SSPX Australia District Newsletter – December 2009

My Dear Brethren

Very soon Bishop Tissier de Malerais will be visiting Australia in order to confer the Sacred Priesthood on Mr Todd Stephens, an Australian and Mr Remi Picot, a Frenchman and I ask you to pray for these young men that God may abundantly bless their future apostolate.

I am delighted to announce that Todd Stephens, who parents are very prominent members of our congregation at Tynong and caretakers of St. Thomas Aquinas College, will be remaining here in Australia and will take up his first priestly duties here at Rockdale.  Father Jordie Stephens will then move to Tynong.  He will replace Father Richard Vachon who has spent five years at St. Thomas Aquinas College and will now move to Brisbane where he will be resident at Park Ridge with Fathers MacDonald and Arthur with responsibility for our congregations in North Queensland.

By the time you receive this letter Father Niklaus Pfluger, the First Assistant of the Society, will be in Australia and assist at the Speech Night for the end of the school year at Tynong and then preach the Retreat to the Ordinands.  Afterwards he will accompany me to Fiji where we will spend Christmas together at the Society’s house in Suva.  Unfortunately, our congregation in Fiji remains without a resident priest and is served by our priests from Hampton every two months.  When there is no Mass on Sundays they nevertheless gather at the Chapel and recite the Mass prayers.  Let us hope and pray that after waiting many years there may soon be an improvement in their situation. (more…)