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…)

My dear Brethren,

The visit of Bishop Fellay which took place a few weeks ago was, as always, a great success.  It was a great pleasure to have our Superior General amongst us.  At each of the places he visited he gave a conference which was most informative in regard to the recent events since the lifting of the “excommunications” some months ago and the current situation with regard to the Vatican.

The highlight of the visit was the tenth anniversary of St. Philomena’s School at Park Ridge on Saturday 8th August.  This was a delightful occasion with Pontifical High Mass celebrated in the school grounds followed by a concert performed by the school children and an excellent lunch.  Various celebrities were present including the Mayor of Logan and a former Speaker of the Queensland Parliament.  This was also an occasion to unveil plans for the complete replacement of the present school buildings by others of a more substantial and permanent character which are to be executed in a Spanish colonial style which will be highly attractive in the woodland setting of the property.  (more…)

Bishop Bernard Fellay has appointed the following representatives of the Society of St. Pius X for the theological discussions with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: Bishop Alfonso de Galarreta, Rector of the Seminary Nuestra Señora Corredentora at La Reja (Argentina); Rev. Fr. Benoit de Jorna, Rector of the International Seminary of Saint Pius X in Econe (Switzerland); Rev. Fr. Jean-Michel Gleize, professor of ecclesiology at the Seminary of Econe, and Rev. Fr. Patrick de La Rocque, prior of the Priory Saint Louis in Nantes (France).

Bishop de Galarreta was already president of the commission  — within the Society — to which the preparation of the upcoming discussions had been entrusted in April 2009.

The work will begin in the second half of the month of October. It will demand the discretion necessary to ensure serene talks about the doctrinal issues which raise difficulties.

Menzingen, October 15, 2009

My dear Brethren,

As most of you already know, we will have the privilege and pleasure of a visit to Australia of our Superior-General, Bishop Bernard Fellay, next month.  Unfortunately, time will not allow him to visit all of our centres but he will manage to visit the three largest in addition to the Seminary.  The programme of his visit has been arranged as follows:

Please come in large numbers to these various functions and welcome our Superior General to our country.  I imagine that in his public conferences he will have many interesting things to relate about all of the important events which have taken place between the Society and Rome over the last few months.

Here in Australia various things have happened since my last letter in March which will be of interest to you. (more…)

My Dear Brethren,

Many significant events have happened since I last wrote to you.

Father Jordie Stephens was ordained by Bishop de Galarreta at the seminary at Goulburn on 27th December and he has now been appointed to Sydney to begin his priestly apostolate by taking up the position formerly held by Father Christopher Curtis.  The latter has been transferred to the seminary to teach there in place of Father Bourmaud who has gone to labour in the Lord’s vineyard in Kenya.

Father Anthony Esposito preached a retreat to the priests in January and was guest of honour, together with the new seminary rector, Father Vincente Griego, at our annual Australia Day Dinner at Rockdale.  Father Emeric Baudot, the Bursar-General of the Society has just completed a visit to all of our major houses and other properties accompanied by Father Elias who has recently been appointed as District Bursar of Australia. (more…)

A liturgical and District calendar has now been added to the website menu.  This is displayed in a monthly format and can be printed to a half A4 size in portrait orientation.  PDF format calendars printing in full A4 and landscape orientation are available upon request.

My Dear Brethren,

As previously announced, Bishop de Galarreta will pay a brief visit to Australia shortly in order to confer the Sacrament of Holy Orders on the two deacons, Jordie Stephens and Gregory Noronha on Saturday 27th December at 9am at Holy Cross Seminary.  The Bishop will spend only five days in Australia and this will be the only public ceremony to take place during his visit.  Please pray for these young ordinands during these few days before they assume the privilege and burden of the sacred priesthood and come in large numbers to Goulburn to participate in this momentous occasion.

In January we look forward to a visit from Father Anthony Esposito who, as a young priest, spent some years in Australia in the 1980s and was resident at Rockdale.  Later he became the superior of the Society in Italy and is now working in South Africa at our house in Johannesburg.  He will preach a retreat for the priests at Goulburn and remain for a short while afterwards.  It will be a great pleasure to see him once again.

