In my letter of July 11, I told you that I had instructed my attorneys to abandon the suit in response to your threat, provided that Msgr. McCormack does not seek to impose costs upon me and that you withdraw your threat of excommunication. I have done so under protest, knowing that my claim against Msgr. McCormack was well-founded (as the civil tribunal agreed in refusing to dismiss the claim), perfectly permissible under the 1983 Code of Canon law and required in natural justice, as I explain more fully below.

In my July 11 letter I also promised you a fuller response to your letter of June 5, including a proposal to resolve my situation in accordance with justice. I now provide it as follows, and without prejudice to my canonical position, my canonical rights and my civil rights.

Because of the crushing obligations of this Apostolate, as well as great weariness on my part, I did not read your letter of June 5 in its entirety until the first days of July. Your letter did not even arrive here until June 21, as you know. I must note also that I never heard about or saw your letter until it arrived here late at night, June 21, 2000.

You speak of gestures of good will. Among other ways, I have shown my good will by offering to abandon a legitimate claim (under your threat of excommunication). Now I await some sign of good will from you. Meanwhile, I will respond to your letter of June 5 in greater detail. My reply will be frank, and unfortunately quite blunt, but there is simply no way to deal with these matters in a delicate tone, especially within the limited time you have given me to respond.

First of all, I note that your letter was delivered by an emissary from the papal nuncio in Canada, who harassed a member of my staff and insisted that she call my assistant to awaken me from a sound sleep so that he could enter my home at night to deliver the letter. He told her that she was being very rude in denying him the right to complete his "mission." He refused to fax me your letter, and adamantly insisted that he must be given entry to my home immediately so that he could hand it to me personally. When my staff member refused to be browbeaten, your emissary resorted to outright trickery. He told her that the document he was trying to deliver was "not legal" in nature, that it was "from the Holy Father," and that once he delivered the letter we would "all be very pleased". Your emissary's statements were written down and preserved in a memorandum which is in our files.

These statements by your emissary were obviously lies. The document has legal import (although its import is far from clear), it is not from the Pope but from you, and it did not make me "very pleased." On the contrary, your letter made me very sad--not so much because of what you threaten therein, but because of what it demonstrates about the abuse of power and the dismal state of governance in the post-conciliar Church.

In your letter you dared to invoke the name of Our Lord and His Blessed Mother at the same time you crudely threatened me with excommunication if I do not show "a concrete sign" of my "constructive good will." This "sign" which you expected was that I immediately abandon a legitimate civil proceeding, of ten years' duration, against Msgr. McCormack, who spread false allegations about my clerical status in secular newspapers throughout North America, thereby damaging my good name, and, far more serious, the reputation of the apostolate (a civil corporation) of which I am president. I commenced the civil proceeding only after my numerous attempts to resolve the matter amicably (including various letters) were rebuffed by the Archbishop of Toronto, who adamantly refused to order a retraction of Msgr. McCormack's demonstrably false allegations. I had no choice but to proceed as I did; the damage to the apostolate was too grave to overlook. But now, with your groundless threat of excommunication, even greater damage could occur, and so I must bend to your threat for the sake of the apostolate.

Are you not ashamed to abuse the power of your office by threatening me in this way? Do you not realize that threatening someone with ruin and disgrace in order to gain advantage in a civil proceeding is a terrible abuse of your power and authority?

You know very well that the civil action I maintained against Msgr. McCormack was not prohibited by the 1983 Code of Canon Law, and that I had and still have the natural right (recognized in Catholic moral theology) to repair the damage to my good name by obtaining a judicial sentence against a calumniator-- especially where the calumny in question harms the many people who work for the apostolate, and the many people who look to the apostolate for information on matters of serious concern in the Church. (See cann. 212, 215, 299 and others.)

The civil tribunal in which the action is pending rightly recognized my claim as a matter which goes far beyond the confines of the Church into the larger civil society, where my reputation as a human being (with natural and civil rights like any other) has been destroyed in the minds of countless people who read Msgr. McCormack's lies about me. The civil tribunal, unlike your Congregation, had the decency to recognize that my claim is quite serious and warranted a trial.

