Download the newsletter of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter in England:
- 2008-12 Dowry N°1.pdf

- 2009-03 Dowry N°2.pdf


Clergy Retreat (3 nights)

 July 2009

To celebrate the Year of the priesthood with St John Mary Vianney, Curé of Ars

Starts Monday 13th July 2009, 3pm   ends Thursday 16th July 2009, 12 noon.

Theme: ”The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and our priestly identification to Christ.”

Please note that this is not a session to learn the Extraordinary Form of the Roman rite, but a spiritual retreat. However, Fr de Malleray will readily answer any questions pertaining to the spirituality and practice of the Usus Antiquior.

 

Cost: £107 - to cover:

1-Accommodation: single room with en-suite bathroom, full board: £92, full  board,  including  VAT.

2-Retreat Master’s expenses: £15.

Booking: please send a £15 cheque made payable to ‘FSSP England’ to : Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP, 179 Elgar Rd, RG2 0DH, Reading, Berkshire, UK.

 

“The priest is not a priest for himself; he does not give himself absolution; he does not administer the Sacraments to himself. He is not for himself, he is for you. After God, the priest is everything. Leave a parish twenty years without priests; they will worship beasts. If the missionary Father and I were to go away, you would say, "What can we do in this church? there is no Mass; Our Lord is not longer there: we may as well pray at home." When people wish to destroy religion, they begin by attacking the priest, because where there is no longer any priest there is no sacrifice, and where there is no longer any sacrifice there is no religion.” Cf Saint John-Mary Vianney, The Little Catechism of the Curé of Ars.

 

The preacher: Fr de Malleray is a priest incardinated in the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter, an international priestly community of pontifical right (cf www.fssp.org). After 5 years working as General Secretary of his community at their headquarters in Switzerland, Fr de Malleray was reassigned in England. He is based in Reading where he has received faculties from Bishop Crispian Hollis (Portsmouth Diocese) to serve the faithful attached to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman rite. Fr de Malleray regularly preaches retreats at Douai Abbey. After Easter 2009, Fr de Malleray was invited to attend the clergy session at Ushaw seminary as a tutor. Fr de Malleray is also the Ecclesiastical Assistant of the international Juventutem youth movement (cf www.juventutem.org).

 

Schedule: Silent retreat (inside the premises); meals with table reading on the theme of the retreat; includes a one-hour conference in the morning and another one in the afternoon; coffee-break; walks around the Abbey; possibility of private meeting with the Retreat Master and of confession; Possibility of attending some of the monks prayers (Douai Abbey is a community of monks of the English Benedictine Congregation) as well as Fr de Malleray’s daily Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman rite. Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament will also take place.

N.B. Priests choosing to offer their private Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite should either bring with them all the items they need or contact Fr de Malleray well in advance.

 

LocationDouai Abbey, Upper Woolhampton RG7 5TQ, Berkshire, United Kingdom (about 1 hour west from London).

Website: http://www.douaiabbey.org.uk/  

By car: Douai Abbey is situated 1 mile north of the A4 about half way between Reading and Newbury in Berkshire.

The turn off the A4 is about 6 miles from M4 Junction 12.

By rail: the nearest station is called MIDGHAM, but it is actually in Woolhampton village: trains from London Paddington, Reading & Newbury. A lift from and to the railway station can be arranged directly with the Guest Master (tel.: 0118 971 5399).

The building is equipped for wheel chairs.

 

Booking and contact: Fr Armand de Malleray, FSSP, 179 Elgar Rd, Reading RG2 0DH, Berks – Tel.: 0118 987 5819 – E-mail: mallerayafssp.org

Website: http://www.fssp.org.uk/

N.B. Full payment will be dealt with the Guest Master at the Abbey during the retreat. Deposit has already been paid. No other payment than the £15 booking fees is required.

Please kindly book early.

 

To make a donation to possibly help other clergy attend the retreat: please use contact above (£ cheques made payable to ”FSSP England” – please mention then ”Retreat Sponsoring”. Thank you very much).


30 May 2009: Ordination of Rev Mr Matthew Goddard, FSSP, in Denton, USA

6 June 2009: First Solemn High Mass of Fr Matthew Goddard, FSSP, St James’, London, 11am

26-28 June 2009: British group to ordination of Rev Mr William Barker, FSSP in Bavaria (First Masses by Fr Barker in England to be announced later on)

 


 

Pope Benedict XVI

About the F.S.S.P.

Origin of the Fraternity

The Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter is a Clerical Society of Apostolic Life of Pontifical Right, that is, a community of Roman Catholic priests who do not take religious vows, but who work together for a common mission in the world. The mission of the Fraternity is two-fold: first, the formation and sanctification of priests in the cadre of the traditional liturgy of the Roman rite, and secondly, the pastoral deployment of the priests in the service of the Church.