Since last writing to you I have continued my usual travelling around our various churches and schools.  Undoubtedly, the highlight of the last few months was my visit to Tynong in October in order to deliver a series of conferences on the subject of Fatherhood.  As the Holy Trinity is reflected on earth in the Holy Family, both are exemplars of every family and especially the christian family.  It should therefore go without saying that parenting is the most marvellous, sublime and enriching vocation that exists (exception made of the purely spiritual paternity of the priesthood).  The fact that this self-evident truth has become obscured and even flatly denied in our own times has resulted in the most appalling social evils as well as lifelong emotional and psychological damage to innumerable children as so many people now see their parental role as a secondary aspect of their personal fulfilment. This is particularly true with regard to the role of fathers who are the earthly image of the Divine Fatherhood made real and accessible to us.  Yet, in spite of this vocation being so crucial and fundamental to the spiritual, moral and physical well-being of mankind none has been more gravely neglected in these days.  It was therefore wonderful to have about seventy men, conscious of the sublimity of their vocations as fathers, attending a conference on this subject, preceded by Mass and followed by Benediction, every day for the space of a week.  All of the conferences have been recorded on disc in MP3 format and are available from Father Pepping, Corpus Christi Church, Granite Lane Tynong 3813 Victoria for the modest sum of $5 including postage.

It is exactly one year since I announced the project of establishing a secondary school as a “follow-on” to the primary school at St. Philomena’s School at Parkridge, Queensland.  Of course, this is not a matter which depended merely on our own volition but had to be submitted to the Minister for Education for approval.  Unfortunately, he has been unable to grant us permission to proceed mainly because we have neither the minimum number of pupils, nor a sufficient number of anticipated enrolments, to meet the Government’s criteria for the establishment of a secondary school.  This being the case, it appears that it will be several years before we can reconsider this matter.

I think that by now you will all be aware that the Rosary Crusade announced in my August letter has since been modified by Bishop Fellay who now requests that the perpetual recitation be replaced by a spiritual bouquet of one million (or more!) rosaries to be presented to the Pope after the manner of that which was given for the restoration of the traditional liturgy.  The present intention is for the lifting of the putative excommunication of the four bishops for which the rosaries are to be recited until Christmas after which the numbers will be counted and sent to Bishop Fellay for presentation to the Pope.  The bishop particularly exhorted the faithful to pray for this intention at the great pilgrimage which the Society organised to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the apparitions at Lourdes.  As very few of us were able to accompany Father Bélisle with his small group of pilgrims from Australia who were privileged to be present at Lourdes, I offer you an edited version of the account given on the website of the Society’s Mother House in Switzerland (www.dici.org) as follows:

“This was the largest pilgrimage organized by the Society of St. Pius X in its history. Nearly 300 priests, brothers and seminarians, more than 150 sisters and at least 18,000 faithful came to gather around the Grotto of Massabielle, with their four bishops consecrated by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre twenty years ago. There were the Benedictines of Bellaigue, the Capuchins from Morgon, the Dominicans of Avrillé, and the Fathers of the Transfiguration of Mérigny… Also present were the Nursing Sisters of Rafflay, the Little Sisters of St. Francis of Trévoux, the teaching Dominicans of Brignoles and Fanjeaux… and many others. There were around fifty South Americans, a hundred or so Mexicans and also all those anonymous pilgrims, who had not booked to come months in advance, but who participated on the day, drawn by the beauty of the traditional liturgy.

What could not have failed to strike the pilgrims was the profound unity in the preaching over the three days. On Saturday, the Rector of our American Seminary reminded us of the words of Our Lady to St. Bernadette: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world,” while inviting the young seer to turn her soul resolutely towards her heavenly home.

This preaching continued with the sermon on Sunday when Bishop Bernard Fellay took inspiration from the two words spoken by Our Blessed Lady, “prayer and penance”, in order to reiterate the necessity of Christian self- denial:  “The world thinks only of pleasure, the world just looks for the easy life.  Hardly anyone speaks out to remind us that the way to Heaven is through penance. It is by the Cross, the way of our Lord, and no other. We are saved by the Cross of Jesus.”

Giving thanks to Our Lady for the special protection which she extends over the entire Society of St. Pius X, the Superior General launched a new Rosary Crusade in order to obtain from the Holy Father the withdrawal of the decree of excommunication, which affects not merely the bishops consecrated by Archbishop Lefebvre, but all those who work in favour of Tradition and who have had to carry this scandalous label which was intended to discredit them. He then made this request: “We invite you once more to gather together a bouquet of a million rosaries by Christmas.”

After giving a translation of his sermon in German, English, Spanish and Italian, the Superior General renewed the Consecration of the Society of St. Pius X to the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, carried out by his predecessor, Fr. Franz Schmidberger in 1984.

On the Monday, the Superior of the Society in France asked the pilgrims to be ready “to leave behind everything that is useless in our lives, in order to dedicate ourselves solely to this enormous and decisive combat for the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ, not only in the tabernacles and in souls, but also in families, nations and all societies.” Later he warned against the futilities and the trifles which clutter up our lives, and recommended instead the “infallible instruments” given by Mary to the soldiers of Christ: the Rosary, the Spiritual Exercises and her Immaculate Heart.

