Dear Tom Allen of Catholic Exchange:
I would like to thank you for the continued orthodoxy of the Catholic Exchange website. I have been “logging on” since your beginning and stayed through the “e3mil” period and am still a daily reader. I wanted to let you know that your website had a part in Fr. Benedict Groeschel's well-being after his accident. I am a Secular Franciscan and a friend of the community of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal founded by Fr. Groeschel and 7 other Friars in 1987. I became aware that Fr. Groeschel had been injured in a car accident on a Sunday evening through your website.
That following Monday morning after daily Mass, I returned home and clicked onto your website to get the latest news from a Catholic perspective as I do every day. It was there that I read about Fr. Groeschel. Since I live in Orlando, I thought I might be of some help and so I called Fr. Glen Sudano who is the current head of the Order (Servant of Servants) and a personal friend at St. Felix Friary in NYC. There was no answer so I left my name and number. A short time later a friar called and said he was flying in to Orlando from a conference in California. So I arranged to meet him at the airport and then took him to the hospital to see Fr. Groeschel. We put Fr. Glen and another friar up at our house and continued the daily visits to the hospital.
Because of the serious condition of Fr. Groeschel and the length of his recovery, Fr. Glen set up a schedule of two new friars coming to Orlando each week to be with him and two leaving. Through my parish nearby we were able to get them a vacant house to live in and through some Franciscan friends we got them a car, cell phone, food etc. All this came about because I learned so quickly of the accident on Catholic Exchange. So again I thank you and Fr. Glen does also.
Fr. Groeschel is back in NYC and is on the long road to recovery. Fr. Glen has something else in common with your website. He and the Friars also loved Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ. He called me Saturday and as we were talking I mentioned your website and the Guide to the Passion.
He then asked me if it were possible to contact you with what his community is doing on the Passion. So I said a prayer to our Blessed Mother and then began this E-mail.
At his web site he has posted an open letter to Mel Gibson requesting that the next movie he makes be called Man of the Passion and be a true story about St. Francis of Assisi. At the site there is a place to click on and leave your name and address in support. He is hoping to get about 50,000 people in support.
Thanks again for all you do for the Church.
Allen Ward
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