Letter sent by Marisa Rossi to the parish-priests of Rome on 17th january 1999

My dear brother priest,

I am Marisa Rossi and my name, without any doubt, isn't unknown to you. I always have kept silent, praying and suffering, but now I dare to send this letter to the priests because I want to defend my spiritual director, Father Claudio Gatti who, for about twenty eight years, has been

pelt by everybody, especially by priests and I also mean bishops and cardinals. I was taught that slandering and defaming seriously somebody is always a mortal sin, just as the "Catechism of the Catholic Church" teaches.

The hardest and most suffered period began with the apparitions.

On 20th june 1993, Our Lady told me that it is God's will that the apparitions became to be public and Father Claudio reported it to Mons. Cesare Nosiglia. So the bishop was the first person who received from Father Claudio the messages of Our Lady: Father Claudio also explaned to the bishop how he would have liked to do the catechesis to the people who would have been present at the apparitions. Father Claudio didn't receive any prohibition and the public apparitions began on 24th october 1993.

Unfortunately, on 6th december 1994, cardinal Camillo Ruini, by means of a decree, forbade the celebration of the Holy Mass in our chapel and let the Eucharist be taken away.

Father Claudio's answer was: "With the death in my heart, I obey". In fact, there was no reason for taking away the Holy Mass, because it was already celebrated before the apparitions began, on the basis of permissions granted by the previous cardinal vicar, Ugo Poletti. Sure, those who have power in their hand can do whatever they want, I understood this on my cost and they can also act against the Gospel and the Canon Law.

Notwithstanding repeated requests of Father Claudio to be able to celebrate the Holy Mass again in our chapel, we always received a flat denial from cardinal Ruini.

For three years and a half we have been deprived of the Holy Mass and you can imagine my sorrow, since I live of the Eucharist, Which is also my physical support as well as a spiritual one. You can also imagine Father Claudio's sorrow, who would have had an infarct, if the Lord hadn't intervened. Our priest was obliged to celebrate alone the Holy Mass in other churches and bring the Holy Communion to us at home and to the sick people of our community.

I want to pass over all the vicissitudes and the sufferings which this decree caused to us and to the whole community, which was deprived of the most precious good that Jesus Christ gave us, so I arrive to 14th september 1995, the day of the first great Eucharistic miracle: at this date began the so much fought against "triumph of the Eucharist", which had been already announced by Jesus in the previous month of June. The miracles repeated frequently, as Our Lady had promised several times. Many people of the community were present at these miracles and they can bear witness, but the ecclesiastical authority didn't want to investigate about these people.

The only time that some members of the commission of enquiry came to examine me, I was treated worse than St. Bernadette and the three little sheperds of Fatima, without the minimum of charity, as the Holy Gospel and also the Canon Law teaches. I don't want to repeat those so bad words said by the members of the commission, which have upset me for about three months, as it springs from the certificate issued by the police doctor, which was sent to the Vicariate. The bishop Nosiglia then declared null and void that meeting of the commission, because they didn't take any minutes of it.

My dear brother priest, checks about the state of my mental health were carried out by the head physician for neurology and psychiatry of Policlinico: they shut out all the moved accusations, included the accusation of being afflicted with "religious pathology". These documents are also kept in the Vicariate. Slanders and defamations increased: against the priest, me, our young people and the people who come and pray to the place made thaumaturgical by God.

On 8th march 1998, the day of the 35th anniversary of Father Claudio's priesthood, the priest received the order by God of celebrating the Holy Mass and he informed the Vicariate which threatened the suspension from the exercize of sacred functions (a divinis). The priest, divided by obedience to God and respect for the ecclesiastical authority, kept in mind Jesus' words of the message of 1st february 1998: "Obedience yes, blackmail no!".

Obedience to the Pope and to the bishops who are united with the Pope is indispensable, but it must be given when love is united with obedience: this is not the case when there is wish of revenge or the request for denying all that somebody believes, included the Eucharist. Therefore the decision of trusting in God can't be considered as a disobedience to the authority or as a rebellion, but as an act of love towards God, the Church, the Mother of the Eucharist; this is the meaning of St. Peter's words: "It's necessary to obey God, rather than man".

Sure, I am not a person with great learning, but I wonder: "How can people obey the ecclesiastical authority when this doesn't respect either persons or God's will and God's deeds?". Some priests stated that Father Claudio anyway should have obeyed the superiors, because it wasn't his responsibility, but of those people who ordered him to be disrespectful to the Eucharist.

Father Claudio taught me always to obey the superiors, on condition that their orders aren't against the Gospel and the Canon Law. In addition, why don't those people obey the Pope when he says that the apparitions are a God's gift?

In spite of all this, Father Claudio tried again to cooperate with the ecclesiastical authority, so on 1st april 1998 he brought to Mons. Cesare Nosiglia at the Vicariate, a big Host Which, on 22nd march 1998, had poured blood. When Father Claudio opened the reliquary, the Eucharist emitted a heavenly scent and my spiritual director knelt down, instead the bishop made a gesture of irritation and pronounced offensive words: "What's that piece of bread?". He even refused to keep the Host to let it be examined.

These miracles of the Eucharist Who poured blood happen just to let us understand that Jesus is really present in the Eucharist, with his Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity: the last miracle happened on 17th May 1998. The Eucharist, brought by Jesus, was put on some flowers, It changed its shape and shut Itself up just like a shell, almost to keep the precious blood of Jesus, which spread over the whole Host little by little. My dear brother priest, those people also forbade us to worship and told us to throw the Hosts into the water, to let them be melted, because in the authority's opinion that either they are tricks of the booths of the fair or they were brought by the devil. We also requested the intervention of an exorcist, but also this was refused by the Vicariate.

My dear brother priest, I was taught that to pass judgements on persons and on events, it isn't only necessary to listen to those who have power in their hands, but also a simple priest, who is involved in the same events.

Now I ask you, my dear brother, to pray for the situation of the Church which is led by men who are doing everything to destroy a poor priest, who all alone is trying to carry on the great mission which God entrusted to him. He is a simple priest, who hasn't power, who has no authority, but who has God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, the Mother of the Eucharist, St. Joseph, all the Angels and the Saints who always escort him in his life, in his choices and in his responsibilities.

It is my hope that you also will escort him at least through your prayers.

Bless me and pray for the great mission which God entrusted to our weak shoulders.

Goodbye to 2000, "A deeply Eucharistic year" (John Paul II).

Marisa Rossi

Rome, 17th January 1999.