Just weeks before his scheduled consecration on July 25, Fr. Michael Mary, F.SS.R., has published what amounts to his final public explanation for accepting the episcopacy from Bishop Pierre Roy, presenting the ceremony not as a personal honor but as a necessary response to what he describes as an unprecedented crisis in the Church.
In a declaration released on July 8, the co-founder of the Congregation of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer, who is now 73, reflected upon a lifetime spent in the Catholic faith and on the convictions that have brought him to this moment.
“Our Holy Mother the Catholic Church has been and, by God’s grace, will ever be the great love of my life,” he writes, before lamenting what he sees as the devastation that followed the Second Vatican Council. “The devastation, the destruction, is tangible … And this has come to pass because the warnings of the Popes went unheeded.”
The declaration repeatedly contrasts what Fr. Michael Mary calls the perennial Catholic faith with what he describes as a “new religion.”
Employing the Gospel parable of the wheat and the cockle, he argues that the post-conciliar Church has experienced a profound corruption. “There is a new religion. It is not the same Catholic Faith that the world had always known. It is a new religion, a religion of blight.”
The title of the statement, An End to the Blight, reflects this central theme. Fr. Michael Mary repeatedly uses the nineteenth century English word “blighter” to describe those whom he sees as having brought destruction upon the visible structures of the Church since the Council.
Father’s most significant argument concerns the necessity of bishops for the continuation of traditional Catholic life. According to the declaration, the forthcoming consecration exists to preserve the sacraments and provide leadership for priests and faithful who reject the post-conciliar hierarchy.
“The Episcopal Consecration that will be celebrated … will keep the fount of the Sacraments open to future generations.”
Fr. Mary also includes an extended quotation from one of the community’s younger monks, who declares his willingness to suffer canonical penalties from what he terms “the modernists.”
“The times are dark, but this is no reason for discouragement… holding fast to the Faith of our fathers, whatever the cost may be,” he concludes.
Fr. Mary adopts that sentiment as the theme of his own conclusion. He further argues that traditional priests have labored for decades without bishops willing to support them and that young men entering seminaries have faced hostility for traditional Catholic practices. His acceptance of the episcopal consecration, he writes, is intended to remedy that situation.
The Dispatch
“It is for these youths without a teacher and these priests without a leader … that, in this late stage of my life, I accept the vocation to which God calls me.”
The consecration is scheduled to take place on Papa Stronsay in the Orkney Islands, where the Transalpine Redemptorists have been established for more than three decades.
The current state of Tradition
The Transalpine Redemptorists began as an affiliate of the Society of St. Pius X in the 1980s but made an accord with Rome under the Benedict regime. They have since publicly stated that doing so was a mistake.
The announcement of the consecration followed closely upon a dramatic development when earlier this year the community formally declared in an open letter that the recent claimants to the papacy could not be regarded as true Roman Pontiffs because of their adherence to the doctrinal errors originating with the Second Vatican Council.
Although many traditional Catholics have criticized the reforms introduced after the Council, relatively few religious communities have publicly embraced this position. Fr. Mary explained why the Redemptorists did so during a recent episode of the Integrity Magazine podcast.
The conclusion that the Chair of St. Peter is vacant forms the foundation of Fr. Michael Mary’s latest declaration.
“They are not the Church, and they are not our pastors, because they have denied the Faith and the Truth,” the letter reads, quoting a young monk.
The excommunication of the priests and faithful associated with the Society of Saint Pius X has intensified discussion regarding the future of organized traditionalist movements. It has also produced more conversations on the topic of sedevacantism.
The sanctions imposed against the SSPX have led some Traditional Catholics to question whether “canonical recognition” is practical or even attainable for those who are committed to defending the Catholic faith and resisting post-conciliar reforms. For the Transalpine Redemptorists, that question has already been settled.
Read more: ‘It’s a trap!’ How the Latin Mass will be used to domesticate Trads in the Synodal Church
The consecration of Fr. Michael Mary marks another defining moment not only for the monks of Papa Stronsay but also for the wider world of traditional Catholicism universally as more and more faithful, religious, clergy, and prelates continue to say enough is enough.