Eighteen thousand pilgrims is something that does not pass unnoticed – except in the press.  In spite of around fifty presentation dossiers addressed to Parisian and provincial editorial offices, not one journalist gave an account of the pilgrimage of Christ the King! In its Monday October 27 edition, a local newspaper only said that the attraction of the weekend to the Sanctuaries was a pilgrimage of horse breeders from Southern France. The Traditional pilgrims were mentioned only for the record: “The horse breeders of the Camargue (…) attracted many people to the Sanctuaries, which also welcomed the Society of St. Pius X pilgrimage of Christ the King and their 18,000 pilgrims.”

Before the final blessing, at the Grotto of Massabielle, the District Superior of France expressed his gratitude to all those who had made this grandiose pilgrimage such a success, including the Bishop of Tarbes and Lourdes for his hospitality at the Sanctuaries, but was unable to hide how much the prohibition imposed on Bishop Fellay to celebrate in the St. Pius X basilica had caused great pain to the priests and faithful.  The spontaneous applause which interrupted him showed just how much everyone felt this very deeply. Then he invited the pilgrims to return to Lourdes next year, but in the meantime… to go to their rosaries in order to gather a million roses to place at the feet of Our Lady at Christmas!”

May God grant you all every grace and blessing this Christmastide.

Yours most sincerely in Christ
Edward Black – District Superior

My Dear Brethren,

I am happy to report that since I last wrote to you Bishop Tissier de Mallerais has successfully completed his visit to most of our chapels in Australia and administered the sacrament of Confirmation. We are now awaiting the forthcoming visit of Bishop de Gallereta who will ordain two priests at Goulburn on 27 December. One of these, the Reverend Jordan Stephens is an Australian and the other, the Reverend Gregory Noronha, is an Indian. Please keep these young Levites in your prayers as the momentous day approaches!

Time passes quickly and it will soon be the month of November which signals that yet another year draws to its close. Well may we pray with the Psalmist, “Lord, make me know my end and what is the number of my days: that I may know what is wanting to me. Behold, thou hast made my days measurable and my substance is as nothing before thee.” (Ps. 38.5-6).

This is also the month in which the Church encourages us to pray for those of her children who have already died. Oftentimes we tend to forget that the life of the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, is not restricted to this world. Not only does she have members on earth (the Church Militant) but she also numbers amongst her members the saints in Heaven (the Church Triumphant) as well as the souls in Purgatory (the Church Suffering). These all form one body in Christ and love and care for each other through prayer. This reality is known as the “Communion of Saints” and takes on a special significance in November when the Faithful on earth pray and have Masses offered for their deceased friends and relatives and hopefully even for their former enemies; offering sacrifices on their behalf. It is indeed for this purpose that you will find an envelope enclosed with this letter so that the souls of those whose names you inscribe will be remembered at the altar during this time. The love, which binds us together, is itself truly “as strong as death” (Cant. 8.7). Indeed it participates in the very love of Christ, which has triumphed over death. (more…)

My Dear Brethren,

I think that by now most of you are aware that Bishop Tissier de Mallerais will be visiting Australia very soon and will visit several of our churches and administer confirmation as follows:

Monday 8th September – Sydney:  Confirmations and Mass at  6.30pm

Friday 12th - Goulburn:  Subdiaconate and Mass at  9.30am

Sunday 14th – Brisbane:  Confirmations and Mass at  9.30am

Tuesday 16th - Mackay:  Confirmations and Mass at  6.30pm

Thursday 18th - Hampton:  Mass at  6.15pm

Saturday 20th – Tynong:  Confirmations and Mass at  9.00am

Sunday 21st - Adelaide:  Confirmations and Mass at  9.00am

Tuesday 23rd - Perth:  Confirmations and Mass at  6.00pm

It has already been several years since we have had the privilege of a visit of Bishop Tissier to our country and we welcome him wholeheartedly.  I do hope that you will be able to assist in large numbers at the above events.

Most certainly you will also know that several changes to the priests’ appointments have taken place recently.

Father Wailliez has already left Australia for Europe where he has taken up his new duties as the Superior of our Society in Belgium and Holland.  We are most grateful to him for his dedicated work as Principal of St. Philomena School at Park Ridge.  Many improvements have been made during the two years which he spent there, most notably his initiative in taking the preliminary steps to establish a High School.  At present our proposals are being considered by the Education Department of Queensland and I ask you to pray for a successful outcome.  The old chapel which was recently transported to the school site has now been completely renovated as a result of the dedicated work of Mr. Jeff Madson and very tastefully decorated.  This charming building has greatly enhanced the visual impact of the school site.