Both attempts I made to get your congregation to hear my just complaints were dismissed by your predecessors without a hearing. Your predecessors went so far as to formally decree that I did not have a right to unbiased judges in an "administrative proceeding." Thus, my alleged "disobedience" to the order to find another bishop or else return to Avellino was judged by the same two prelates who had systematically prevented me from obeying the order by illicitly blocking my incardination in any other diocese. (I discuss this in greater detail below) You speak of scandal. The real scandal is that ecclesiastical courts in the Vatican do not observe the most basic norms of fairness which even secular civil tribunals are bound to honor. Is it any wonder I sought redress in the civil courts? And the law of the Church allowed me to do so. Indeed, today the civil tribunals are full of claims against priests and prelates who have abused their authority and positions of trust in the most unspeakable ways. And, as you know, the Church has freely made herself subject to the civil law in such matters under the new Code of Canon Law promulgated by Pope John Paul II himself.

The civil tribunal's recent refusal to dismiss my claim, and its scheduling of the matter for trial on August 28, 2000 were evidently what prompted your sudden (and patently groundless) threat of excommunication. I am willing to surrender my right to restitution from Msgr. McCormack under your coercion. Yet I owe a duty not merely to myself, but to the apostolate that Msgr. McCormack's lies have damaged so severely, to make the truth about your actions known, and to correct the many falsehoods contained in your letter of June 5.

Sad to say, your extortionate threat of excommunication is accompanied by many erroneous assertions of fact which demonstrate either that you know very little about my case or that you are willfully disregarding the truth. Without conceding that I am obliged to reargue my position in reply to your letter (whose canonical import is far from clear), permit me to make the following observations:

1. Contrary to your assertions about my leaving Avellino you seem to be unaware that when I left Avellino in 1977 I had permission of my Ordinary to do so. This permission was renewed by the Bishop of Avellino orally and/or in writing in 1978, in 1981, 1989 and in 1990 and 1994.

2. You assert that Msgr. McCormack was only exercising a "pastoral duty" in falsely denouncing me and that the Archbishop of Toronto had previously "exhorted" me in some manner. Both assertions are false. First, there can be no "pastoral duty" to tell lies about another. Second, the Archbishop of Toronto in the years prior to Msgr. McCormack's libel, Cardinal Carter, never "exhorted" me to do anything, nor did he have any right or jurisdiction to do so, since I am not a priest of his Archdiocese and I have never resided there.

Cardinal Carter and I exchanged letters and I met him on one occasion. In fact, he gave me permission for visits to parishes in his Archdiocese with the apostolate's Pilgrim Virgin statue (which was blessed by Pope Paul VI). Later, Cardinal Carter requested that I no longer conduct these visits, and I complied with his request. Then, years later, I was invited by the Cardinal's auxiliary bishop to make another visit with the statue to a parish in the Toronto Archdiocese. Even though I told the auxiliary bishop about Cardinal Carter's aversion to further visits with the statue, he told me that there was no objection to this one additional visit.

Perhaps you mean to refer to Cardinal Ambrozic, Cardinal Carter's successor as the Archbishop of Toronto in 1990. (As you know, Cardinal Ambrozic was only an Archbishop when he succeeded Cardinal Carter.) It was during Archbishop Ambrozic's tenure that Msgr. McCormack's false statement was issued. I have had no contact whatsoever with Cardinal Ambrozic since 1979 or 1980. We had a theological discussion while he was still an auxiliary bishop. Indeed, since the date of Msgr. McCormack's false statements about me in 1990, Cardinal Ambrozic has refused even to acknowledge my letters protesting his Chancellor's actions. Cardinal Ambrozic has never "exhorted" me to do anything. He has not communicated with me in any way, about any matter.

Thus, neither Cardinal Carter nor Cardinal Ambrozic has ever given me any "exhortation" or command, nor did they have any jurisdiction or grounds to do so.¹ Your suggestion that I somehow ran afoul of their legitimate authority is, therefore, completely baseless.

