"Vatican backs bishop’s order to expel Latin Mass community from New Zealand diocese"

"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.

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.

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...

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...

Towards 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, LifeSite 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."