At the 2026 Fatima Conference in Spokane, Washington, Bishop Michael Mary Sim, F.Ss.R., delivered a powerful address combining spiritual autobiography, an indictment of the post-conciliar revolution, and an urgent appeal for the restoration of the papacy.
“Fatima is the answer,” His Excellency repeatedly declared during his address “Now There Stood by the Cross His Mother,” while recounting his journey from the Novus Ordo to Traditional Catholicism.
Sim began his keynote remarks by recalling the Catholic civilization of his childhood in New Zealand, especially the influence of religious sisters. “A grace it was to live in the tail end of the true Church,” he reflected, before explaining how his own vocation began with a child’s understanding of the Blessed Sacrament. “As a little kid, I knew only priests could touch the Host, only priests could touch God. As a little kid, I wanted to touch God. Ergo … [I] must be a priest.”
His Excellency further contrasted the Catholic world of his youth with the devastation following Vatican II, citing the once-formidable numbers of religious sisters in New Zealand, Canada, and France as a sign of the destruction of an entire Catholic environment in which supernatural truths permeated everyday life.
Sim spoke at the event, which was first held in 2017, along with clergy associated with the Congregation of Mary Immaculate Queen. The annual conference featured talks on an array of subjects, including how Catholics ought to use social media to promote the faith. Laymen who have delivered remarks at past gatherings include Novus Ordo Watch founder Mario Derksen and commentator Louie Verrechio, among others. This year’s event was hosted at the CMRI’s Mount St. Michael property in Washington from October 7 to 11. The group’s Superior General is Bishop Mark Pivarunas.
Ordained in the new rite in 1978, Sim said he initially knew relatively little about the traditional theological inheritance of Redemptorist founder St. Alphonsus Liguori. His conversion to Tradition came gradually after encounters with traditional priests, as well as praying to Our Lady of Fatima and engaging in serious study on the liturgical revolution. He recalled meeting a traditional Catholic family whose devotion to Fatima profoundly influenced him. “Father, the first three words you must say every morning are Fatima, Fatima, Fatima,” he said one young man instructed him.
As Sim studied the traditional Mass, he found himself increasingly unable to defend the post-conciliar reforms.“I was converted just by reading it, not that I wanted it,” he admitted. “I was fighting it.” Eventually, his doubts started extending to the validity of his own ordination. “You start out thinking you’re a priest, and then you find it all eroding because of what you’ve read.” His Excellency shared similar insights while speaking to Integrity Magazine co-founder Stephen Kokx earlier this year.
One dramatic episode occurred during John Paul II’s 1986 visit to Christchurch, when Sim witnessed a man deliberately crush a Host received in Communion. He and another priest knelt in the grass attempting to recover the fragments. “It was one of the most traumatic experiences you could ever go through if you’re a priest,” he said.
Sim was further horrified to see Hosts being collected in an ordinary cardboard carton. His subsequent reading of Pope St Pius X’s Pascendi Dominici Gregis strengthened his conviction that the crisis was doctrinal, and not only liturgical. In 1987, he travelled to Écône, Switzerland and received priestly ordination in the traditional rite from Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.
The question of the papacy
Bishop Sim made it clear that a Catholic cannot maintain an indifferent attitude toward the papacy.
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“Now, we don’t believe there is a pope,” he said, but quickly added that he wanted a pope. “Catholic means I need a Pope. I’ve got to have a Pope. Catholic and Pope go together.”
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Citing Pope Gregory X’s warnings about prolonged vacancies of the Apostolic See, Sim challenged traditional Catholics to recognize the gravity of the present situation and lamented the fact that the “sheep are scattered every different direction.” He also rejected self-appointed mini-conclaves and so-called “garage popes,” while expressing hope that bishops professing the true Catholic Faith might eventually find a legitimate means of restoring the papacy.
“Just pray, pray for a pope from now on,” he pleaded. “Because we can’t keep living like this.” He said this while admitting “yes, I’m [a] sedevacantist, but I’m what they call an uncomfortable sedevacantist.” Because “I can’t be comfortable” with the present situation.
Our Lady at the foot of the Cross
In line with the conference’s Marian theme, Sim additionally recalled the writings of Redemptorist theologian Fr. Francis Xavier Godts concerning Our Lady as Mediatrix of All Graces.
He described Godts’s interpretation of the paten used during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as a symbol of the Blessed Virgin. “Our Blessed Lady, the foot of the cross, receives the broken body of her Son into the paten,” Sim explained, calling it “absolutely beautiful.”
His Excellency reserved his final exhortation for supernatural charity, quoting the seventeenth-century French preacher Father Paul Lejeune, SJ. “There’s nothing so common among men as love, and there’s nothing so rare in the world as charity. All charity is love, but all love is not charity.” We “all have to be converted,” he said, “we all have to pray for a solution.” He therefore urged Catholics to bear persecution without bitterness and to extend charity even to those who oppose them.
Addressing his consecration
Sim is the New Zealand-born, co-founder of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer, commonly called the Transalpine Redemptorists. Established in 1988 with Archbishop Lefebvre’s encouragement, the community sought to preserve traditional Redemptorist religious life. It subsequently established its monastery on Papa Stronsay in Scotland’s Orkney Islands.
Originally associated with the SPXX, the community reconciled with Rome in 2008 before eventually repudiating that course and embracing in early 2026 the position that the Chair of St. Peter is currently vacant.
On July 25, 2026, Sim was consecrated bishop at Papa Stronsay, causing Trad Inc. influencers to meltdown and to win the ire of diocesan authorities. Bishop Pierre Roy of Canada consecrated Sim, along with co-consecrators Bishops Rodrigo Ribeiro da Silva and Fernando Altamira. All three trace their episcopal lineage to Archbishop Pierre Martin Ngô Đình Thục (1897– 1984). Roy is a leading figure in the Unam Sanctam initiative that seeks to gather Traditional clergy to discuss theological questions surrounding the papacy.
Addressing his consecration, Sim insisted that he had not sought episcopal dignity. “I didn’t want to be a bishop,” he told attendees, explaining that numerous bishops had encouraged him to accept it. “If I’m a bishop, there’s grave responsibilities.”