I must stress that the apostolate lawfully solicits donations from Catholics in the same manner as many other Catholic apostolates organized under civil law. The apostolate's books are audited annually by the world's largest accounting firm and the apostolate complies with all applicable Canadian laws for nonprofit corporations. There is absolutely nothing about the activities of the apostolate, or my involvement in it, which contravenes any law of the Church or any civil law. Therefore, the Archbishop of Toronto had no right to attack the apostolate's legitimate activities through his Chancellor, nor any right to have his Chancellor issue false and libelous statements about my priestly status which have caused grave harm to the apostolate.

3. You accuse me of "long-rooted disobedience." In what respect have I been "disobedient"? Reviving a long-since disproved allegation, you suggest that I "failed" to heed my former bishop's order to find a benevolent bishop to incardinate me outside the Diocese of Avellino. This is the only claim of "disobedience" which has ever been made against me in my 24 years as a priest. But surely you know this claim of "disobedience" is completely false. Permit me to summarize, yet again, what you already know from the voluminous acts of my canonical case:

• You know, of course, that I found three benevolent bishops to incardinate me, and that your predecessor, and the predecessor of the Congregation's Secretary, used illicit pressure, veiled threats and hidden directives (all unknown to me at the time) to prevent my incardination by each of these bishops, even though the Bishop of Avellino had no objection to my departure from Avellino, as he himself admitted. After concealing these illicit interventions for years, your Congregation suddenly admitted to them last year. Your Congregation now claims that it possesses the "ordinary vicariate power" of the Pope himself over every bishop and priest, without any special delegation from the Pope. This astonishing claim undermines the divine constitution of the Church.

• You know, of course, that by these illicit means your predecessors prevented me from obeying the very order which they accused me of "failing" to obey. Do you think it is just and proper to accuse someone of "disobeying" an order, when the accuser himself is the very cause of the "disobedience"? Do you not think such hypocrisy is only increased when the accuser sits in judgment as the judge in my case, upholding his plots against me, the accused?

• You know, of course, that one of the three benevolent bishops, the Archbishop of Hyderabad, courageously resisted the illicit interventions of your predecessors and affirmed his incardination of me in formal decrees which state that "evil forces [by which he apparently meant your predecessors] have conspired to destroy your work of love," that I am doing "God's work" in his archdiocese, and that he was misled and misinformed by "influential people, " a reference to your predecessor who had no right to suspend de facto his authority to incardinate into his own archdiocese. The same Archbishop has signed my open letter of appeal to the Supreme Pontiff, along with many other bishops, 1,900 priests and religious and over 15,000 members of the laity.

• You know, of course, that even if the Bishop of Avellino were still my bishop--and he is not--it would be illegal for me to return to Italy after an absence of 23 years to take up permanent residence in that country, since the Bishop of Avellino has done nothing to comply with current Italian immigration law, which was also in effect in 1996, when his order to return to Avellino was issued. Italian law requires a bishop seeking entry of a foreign-born priest to authorize issuance of a proper visa and to certify in writing that he will support the priest, provide health insurance and a pension for his old age--the very things the Bishop of Avellino has never provided since 1976. It is absurd for you to accuse me of "disobedience" because I decline to enter Italy as an illegal alien with no income, health insurance or pension, subject to being arrested and deported at any time.

• You know, of course, that the order to return to Avellino is, therefore, legally void. The Bishop of Avellino simply has no right to order a non-citizen of Italy to reside there without a proper visa, and the Church considers herself bound by applicable civil law. (Can. 22)

• You know, of course, that I have filed with the Apostolic Signatura a petition for a declaration of nullity and restitutio in integrum, the latter of which suspends operation of the penalties threatened in the 1996 order to return to Avellino. My petition points out that the order to return to Avellino is void because I cannot reside in Italy without breaking the law, and that in any event I was already incardinated in Hyderabad when the order was issued.

4. You say that I exercise my ministry "without canonical approbation." This is false by means of a half-truth. You know quite well that canonical approbation is not required under the 1983 Code of Canon Law, as has been pointed out time and again in the acts of my case. (Cann. 218, 278, 299 etc.). And you know that three successive bishops have approved of my apostolate in any event, even though such approval is not necessary.

