We, the undersigned, in virtue of the Second Vatican Council’s empowering of the laity to respectfully voice their deeply held concerns to the shepherds in matters of the Church, respectfully beg His Eminence Blase Cardinal Cupich of Chicago to tender his resignation of his archdiocese, effective immediately.

In the aftermath of the "Summer of Shame" for the Church regarding the scandal of homosexual clerical predation and the promotion of sodomy at all levels of the Church, His Eminence has demonstrated a woeful lack of pastoral concern for both laity and his own clergy.

From his massively insensitive and unpastoral remarks to a Chicago TV station, where he said there is a "bigger agenda" than dealing with priestly sex abuse, to his doubling down on those comments less than a week later to a group of seminarians, which scandalized them, to his handling of the case of Fr. Paul Kalchik, a victim of homosexual rape whom he reportedly threatened to commit to psychiatric treatment, all of this demonstrates a pattern of extreme negligence in the fulfillment of his duties as shepherd, as well as increasing intolerance and lack of respect for faithful Catholics in his charge.

His reputation for this is now spreading far and wide throughout not just the Catholic world, bringing shame and scandal on the Church, but also in the secular world, where his comments are now the source of scandal for even non-Catholics.

In the face of all this just criticism, he demonstrated an embarrassing lack of humility as well as spiritual immaturity in blaming the TV station for "unfair editing" — a charge they disproved almost immediately.

Cardinal Cupich must publicly apologize for his insensitivity, intolerance, lack of transparency, lack of willingness to dialogue and resulting sadness, sorrow and scandal to the People of God that his willful actions have inflicted on them, and he must resign his post immediately.

The People of God can no longer endure the reign of a man whose very presence worries the faithful that each new day brings with it the increasing possibility of yet another national embarrassment for the Church. The faithful can no longer endure — nor should they endure — this appointment.