Dear Mother Millea, We are so excited by your visit

Ridiculous. Where can you find a community with 81 sisters?

Why do you bother calling yourself Catholic? More like the National Enquirer. Too bad there isn't a visitation for newspapers and website who are catholic in name only like so many women's religious groups. I pray Mother Millea shuts down all the fake-catholic groups and sends those wanna-be priestesses packing. God Bless Mother Millea!

This is such a mean-spirited move on the part of NCR. She is only doing what she has been asked to do. I do not understand why you cannot leave the woman alone.

Dear Mother Millea,

I cannot tell you how deeply shocked I was to discover that my letter to you was leaked to the Press. Do you have any idea how this could have happened? I know you must place the utmost confidence in your staff and required the greatest degree of secrecy from all of them, being engaged as they are, on highly sensitive Vatican business. You and I both know how much store the Vatican has always placed on secrecy over the centuries. Oh, if only we all had more shredders in our lives.

But imagine my even deeper shock when it transpired that a second leak had sprung in the good ship Visitation. I am informed, and in the interests of secrecy cannot say by whom, that your visit to us is now to be seriously delayed, if not postponed entirely, due to the fact that the Vatican now has very serious business that it must attend to, both within its own walls and in the Diocese of Regensberg.

Perhaps, dear Mother, it would not be entirely inappropriate for me to offer our services to you in your hour of need in Rome. As you know, we put a great deal of time and effort into responding to all aspects of the Survey that you sent to us and we feel very well placed to now administer a similar survey to all Vatican officials and members of the German hierarchy. We would even be prepared to spend some time constructing an appropriate questionnaire.

For example, we would ask who knew about the sex abuse in the Vatican and at the choir school, Domspatzen, in Regensberg? How long had the Pope's Gentleman been engaged in these criminal activities? For how many years had the priests in question been engaging in said activities? Who was funding them and to what extent? The good Catholic people of the United States would be very interested to know the total value of all Vatican property; how much of it had indeed been provided by themselves; and, the names and addresses of all members of the curia and its staff.

Of course, it goes without saying, that we will make ourselves available for private interviews with any holinesses, eminences or lordships who would desire a private interview with the us as visitators. We assure you that this will become valued data to be included in our report and recommendation.

To paraphrase the words of his Eminence Cardinal Franc Rode, we would not look on this "as if it were an act of mistrust of Vatican officials and German priests, or as if it were a global criticism of their work. It is not. It involves a certain secular mentality that has spread in these hallowed Vatican halls and perhaps also a certain 'patriarchal' spirit".

As our dear Archbishop Timothy Dolan said of the visitation to American nuns that you are heading, dear Mother, the current situation "is well worth discussing and hardly exempt from legitimate questioning". As you will note, dear Mother, in expressing these sentiments he finds himself this day, perhaps even to his own surprise, in complete agreement with Cardinal Walter Kasper.

Again, like Cardinal Rode, we hope that this "visitation not only would give U.S. women religious an accurate and thorough picture of the life of Vatican and German bishops and clergy" but that it would also be "a realistic and graced opportunity for personal and community introspection as Cardinals, Bishops and Monsignors co-operate in this study".

We do understand that investigating at the very top of the Hierarchical Pyramid presents us with an unusual difficulty. That is to say, when we have completed our investigation to whom can we report? Who will be left untouched? What will happen if we have fingered everyone, all the way to the top of the Great Chain of Being? Oh, Mother, a darkness will indeed come over the earth. But perhaps your good and faithful daughters, the nuns of the United States, could be entrusted with the task of assessment and recommendations for penance and compensation to the victims of abuse.

However, I may be getting a little ahead of myself. First of all, dear Mother, I will have to ask you to arrange with the Vatican to pay for our transport and accommodation. As you know Rome is a very expensive city. There will be 12 of us, all disciples of Christ, but I will not include Sr. Mary Benedict, Sr. Mary Joseph or Sr. Mary Georg in the party. I think that would be unduly insensitive, don't you?

I am so looking forward to meeting you, Mother and Billy Levada who was in primary school with me.

Yours once more and always, in the bleeding heart of heart of Jesus Christ.

Sr. Mary Roll the Stone Away from the Tomb

NCR: Give this good sister a regular column !

And start organising the visitation of the Vatican.

If the boys in Rome remain unable to clean up this mess, it will be time to start calling for the next Council.

God Bless

These are fantastic. I love the dry humor and if there was ever a time in our church when we need to be able to laugh it is now... Please keep up the post by Sr. Mary

The letters are quite humorous, but troubling as well. Taking the sublime to the ridiculous opens windows that many want closed.

And right now, Rome is way too cold to be opening windows.