An Open Letter to the Catholic Bishops, Priests, Religious and Faithful

 +

JMJ

On October 16, 2025, the Transalpine Redemptorists published an open letter about their experience as a regularized Traditional Congregation. 

Suffice to say it hasn't been pleasant.

Excerpts of the letter are below with my thoughts.

P^3

An Open Letter to the Catholic Bishops, Priests, Religious and Faithful

Dear Catholic Soul,

We have just concluded our General Chapter where we considered our Congregation and its vocation in the Church and in the Diocese of Christchurch, New Zealand where the Bishop had decreed its expulsion.

[Tradicat: The FSSP has experienced similar incidences where a new bishop arrives, doesn't like what he sees and expels them from his diocese. The threat of arbitrary expulsion is why the SSPX 2012 agreement had a structure similar to the Military Ordinariate.  I know of one mass group that survived a hostile bishop for ten years because the Military Chaplain was in the Canadian Military. ]

The attached letter expresses the convictions of our Congregation.

This is not a task we embrace lightly. We have considered the array of possible punishments that the hierarchy may use against us - all mentally terrifying really, yet buttressed in the knowledge that the hierarchy has broken with the chain of command, which renders it human, and spiritually null. ...

[Tradicat: So ... this is a hint that maybe they are drifting towards sede or maybe even ecclesia vacantism.]

+++

Dear Faithful,

...

Just like you, we too have cherished great hope for many years. We believed it was possible to live as faithful children of the Tradition within the structures of the modern Church. We believed that the old and beautiful traditions of our Faith, in particular the Latin Mass of all times, would be rightfully returned to us. This gave us hope, especially during the time of Benedict XVI. We confidently expected that we would be able to freely practise the Faith of our Fathers in the Church. We didn’t know how wrong we were!

[Tradicat: This is not the first time that great hopes were dashed upon the shores of despair.]

Through years of trials and experience we have come to the unfortunate conclusion that the Traditional Catholic Faith, the Faith of all times and of the saints, is incompatible with the new, modern Church, the fruit of the Second Vatican Council. They simply cannot coexist in one body.

[Tradicat: That is a pretty strong statement that is an admixture of truth and error.]

Since we deeply cherish and honour the Traditional Latin Mass and cannot give up the Holy Mass of the centuries and of the saints, this new Church does not want us. Because of our fidelity, we have been considered stubborn, difficult and rebellious; stitched up and lied about in never-ending acrimony.

This letter appeals to all who sense that something is tremendously wrong in the Church or who think that the new Church and the unchanging Faith can peacefully coexist. Alas! Allow us to state the sad truth that our experience clearly shows this to be impossible. Surely this new Church would shock all the holy Popes who declared time and again that Religious Indifferentism is a very great evil, absolutely incompatible with the Catholic Faith.

[Tradicat: I think the letter makes a mistake in not giving non-traditional readers more definitive sources to understand why this is an issue.]

We tell you, we will not be complicit by silence in this ongoing destruction of the Church. We must speak up at some time and what better time than now? After 17 years as a community within the structures of the Church, we have been continually isolated and harassed. More especially these last years the Bishop of Christchurch has made us to be as the offscouring or scum of the earth. By his numerous Decrees and recourse to Rome he has sought to expel our monks from the diocese. He wants to have fifteen local vocations perpetually exiled from their families and homeland. We tell you now, higher duty forbids it. So long as there is but one soul that asks us for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacraments or spiritual help, with God’s grace we will not desert it. The Good Shepherd urges us to lay down our lives for His sheep and keep the hungry wolf at bay. It is our duty in charity, in theology and by Canon Law.

[Tradicat: So on this level they are following the SSPX approach.]

Why? Because the chain of command has been broken. Authority in the Church is ministerial (serving Our Lord), not absolute (doing whatever it likes): it binds us because it is itself bound to Christ, to the deposit of the Faith, to the constant Magisterium. When a superior departs from his own obedience to Christ the King, his command is no longer the arm of Christ but the gesture of a man. (S.T., IIa IIæ, q. 104, a. 5) These churchmen disobey God. And then, having shattered the chain of God’s command they attempt to invoke religious obedience for matters that deplete the Church, and take away the Holy Mass. Tolle Missam, Tolle Ecclesiam – Take away the Mass, you destroy the Church (Luther). No! We must obey God before Man.

[Tradicat: This is where they will probably go off in the lala-land with a part to whole error.  I agree that the cultural environment within the Catholic Church is predominantly hostile to Traditional Catholicism. However, if you want to compromise to be 'regularized', the uncertainty of the reception is the price they had to pay.  The longer the time, the greater the probability of a hostile bishop.]

And therefore, cleaving with might and main to our deep communion with our Holy Mother the Church, our duty before our Lord Jesus Christ and towards souls demands that:

[We repudiate ...

• Amoris Laetitia permitting Holy Communion to couples living in sin. 
• Traditionis Custodes’ persecution of the Mass and Catholics. 
• Fiducia Supplicans permitting the blessing of same-sex couples.
• “The Document on Human Fraternity” stating that God wills all religions. 
• the false theology of “sister churches” and “partial communion”.
• the false shepherds who triumphantly processed the Pachamama idol in St Peter’s. 
• Francis apologising for the heroic Catholic who threw that idol into the Tiber. 
• the scourge of religious indifference in New Zealand and throughout the Church. 
• the New Zealand Bishops’ acts of closing churches, and denying the sacraments in cowardly submission to the Covid-19 oppression.
• the Bishop of Christchurch receiving his ashes on Ash Wednesday from the Anglican bishop of Christchurch.
• the corruption of children, and scandal given to the innocent through evil catechetical programs.
• Francis teaching that all religions are as different languages, and asking “Is my God more important than yours?”
• the silence of those bishops who failed to speak out against that betrayal of the Faith. 
• the Synodal Church as distinct from the Divinely constituted Catholic Church. 
• the ongoing destruction and humiliation of our Holy Mother the Church.
• those who attack or undermine the Church in her dogma, morals, sacraments, or discipline with a new cult of man.

[Tradicat: The mixing together of theological and scientific issues is a little troubling.  I know that the closing of churches was hard and I'm happy that things were far saner in rural Canada.  I also made certain to help the kids learn some of the lessons of living under a persecution.  I also wonder what 'repudiate' means to the monks. Aside from that it is a nice list of the scandals and doctrinal errors.]

To all who read this: How long will all this nonsense go on?

[Tradicat: So ... reading this letter, I don't think it is a sede or ecclesia vacantist.]

P^3

An Open Letter to the Catholic Bishops, Priests, Religious and Faithful