5. You say that my "behavior" has caused worries on the part of competent ecclesiastical authority. This is false. To this day, no one has ever specified what "behavior" of mine is considered improper--other than my lawful recourses and legitimate protests against prelates who order me to find another bishop and then try to prevent me from finding one, so that they can accuse me of "disobedience" and publish baseless denunciations of me to the entire world.

Please, specify the "behavior" of mine which you deem objectionable, and cite the canons which you claim my behavior transgresses. It will be the first time anyone has done so over the past six years of canonical proceedings, or at any time in my 24 years as a priest.

And let us be perfectly frank about this: We both know quite well that the only "behavior" you have in mind is my legitimate and lawful activity in teaching and preaching the whole Message of Fatima and in offering licit criticism of certain Vatican policies which I (and millions of other Catholics) believe to be tragic mistakes. These policies include Ostpolitik and the Vatican's involvement in creation of the godless super-tribunal known as the International Criminal Court, whose head is the pro-abortion ex-President of Ireland.

Of course, the true motive in all of this was frankly admitted by Archbishop Zenon Grocholewski (former Secretary and later Prefect of the Signatura) who told an eminent jurist that this case is not about my incardination but rather "what he (Father Gruner) says." In other words, preaching the whole Message of Fatima is considered "divisive" by those who would have us believe that the prophetic warning of Fatima is a thing of the past.

However there is no canonical basis for denying me the same liberty of expression everyone else in the Church enjoys--including open heretics about whom you do nothing even though you are duty bound before God and man to silence heretics-- nevertheless you and your predecessors, the Signatura and the Vatican Secretary of State have resorted to a shabby canonical trick: You have contrived to order me back to Avellino after illicitly preventing any other bishop in the world from incardinating me. Knowing that it was and is humanly and legally impossible for me to return to Avellino after 23 years to live as an illegal alien in a destitute condition until my death, you propose to "suspend" me for "disobedience."

However, your trick has failed, since the Archbishop of Hyderabad has courageously resisted your abuse of power by incardinating me, and has also signed my letter of appeal to the Supreme Pontiff, in whose name you dare to perpetrate these absurd injustices.

6. You say that I rejected my former Ordinary's attempts at agreement and dialogue. This is false. My former Ordinary admitted that he had no grievance against me, and no reason to deny me excardination, but was acting solely under pressure from your predecessors and the Vatican Secretary of State. He offered no dialogue and no agreement, because he was prevented from doing so by your Congregation and the Secretary of State, who illicitly interfered with and destroyed my once peaceful and friendly relationship with my former ordinary. I ask you in all candor and with all due respect: How can you engage in these pretenses without being ashamed?

7. You say that I am an "irregular priest." Here you add an entirely new and false allegation to the proceedings in my case. No one, not even your predecessors, ever accused me of being "an irregular priest." Please tell me in what respect I have incurred an irregularity in my priestly orders, and under what canons. If there are no such irregularities--and indeed there are none--then you are duty bound before God and before men to withdraw your accusation.

It is quite evident that you have invented the utterly meaningless charge that I am an "irregular priest" so that you could furnish a copy of your letter to Msgr. McCormack, who would have used it to claim--ten years after the fact--that his false statements were true when he uttered them in 1990. Is this why your emissary insisted on barging into my home under false pretenses so that your error-filled letter of extortion could be delivered to me in a great hurry? It also seems evident that you are planning some sort of "announcement" about me on or after the July 11 "deadline" you have arbitrarily established for my reply to your letter. (I am fully prepared to address such an announcement, if one is made.)

Even though I have responded to your threat by offering to abandon my civil claim against Msgr. McCormack, it is evident that you intend to publish your letter or some other "announcement" just as your predecessors and the Signatura have published other decrees and "announcements" concerning me, even in Soul magazine and L'Osservatore Romano. Indeed, you yourself requested (and were granted) permission by the Signatura to send a copy of the Signatura's latest decree to every bishop Ordinary in the world for publication wherever you see fit, even though my petition for restitutio is still pending.