Father Arthur has replaced Father Wailliez as the Principal of St. Philomena’s, having spent the last year at St. Thomas Aquinas College at Tynong where he had responsibility for the administration of the Junior School.  Father Taouk has returned to Australia after having spent a year in South Africa and Zimbabwe and has in his turn replaced Father Arthur at Tynong.  You will, no doubt, also have read in the “Southern Sentinel” that Father Griego has replaced Father Scott as Seminary Rector at Goulburn.  Please pray for all these priests that God may abundantly bless their apostolate.

It was resolved, at the General Chapter of the Society which took place in July 2006, to present a Spiritual Bouquet of one million rosaries to the Pope in October of the same year. You will remember it was the principal intention of the recitation of these rosaries that the Pope should allow the traditional Mass to be celebrated without restriction throughout the universal Church.  Such was the enthusiasm engendered by this proposal that, in the event, two and a half million rosaries were in fact presented!

Our Lady was not slow to hear our prayers, for merely six months later, the Pope issued his now-famous Motu Proprio which, although not entirely unexpected, was astonishingly generous in its terms when one considers the incredibly severe restrictions on the celebration of the Mass which had preceded it.  The provisions of this legislation came into effect almost a year ago on the 14th September.  It must be admitted that the optimistic hopes expressed by some for a widespread celebration of the Mass has scarcely come to fruition due to the apathy or hostility of the vast majority of the clergy of the world but the Motu Proprio remains a highly significant milestone in the history of the Church since the Second Vatican Council.

In view of the above, Bishop Fellay has asked that a perpetual Rosary Crusade be launched.  The intention this time is that the “excommunication” of our four bishops incurred on the day of their consecration twenty years ago should now be lifted.  Unlike the previous Spiritual Bouquet a specific number of rosaries is not requested but rather that five decades be recited daily for this intention.  As this will be going on all over the world the idea is that prayer will be offered incessantly day and night for this intention.  By a marvellous disposition of Providence this crusade is launched in the 150th anniversary year of the apparitions of Our Lady at Lourdes and indeed the Society is organising an international pilgrimage to this shrine which all four bishops will attend at the end of October on the weekend of Christ the King.  Not many of us will be able to travel to the other side of the world for this event but we will certainly be able to join in spirit, particularly by fervently taking up Bishop Fellay’s invitation to this crusade of prayer.

Here in Australia the Crusade will officially begin on the first day of October, the month of the Holy Rosary, although of course, we may start immediately.  In practice, we should make up our minds to recite the rosary daily, at a specific time if possible.  If we already say the rosary each day we may offer this or recite an additional five decades for the intention of the Crusade.  The time of day of the recitation is not crucial so if we are unable to discharge our commitment at that given time any other hour will suffice.  As many other people in the different time zones of the world will be joining in the Crusade, the prayer will remain uninterrupted.  In order to make a tangible expression of our commitment and gauge the numbers of souls who are responding to the call we invite you to inscribe your names on the sheets which will be available shortly at each of our churches.  This, of course, is taken as an expression of our devout intention and does not place us under any moral obligation.

The putative excommunication; the de facto abolition of the Mass; the hostility shown towards those who would take their religion seriously; the general apathy towards religious matters; the quasi-universal indifference towards Almighty God; the banality and ugliness of the worship which is His due, are all symptoms of the sickness of the Christian world and the revival of a society which is essentially pagan in its values.  Already fifty years ago, on the occasion of the centenary of the Lourdes apparitions, Pope Pius XII wrote the following words which are now more relevant than ever:

“In a society which is barely conscious of the ills which assail it, which conceals its miseries and injustices beneath a prosperous, glittering, and trouble-free exterior, the Immaculate Virgin, whom sin has never touched, manifests herself to an innocent child.  With a mother’s compassion she looks upon this world redeemed by her Son’s Blood, where sin accomplishes so much ruin daily, and three times makes her urgent appeal: “Penance, penance, penance!”……Materialism is present in the unrestrained search for pleasure, which flaunts itself shamelessly and tries to seduce souls which are still pure.  It shows itself in lack of interest in one’s brother, in selfishness which crushes him, in a judicial system which deprives him of his rights – in a word, in that concept of life which regulates everything exclusively in terms of material prosperity and earthly satisfactions……. To a society which in its public life often contests the supreme rights of God, to a society which would gain the whole world at the expense of its own soul and thus hasten its own destruction, the Virgin Mother has sent a cry of alarm!”  (Encyclical Le Pelerinage de Lourdes 1958).

With every good wish and blessing,

Yours sincerely in Christ,

Father Edward Black – Superior

My Dear Brethren,

Christmas has scarcely passed and already we approach Easter!

Bishop Fellay’s visit over the Christmas period was very eventful. As arranged, the meeting of all of the priests of the District of Australia duly took place in Sydney from the 10^th to the 14^th December. This was a rare occasion indeed when we were all able to be together in one place and it was a special privilege to have our Superior-General with us during these days. (more…)