Image by Alison Girone
CV NEWS FEED // Pope Francis this week met with the Superior General of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP) and encouraged the society deeply tied to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite “to continue to build up ecclesial communion ever more fully through its own proper charism.”
The FSSP requested the audience with Francis. In response, Francis invited and received the Superior General Fr. Andrzej Komorowski in a private audience at the Vatican on February 29. The Rector of St. Peter’s Seminary in Wigratzbad, Fr. Vincent Ribeton, and the Superior of the District of France, Fr. Benoît Paul-Joseph, were also present at the audience.
The FSSP issued a press release on March 1 about the meeting.
“The meeting was an opportunity for them to express their deep gratitude to the Holy Father for the decree of February 11, 2022, by which the Pope confirmed the liturgical specificity of the Fraternity of St. Peter,” the press release states, “but also to share with him the difficulties encountered in its application.”
“The Pope was very understanding and invited the Fraternity of St. Peter to continue to build up ecclesial communion ever more fully through its own proper charism,” the release continues:
Fr. Komorowski informed the Holy Father that the decree of February 11, 2022 had been given on the very day of the Fraternity of St. Peter’s consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. The Holy Father hailed this coincidence as a providential sign.
A clerical Society of Apostolic Life of Pontifical Right, the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter was founded in 1988. Pope John Paul II canonically established the FSSP as a society of apostolic life in the same year. The constitution of the FSSP states that the Fraternity’s objective “is the sanctification of priests through the exercise of the priesthood….”
“At the center of this charism is our faithful celebration of the traditional Mass and Sacraments (Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite),” the FSSP website explains.
In 2021, Francis promulgated a new motu proprio, Traditionis custodes, about the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass. The motu proprio required for priests who wanted to celebrate the Mass in the Extraordinary Form to first receive permission from their bishop. As reported by Our Sunday Visitor, then in February of 2023,
Francis clarified that bishops must obtain authorization from the Holy See before granting permission for parish churches to be used for the traditional Latin Mass and before allowing priests ordained after the publication of Traditionis Custodes to obtain faculties to celebrate it.
Seeking clarification on how this motu proprio applied to a Fraternity with a central charism of celebrating the Mass in the Extraordinary Form, Fr. Vincent Ribeton and Fr. Benoît Paul-Joseph met with Pope Francis in 2022.
Shortly after this meeting, Francis issued a decree granting every priest in the FSSP
the faculty to celebrate the sacrifice of the Mass, and to carry out the sacraments and other sacred rites… according to the typical editions of the liturgical books, namely the Missal, the Ritual, the Pontifical and the Roman Breviary, in force in the year 1962.
The FSSP priests are only permitted to “use this faculty in their own churches or oratories; otherwise it may only be used with the consent of the Ordinary of the place, except for the celebration of private Masses.”
“Without prejudice to what has been said above, the Holy Father suggests that, as far as possible, the provisions of the motu proprio Traditionis Custodes be taken into account as well,” the decree ends.
The FSSP has one seminary in the United States, located in Denton, Nebraska. The seminary is “reaching full capacity,” with currently almost 90 seminarians enrolled. There are currently FSSP parishes in 39 dioceses across the U.S.
The other seminary for the FSSP is the International Seminary of St. Peter in Wigratzbad-Opfenbach, Germany. Sixty seminarians currently are enrolled at this seminary.
In total, three hundred and sixty-eight priests are members of the Fraternity.