Yet it is I who am accused of wrongfully appealing to public opinion! All I have done is to answer and defend myself against what was made public (or circulated privately to many influential persons) by your Congregation or the Signatura and officials of the Secretary of State. (I note that while it publishes decrees in my proceedings to the entire world, the Signatura demands that I observe strict confidentiality!)

8. You say that I find myself "in the situation of a suspended cleric." This is the biggest lie of all. You know very well that my petition for restitutio is pending before the Signatura, and that it suspends the operation of any threatened suspension of my priestly orders. (Can. 1647). You know also that the recent decrees affirming my incardination in Hyderabad were filed with the Signatura and the Bishop of Avellino, sent in November and August of 1999, respectively, and that neither has objected. Nor has the Bishop of Avellino ever responded to my request, sent in October of 1999, for advice as to what, if anything, he expects me to do, given many of the facts I have outlined above.

You conclude your litany of false allegations by citing three canons in connection with your threat to excommunicate me. (Cann. 1371, 1373, 1393). However, I have not taught any doctrine contrary to Faith (1371, 1°), nor have I disobeyed any order of the Apostolic See or my ordinary (1371, 2°), although I have taken legitimate recourses from the order that I return to Avellino and my petition for restitutio is still pending. As for Can. 1373, please tell me how I have incited the hatred of my "subjects" against the Apostolic See. I have never incited hatred of anyone. At any rate, you may have noticed that I do not have any "subjects," and that the canon does not even apply to me in the first place.

On the other hand, I can certainly demonstrate that prelates in the Apostolic See have incited hatred of their subjects against me by issuing false and misleading "announcements," based on nothing, which condemn me before the whole Church. This is not to mention who knows how many false accusations made behind my back, including the outrageous lie by the papal nuncio that I "extorted the sacred priesthood," which lie was disclosed by the Promoter of Justice at the end of 1998 in one of the many "secret" documents he revealed in his votum. I requested copies of these documents more than 18 months ago, and you have not even acknowledged receipt of my request. Am I not entitled to see documents which make false allegations against me and impose secret conditions on the exercise of my priesthood, or have you and your predecessors suspended the right of defense in my case, contrary to all norms of justice and the Code of Canon Law?

Finally, as for Can. 1393, I have violated no "obligation," although you and your predecessors (as well as the Secretary of State) have violated obligations to me in justice and charity by abusing your authority, browbeating benevolent bishops who wished to incardinate me, publishing and circulating false allegations against me, and now extorting me by threatening me with excommunication if I do not abandon a legitimate civil claim.

As you know, I have already made my gesture of good will but I also promised you a proposal to bring a just and peaceful conclusion to the matter that prompted your most extraordinary intervention. Here is what I propose:

I will come to meet with you to discuss what it is about me or my work in promoting the Message of Fatima which has prompted so many unprecedented actions against me, even though no fewer than 1000 Bishops have expressed their endorsement of various aspects of our Apostolate and three bishops have recognized the great value of my work and have wished to foster it in under their auspices. I would gladly come to such a meeting (along with my advisors) in order to engage in fraternal discussion with the aim of bringing this entire matter to an amicable and just conclusion. However, I am not prepared to attend such a meeting on the premise that I am a "suspended" priest. I am not suspended and I must insist that your allegation that I am suspended be retracted. Further, as a sign of your good will, since the basis for your groundless threat of excommunication has been removed by my offer to abandon the civil proceeding, your threat of excommunication must be formally withdrawn before we meet.

Perhaps it would be possible for the Congregation for the Clergy and the Apostolic Signatura to show as much respect for my rights as is shown for the rights of a professed heretic who has caused incalculable damage to the Body of Christ with his spoken and written words, none of which he has retracted, and who has openly defied and mocked the Supreme Pontiff--while receiving, I might add, not condemnation but public praise from none other than the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Sodano.

Perhaps, if we meet, it could be explained to me how it is possible that priests such as Küng can roam our Holy Church in large numbers, never receiving any but the most limited form of punishment (and usually no punishment at all), while I am threatened with the ultimate punishment of excommunication for doing absolutely nothing which is contrary to the law of the Church or faith and morals. Not only I, but the millions of people who read the apostolate's publications, would like to know the explanation for this outrageous double-standard of justice in the Church.

