In Bavaria last month, on Saturday 15th of June 2002, Cardinal Castrillon-Hoyos, Prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Clergy and President of the Ecclesia Dei Commission ordained six new priests of the Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP). It was the second visit of Card. Castrillon-Hoyos to Wigratzbad. His Eminence had already come in November 2000 to bless the new building of the Saint Peter International Seminary of the FSSP in Europe.
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Fr. Leclère, a French-American (whose father fought as a U.S.
pilot in Vietnam), studied philosophy at the Sorbonne : fond of
Nietzsche and Wagner and not yet baptised at the age of 22, he was
converted by attending the Traditional Mass. He rapidly felt he was
called to the priesthood, but had to wait three years after his
baptism to enter Wigratzbad according to canon law. This delay
allowed him to fulfil his doctorate on the philosophy of St. Thomas
Aquinas, enabling him to teach at the Seminary from September 2002
onwards.
Last but not least, Fr. Konrad Loewenstein is a British subject. An
Oxonian, he read philosophy at Christchurch, which topic he taught in
California. Very much concerned with pro-life issues, Fr. Konrad is
also a member of CIEL-UK. What had those six men in common, what
chance would they have had ever to meet, but for God’s
providence gathering them to serve Him and His Church in the
beautiful traditional priestly ministry?
Cardinal Castrillon-Hoyos sang the pontifical High
Mass of Ordination in the Tridentine rite and preached in German
about the priesthood. More than fifty secular and diocesan and
religious priests (not to mention the sixty seminarians and the
several hundreds of faithful) attended the ceremony during which they
laid their hands on the candidates’ heads before Cardinal
Castrillon-Hoyos would complete the Ordination. All the three FSSP
priests working in the U.K. had come
to support Fr. Konrad. As well as Fathers J. Emerson, A. Southwell
and A. de Malleray, FSSP, Fr. Ronald Creighton-Jobe from the
Brompton Oratory had come.
After a fraternal lunch taken in common with the
many families and friends in the new Seminary building, Cardinal
Castrillon-Hoyos flew back to Rome. It was of no little significance
that the Vatican Official personally in charge of all Catholic clergy
in the universal Church would have especially travelled to Bavaria to
ordain six priests destined to celebrate the tridentine rite. Indeed,
among secular clergy, the FSSP is the only international
institute of pontifical right where each priest is given explicit
faculty to offer Holy Mass according to the 1962 Missal exclusively.
The morning after, the newly ordained offered their First Masses in several different parish churches and chapels. Fr. Konrad had been able to use a beautiful baroque abbey church, where some of his Bavarian ancestors lay buried. Fr. Konrad was also pleased to offer the Holy Sacrifice on the very morning when, in Rome, Our Holy Father Pope John-Paul II was canonising Padre Pio of Pietrelcina. The example of the stigmatised Capuchin was indeed like a program of sanctity given by God to our six new priests, and to all of us who had supported and shall benefit from their traditional ministry, ad majorem Dei gloriam!