(LifeSiteNews) — The Vatican has sided with a New Zealand bishop who has evicted a traditional Mass community out of his diocese, despite the flourishing order strongly denying any wrongdoing.
On August 10, Bishop Michael Gielen of the Diocese of Christchurch issued a letter announcing that the Vatican has formulated its decision against an appeal made by the The Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer (FSSR) in New Zealand, following a shock decision by Gielen to expel the FSSR last summer.
With the Vatican now bolstering his July 2024 move, Gielen wrote that:
therefore the removal of priestly faculties for the members of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer in the Diocese and the directive for their departure remain. This also applies to those priests who arrived after the decrees were announced. Any sacraments celebrated by a priest without faculties are illicit.
The Latin Mass community of the FSSR was established on the small Scottish island of Papa Stronsay in 2012, with the New Zealand house dating back to 2014 and a more recent house in Montana being set up in 2020.
Background
The decision handed down from the Vatican’s Congregation (now Dicastery) for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL) against the New Zealand branch of the community came through in early August. The dicastery has been a source of controversy given Pope Francis’ decision to appoint a religious woman as its head, creating canonical difficulties, thus prompting Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime to be made pro-prefect in order to have legal power in issuing documents from the dicastery.
“I ask all the Catholic faithful to receive this decision with understanding and trust in the wisdom of the Church,” Gielen added. “My foremost concern remains the spiritual health and unity of our Diocese.”
The public background is found in July 2024 when Gielen ordered the FSSR to cease their public ministry within 24 hours. Stating that the measures were “for the good of the church and the faithful,” Gielen ordered the community to leave his diocese reportedly within 90 days. His decision had come on the back of a Vatican investigation from CICLSAL, but Gielen did not publicize what had prompted the investigation.
READ: Latin Mass order takes legal action after bishop orders the community out of diocese
In order to replace the daily traditional Mass offered by the FSSR, Gielen established a weekly Mass on Sundays. Any other public Masses in the old rite celebrated by the Son “are illicit – that is, outside the rules of the Church,” wrote Gielen at the time, repeating it since.
The FSSR subsequently appealed his decision with the Vatican, and it is the result of that appeal which has now recently been made known.
Why the bishop’s order?
Since the publication of the bishop’s expulsion order last summer the local media has focused on allegations of unauthorized exorcisms performed by the FSSR, suggesting this is behind the bishop’s move. Media reports have also portrayed the FSSR as a thriving cult. However, the FSSR has firmly and consistently denied the veracity of any such allegations, attributing them to the “spirit of destruction that is targeting the chaplaincy and our religious community.” (See LifeSiteNews’ prior analysis on the situation here.)
Additionally, such allegations did not form any part of the bishop’s, or the Vatican’s, investigation – thus appearing to be a peculiar fascination of the media without grounding in the ecclesial reality.
Outlining this fact, Father Martin Mary – the rector major of the FSSR community – wrote in November that despite the swirling accusations against the Sons found in the media, there was no accusation of any crime from the diocese or from the Vatican:
The truth is, the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer have not been accused of any crime – neither by civil authorities, the Diocese of Christchurch, nor the Vatican, even after its investigation. The ‘recommendations’ from the Vatican lack the citation of a single canonical crime committed. The diocese of Christchurch ‘refused to say what exactly the investigation found,’ because it didn’t find anything!
Bishop Gielen’s stated reason to us (different from what was suggested from the pulpits) was his desire to assign the Latin Mass Chaplaincy to another group, making our services no longer needed.
Following Gielen’s latest letter, the FSSR informed this correspondent this week that his decision to try and evict the community is “very unjust.”
“Our Congregation was given a canonical invitation to the diocese with no time limit nor any conditions,” the FSSR noted. The former bishop “founded a canonical house which by canon law has its own rights.”
The FSSR also told LifeSiteNews that their presence is not simply to provide a Latin Mass for locals in Christchurch:
But, unjustly, the case of our opponents was framed as if the canonical house was there only to care for the diocesan chaplaincy to the Faithful who want the traditional Mass.
Such a portrayal of the FSSR’s presence in the diocese, the community stated, is false. They pointed to the fact that their main residence, or domus, lies in the countryside over two hours from the church in Christchurch, as a place for the community to live in monastic solitude.
However, sources close to the community have suggested that something else is really at play. Namely, the FSSR’s very public opposition to the COVID-19 vaccine mandates at a time when the New Zealand bishops followed the official government mandates in that regard. The FSSR became nationally famous for joining in protests against the mandates, being the sole religious community to do so in such a public manner.
Delivering a famous speech during one such demonstration, Father Michael Mary of the community lamented the fact that the ecclesial hierarchy had “remained quiet” when it came to opposing vaccine mandates. “If we don’t get this right then this whole country is going to be subjected to a tyranny that will not finish, it will carry on with Communism and all our natural freedoms that have been given to us by God are going to be taken away from us.”
The FSSR’s leadership is this matter has led some close to the community to suspect that Gielen is motivated by a desire to expel them due to their leadership on this matter in which the bishops failed, rather than anything else.
FSSR’s future
In recent weeks, the community’s house in the hills was burnt to the ground, in what some have described as possible arson. Members of the community have also experienced increased violence and threats against them – following the media campaign against them.
Whilst awaiting the now-delivered Vatican’s decision, the congregation sought to peacefully maintain its presence in the diocese. In blog posts on a website connected to the congregation, one entry read:
… priests and monks who worship God in the Latin Mass are separated into a different class of people. We exist only in the lower of a two tier system. Before the Holy See has decided matters our presence has been taken from the Christchurch diocese website; our names have been deleted from the official list of clergy and wiped from the list of priests present as recorded in the New Zealand Clergy Directory.
Toward the end of 2024, the order acquired the historic Anglican church of St. Albans in the Diocese of Christchurch. However, it would be a private piece of property owned by the order and not given any official status as a church. The church was renamed Mission Immaculata.
But should the community now be forcefully evicted from the diocese, LifeSiteNews understands that several will find themselves having to be separated off from the religious order they entered.
The FSSR “have people here who are on visas. There is nowhere for them to go,” a member told LifeSite. Without being given a place to live by the bishops, and given the fact that “we cannot get everyone visas to live in foreign countries,” the FSSR called Gielen’s order “a no can do situation.”
“The situation is one of being asked to do the impossible,” the FSSR told this correspondent. “When the impossible is not done, they will come down on us with censures.”
The future of the FSSR – after having grown as an international community established in New Zealand – remains uncertain, as the bizarre order from Gielen appears set to be enforced to the detriment of the religious in his diocese.