Of course those who do not have theological or philosophical qualifications have a right to their opinion, and to those opinions being taken seriously (up to a point). However, the object of letters like this is to apply pressure, particularly when published as this one was. The object of listing the names is to impress the reader with their seniority and expertise. This is particularly clear from the way most of them have listed their positions. My point is that a significant portion of the people on the list do not have that expertise. If this was meant to indicate the mass nature of the controversy, a representative mass of names would have been more appropriate than a small selection of academics. I'm sorry, I thought my comment was clearer.

As for "massive controversy", the only place I hear about this is in a fairly small group of Catholic blogs. So I suppose we must have different definitions of "massive", and "controversy".