Ous­ted order joins reforms rebel­lion

CHRISTCHURCH (NEW ZEALAND)
Timaru Herald [Timaru, Australia]

April 10, 2026

By Chris Tobin

A tra­di­tion­al­ist Cath­olic order expelled from the Christ­ch­urch dio­cese claims to be link­ing with like-minded groups over­seas to chal­lenge church reforms, while con­tinu­ing to deny alleg­a­tions of wrong­do­ing.

“We are work­ing in our own small way, with our lim­ited man­power, to bring about an Imper­fect Gen­eral Coun­cil that will pub­licly recog­nise the present Cath­olic dis­aster that has no way out but through,” said Father Michael Mary, head of the Con­greg­a­tion of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer, also known as Transalpine Redemp­tor­ists.

He said such a coun­cil would involve bish­ops meet­ing, without papal author­ity, to rep­res­ent a grow­ing net­work of “silenced Cath­ol­ics” around the world. “There are Cath­ol­ics all over the world left in ‘Cath­olic bunkers’ who know what is going on. It is a mat­ter of reach­ing out to them.”

Father Michael Mary claimed that, since the 1962-1965 Second Vat­ican Coun­cil, the church’s dir­ec­tion had been a fun­da­mental rup­ture. “The Apostolic Faith of Cath­ol­ics was derailed … presen­ted as ‘updat­ing’. The ongo­ing situ­ation since that derail­ing has been a slow Cath­olic faith train­wreck.”

The order was asked to leave Christ­ch­urch dio­cese by Bishop Michael Gielen in July 2024 fol­low­ing alleg­a­tions made pub­lic in 2023 raised by former mem­bers as well as by an advocacy group Sur­viv­ors Net­work of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

Bishop Gielen had earlier sought a Vat­ican invest­ig­a­tion.

Fol­low­ing that pro­cess, he stripped the order’s priests of their fac­ulties and dir­ec­ted the com­munity to leave the dio­cese.

The Vat­ican later upheld restric­tions on the order’s min­istry after the order appealed.

Asked for the pre­cise reason why the order had been asked to leave and whether they would ever be wel­comed back, Gielen replied via a state­ment through the dio­cese’s chief oper­at­ing officer Alex Bailey.

“After con­cerns were raised with Bishop Michael dir­ectly and through the main­stream media, he [Gielen] asked the Vat­ican to invest­ig­ate the con­duct of mem­bers of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer in Christ­ch­urch Dio­cese.

“The Vat­ican gave clear guid­ance which Bishop Gielen has imple­men­ted. This included a dir­ect­ive that the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer depart from the dio­cese. Bishop Michael remains com­mit­ted to those who seek the Tra­di­tional Latin Mass and con­tin­ues to provide them with the sac­ra­ments and pas­toral care.”

SNAP said it first raised alleg­a­tions about the order with police and church author­it­ies in 2021.

In a pub­lic state­ment in 2023, SNAP said these alleged con­cerns related to reli­gious prac­tices within the com­munity, includ­ing the con­duct of exor­cisms and mat­ters involving minors.

SNAP said the alleg­a­tions war­ran­ted invest­ig­a­tion by the police.

The order has con­sist­ently denied wrong­do­ing. “There were no unau­thor­ised exor­cisms,” Father Michael Mary said. Major exor­cisms required approval and this was given, he said.

Minor rites did not need this approval and any restraint used in an exor­cism was within accep­ted reli­gious prac­tice.

He rejec­ted alleg­a­tions of abuse and said the claims had “almost des­troyed” the order’s repu­ta­tion in New Zea­l­and.

Asked recently whether any invest­ig­a­tion had taken place, police said they were “unable to respond to quer­ies which seek to estab­lish whether spe­cific indi­vidu­als or organ­isa­tions are, or have been, under invest­ig­a­tion.”

Since their removal, the order has con­tin­ued to cri­ti­cise church lead­er­ship and the gen­eral dir­ec­tion of the church.

In a pub­lic let­ter released in Octo­ber last year addressed to Cath­olic bish­ops, priests, reli­gious and faith­ful, the order rejec­ted recent papal and cur­ial doc­u­ments.

These included Tra­di­tionis Cus­todes, which restric­ted the use of the Tra­di­tional Latin Mass; Amoris Laeti­tia, that the order and other crit­ics believed ambigu­ously allowed those in “irreg­u­lar uni­ons” to receive Holy Com­mu­nion; and Fidu­cia Sup­plic­ans, that the Holy See said per­mit­ted priests to offer “spon­tan­eous,” non-litur­gical bless­ings to same-sex couples and those in “irreg­u­lar” situ­ations, without val­id­at­ing their status or alter­ing church teach­ing on mar­riage.

The order was crit­ical also of ecu­men­ism. Fol­low­ing the let­ter’s release, rela­tions with the order’s bishop in their home dio­cese of Aber­deen, Scot­land, were imme­di­ately strained.

Bishop Hugh Gil­bert OSB con­demned the tone and con­tent of the let­ter say­ing it was “incom­pat­ible with the Cath­olic sense of the Church’s unity”. Gil­bert said dia­logue with the com­munity remained open.

He referred the mat­ter to the Vat­ican Dicas­ter­ies of the Holy See to provide canon­ical and doc­trinal guid­ance.

The Aber­deen dio­cese evan­gel­isa­tion and com­mu­nic­a­tion officer Dr Glen Reyn­olds OFS said it was inap­pro­pri­ate for the bishop to com­ment fur­ther.

“From a canon law point of view, mat­ters have passed from what’s called a pre­lim­in­ary invest­ig­a­tion to the open­ing of a penal pro­cess.

“In legal terms, this means that the mat­ter is sub­ju­dice, and there­fore it is inap­pro­pri­ate for the bishop to com­ment fur­ther at this stage.”

Father Michael Mary said an Imper­fect Gen­eral Coun­cil had been held before, giv­ing as an example when the church had three popes claim­ing the papacy.

“There was no way out except to gather a coun­cil that rep­res­en­ted the world­wide Cath­olic Church and take meas­ures. This is where we situ­ate ourselves. We are already gath­er­ing voices world­wide,” he said.

Three claimed to be pope in what was called the West­ern Schism between 1409 and 1417.

The crisis was resolved by the Coun­cil of Con­stance con­vened between 1414 and 1418 which forced two claimants to resign and the third to be deposed.

A new pope was then elec­ted thereby restor­ing unity.