Here I must note that I do not understand the canonical import of your letter, although I have answered it because you asked me to. My case is now before the Apostolic Signatura, and I have not brought any new recourses which would require the involvement of the Congregation for the Clergy. I certainly do not agree that the Congregation for the Clergy can sua sponte threaten me with excommunication when there is no process before it.

Nevertheless, I remain willing to meet with you in a spirit of fraternal dialogue, as I have always been. Even though I have complied with your request (under your threat of excommunication) I suppose, given your track record with me and the fraternity of St. Peter, that you might still attempt to "excommunicate me". Should you see fit to carry out your threat of excommunication, however, I will of course expect that you will follow the law of the Church and natural law and that a proper penal process will be commenced, in the first instance, by the competent ordinary (the Archbishop of Hyderabad) before any recourses and appeals are taken. I will expect this process to include specific accusations supported by specific evidence, a full hearing, an opportunity to confront the witnesses against me, and the various other aspects of the God-given right of defense.

Meanwhile, I will continue to exercise my God-given right to preach and teach the Message of Fatima, whose urgency increases with each passing day. Indeed, on June 27, 2000 the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Sodano, honored Mikhail Gorbachev by inviting him to the Vatican as his special guest, seating Gorbachev between himself and another cardinal, Cardinal Silvestrini at a press conference to celebrate the publication of Cardinal Cassaroli's memoirs on Ostpolitik. Gorbachev is promoting universal abortion and contraception to reduce the world's population to half a billion by killing 4,000,000,000 [four billion] innocent people through abortion and abortifacient contraception and other immoral means of population control. This man stands for everything Our Lady of Fatima came to oppose, and to warn against, in the name of Her Son. Yet the Vatican honors this despicable preacher of death, this agent for a godless one-world government, only one day after the Third Secret was consigned to the past by Cardinal Ratzinger, who subtly insinuates (by citing Dhanis) that Sister Lucia could have made up the whole Fatima secret and that she could have obtained the images in the Third Secret from devotional books!

How far we have fallen from the apex of the once-militant Church which preached without shame the Social Kingship of Christ over all nations, and the Queenship of His Blessed Mother--the very things affirmed in the Message of Fatima. Do you remember? Was it so long ago?

You will understand, then, why I go on with my work despite your threat of excommunication. I, too, am concerned about the theme of reconciliation and conversion in this year of the Great Jubilee. But I say to you, in all humility, that it is not I who need to be converted and reconciled with Holy Mother Church, for I have never left Her.

When justice is done, and seen to be done in my case, all men of good will should "all be very pleased" to borrow the phrase of your emissary. Unlike him I use the phrase honestly.

In closing, allow me to remind you of the admonition of the Council of Trent, quoted in Canon 2214 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law: "Bishops and all ordinaries must be pastors not persecutors. They must rule their subjects but not dominate them. They must love their subjects as brothers and sons..." [Meminerint Episcopi aliique Ordinarii se pastores non percussores esse, atque ita praeesse, sibi subditis oportere, ut non in eis dominentur, ses illos tamquam filios et fratres diligant . . .]

I request that you re-read your bluntly threatening letter of June 5 and the proceedings in my case with this admonition in mind, and ask yourself honestly whether I have been treated as a brother and a son by my superiors. Then compare the treatment I have received with the scrupulous care shown by superiors for the procedural and substantive rights of heretics, pedophiles and other malefactors throughout the Catholic priesthood, and ask yourself honestly how in Heaven's name you could have threatened me with excommunication.

Yours respectfully in Christ,

Father Nicholas Gruner

cc: His Holiness John Paul II
Archbishop Ternyak Csaba
Each Director of The National Committee
for The National Pilgrim Virgin of Canada Inc.

In August, 1931, at Rianjo, Spain, Jesus told Sister Lucy of Fatima that He was very displeased because the Catholic bishops had not yet obeyed His command that they solemnly and publicly consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Jesus said to Sister Lucy: "Make it known to My ministers, given they follow the example of the King of France in delaying the execution of My command, like him they will follow him into misfortune. It is never too late to have recourse to Jesus and Mary."

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