but does not Church have male principle at all? Can a family form and maintain the peace with only mother or female principle?

I hope that you would use vigor of law powerfully against "grave violation of most basic rights of the Christian faithful" reported by faithfuls who do not conflict with law, except small matters.

Thank you.

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