FSSP fraternity of traditional priests to receive apostolic visitation from Vatican
The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP) has announced that it will receive an apostolic visitation from the Vatican. In a communique published on 26 September, the FSSP states that it “has recently been informed by the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life of the opening of an apostolic visitation The post FSSP fraternity of traditional priests to receive apostolic visitation from Vatican appeared first on Catholic Herald.
Syndicated News 
The Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP) has announced that it will receive an apostolic visitation from the Vatican.
In a communique published on 26 September, the FSSP states that it “has recently been informed by the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life of the opening of an apostolic visitation of the Fraternity.”
The FSSP emphasises: “As the Prefect of this Dicastery himself made clear to the Superior General and his assistants during a meeting in Rome, this visit does not originate in any problems of the Fraternity, but is intended to enable the Dicastery to know who we are, how we are doing and how we live, so as to provide us with any help we may need.”
The organisation notes that the last ordinary apostolic visit of the Fraternity was undertaken in 2014 by the Ecclesia Dei Commission, and that the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life has been in charge of the FSSP and other former Eccelsia Dei institutes for the past three years.
The FSSP is an international community of priests, under the authority of the Holy See, which celebrates the Traditional Latin Mass in churches all around the world.
Pope Francis’s papacy has seen a number of disciplinary actions against traditional and conservative clergy, including the introduction of restrictions on the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass.
In November 2023, Bishop Joseph Strickland was personally removed from his diocese in Texas by Pope Francis following an apostolic visitation. Shortly afterwards, Strickland claimed that one of the reasons for his removal was his not implementing Traditionis custodes, an apostolic letter issued motu proprio by the Pope in 2021 that restricted the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass.
Since then, there has been a concerted effort to push back against the controversial declaration and to defend the use of the Latin Mass. In July of this year, nearly 50 prominent British figures of culture, academia and politics signed a letter that appeared in the The Times appealing for continued access to the Traditional Latin Mass while also defending its “magnificent spiritual and cultural heritage”.
Those calls on Pope Francis not to impose fresh restrictions on the Latin Mass were soon joined by two more joint petitionary letters making similar appeals.
A letter from a retired Mexican Cardinal, Juan Sandoval Iñiguez, was published, together with a “Letter of Adherence” signed by 67 personalities from around the world. Then, a petition organised by the American poet Dana Gioia, was published with eleven signatures, representing American Catholic artists and academics.
As noted at the time by Dr Joseph Shaw, head of the Latin Mass Society, in his article for the Catholic Herald: “The prominence of artists, musicians, singers, film-makers and actors in these petitions underlines the point made by the Gioia petition: ‘Petitioners of this caliber are proof the traditional Latin Mass cannot be understood as a mere refuge from modernity, for some of the most creative minds on our planet are inspired by the Latin Mass – its beauty, its reverence, its mystery – to make new works of art and also to serve the least among us’.”
The FSSP was founded on 18 July 1988 at the Abbey of Hauterive, in Switzerland, by a dozen priests and a score of seminarians, according to its website.
Shortly after the Fraternity’s foundation and following a request made by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, Bishop Josef Stimpfle of Augsburg, Germany, granted the Fraternity a home in Wigratzbad, a Marian shrine in Bavaria. This location currently serves as the European seminary of the Fraternity and as the mother-house of the community.
The FSSP General House is situated in Fribourg, Switzerland. There are currently almost 368 priests and 201 seminarians in the Fraternity.
RELATED: The movement for the Latin Mass is about far more than nostalgia
Photo: screenshot from fssp.org.
The post FSSP fraternity of traditional priests to receive apostolic visitation from Vatican appeared first on Catholic Herald.