The Fraternity was founded on July 18, 1988 at the Abbey of Hauterive (Switzerland) by a dozen priests and a score of seminarians. Shortly after the Fraternity’s foundation and following upon a request by Cardinal Ratzinger, Bishop Joseph Stimpfle of Augsburg, Germany granted the Fraternity a home in Wigratzbad, a Marian shrine in Bavaria that now lodges the Fraternity’s European seminary. In the same month of October there arrived a handful of priests and some thirty seminarians ready to start "from scratch". There are currently almost 200 priests and 110 seminarians in the Fraternity.

Serving in the Dioceses

Since 1988 the FSSP has grown rapidly and is now present in over fifty dioceses in Europe, North America, and Australia. The bishops of these dioceses have responded effectively to the clearly expressed will of the late John Paul II:

Respect must everywhere be shown for the feelings of all those who are attached to the Latin liturgical tradition, by a wide and generous application of the directives already issued some time ago by the Apostolic See, for the use of the Roman Missal according to the typical edition of 1962.
- Pope John-Paul II, Motu Proprio "Ecclesia Dei"
2 July 1988

In Great Britain, various Bishops have already allowed FSSP priests to fulfil their Traditional ministry in Edinburgh, Reading, Bedford, and other cities. These priests are able to answer the requests of many other local communities throughout the United Kingdom, while other diocesan bishops give occasional or regular permissions for the celebration of the Traditional liturgy. By doing so, these bishops respond to the invitation John Paul II addressed to them in October 1998, on the occasion of the Tenth Anniversary of the Motu Proprio Ecclesia Dei:

I invite the bishops also, fraternally, to understand and have a renewed pastoral attention for the faithful attached to the Old Rite.

As pastors of their dioceses, these bishops have learned that a plurality of rites causes not division but unity in diversity, as our current Holy Father, Benedict XVI (then Cardinal Ratzinger), pointed out:

One has to realize that several forms of the Latin Rite have always existed ... Up to the Council there existed alongside the Roman Rite, the Ambrosian Rite, the Mozarabic Rite of Toledo, the Rite of Braga, the Rite of the Carthusians and the Carmelites, and the best known, the Dominican Rite ­ and perhaps others which I do not know. Nobody was ever scandalized that the Dominicans, often when present in parishes, did not celebrate like parish priests but rather had their own rite. We had no doubt that their rite was both Catholic and Roman. We were proud of the richness of having several rites.
- Conference to the Ecclesia Dei communities
Rome, 24 October 1998

Growing Fast

The FSSP now has nearly 300 members, including over 150 priests working in all continents, and around 120 seminarians training for the priesthood in the Fraternity's two seminaries, one in the U.S.A. and one in Bavaria. Our members are taught the philosophy and theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas following the recommendations of Canon Law:

There are to be classes in dogmatic theology which are always to be based upon the written word of God along with sacred tradition, in which the students may learn to penetrate ever more profoundly the mysteries of salvation, with St. Thomas as their teacher in a special way.
- Code of Canon Law, 1366, 2

In 2001, John Paull II again expressed his official support for the liturgical charism which he entrusted to the FSSP in 1988:

The people of God need to see priests and deacons behave in a way that is full of reverence and dignity, able to help them to penetrate invisible things, without unnecessary words or explanations. In the Roman Missal of St Pius V, as in several eastern liturgies, there are very beautiful prayers, through which the priest expresses the deepest sense of humility and reverence before the Sacred Mysteries : ... they reveal the very substance of the liturgy.
- Pope John-Paul II, Address to the Congregation for Divine Worship

A Few Figures

Members

Total: 300
Priests: 180
Deacons: 13
Seminarians: 107
Average age: 33 years
Deceased members: 4
Nationalities: 25

Vocations

International seminaries: 2
Preparatory seminaries: 2
Bishops having conferred the Holy Orders: 33; including Cardinals: 7
Number of ceremonies of ordinations: 94; including 48 performed by bishops in their own dioceses

Year 2005:

Increase

Initial numbers in July 1988:

Years of existence: 17
Average increase per year:

Locations

Places of residence: 77
Continents: 4
Countries: 17
Dioceses served: 85

Canonically-erected houses: 22
Personal parishes: 6
Sunday Mass centres: 111

Specific ministries

School chaplaincies: 21
Youth apostolate:

Military chaplains: 5
Hospital chaplains: 5
Preachers of spiritual exercises: 10
Priests forming seminarians: 26

 

FSSP Great Britain © 2008