THE PRIESTLY FRATERNITY OF ST. PETER

Fr. Arnaud Devillers, F.S.S.P., U.S. District Superior
Interviewed by Ellen Rice

Fr. Arnaud Devillers, F.S.S.P., has been the U.S. representative of the Fraternity of St. Peter since 1991. He was named District Superior when the North American District of the Fraternity was established in 1994. A native of La Celle St. Cloud, France, he was ordained to the priesthood in 1985 and has been a member of the Fraternity since 1989.

1. Can you outline in a few sentences what the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter is and why it was founded? Would it be correct to say that the FSSP was founded at the Pope’s direction?

On July 2, 1988, His Holiness Pope John Paul II promulgated the Apostolic Letter Ecclesia Dei Adflicta given motu proprio in response to a dramatic action taken by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, who had ordained four bishops against the expressed will of the Holy Father and by doing so incurred automatic excommunication. In the motu proprio the Pope declared that ”to all those Catholic faithful who feel attached to some previous liturgical and disciplinary forms of the Latin tradition, I wish to manifest my will to facilitate their ecclesial communion by means of the necessary measures to guarantee respect for their rightful aspirations”.

The Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter was founded at the request of the Pope to welcome priests and seminarians who had followed Archbishop Lefebvre but could not in conscience follow him into schism. It was founded on July 18, 1988 and canonically erected as a Society of Pontifical Right just three months later on October 18, 1988. This year, we will celebrate our 10th anniversary in Rome around the week-end of October 24-25, to give thanks to God for the blessings of the last ten years and manifest our attachment and gratitude to the Holy Father. His Eminence Cardinal Felici, President of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, will offer a Pontifical High Mass to commemorate our anniversary. Other events are planned as well.

The mission of the Fraternity is the formation and sanctification of priests within the framework of the Traditional Liturgy of the Roman Rite, who are then able to provide a full ministry for those faithful “attached to the Latin liturgical tradition” according to the dispositions of Ecclesia Dei. Many dioceses have not been able to implement Ecclesia Dei because of a lack of priests able or willing to fulfill this work of healing and reconciliation.

2. How many countries are you in and how many seminarians and priests do you have?

In our first year of operation (1988), thanks to both Cardinal Ratzinger and Pope John Paul II, we were able to open our first seminary, St. Peter Seminary, at a Marian shrine located in Wigratzbad, a tiny hamlet of Bavaria. Curiously, Fr. Schmidt, the rector of the shrine —who died a year before we came— had told the pilgrims for many years that one day, an international seminary sent by Rome would come to Wigratzbad! After establishing a few apostolates in France, Germany, and Austria, we expanded our work to Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, and Italy. We are now working in about 25 dioceses throughout Europe.

In 1991, we began our first apostolate in North America and now, seven years later, we are established in 16 dioceses in the U.S. from coast to coast and two in Canada. So we are working in a total of nine countries. We have plans for foundations in Oceania and South America as well.

We are currently 87 priests but I expect that by our tenth anniversary we should be just over 100 priests. We have about 125 seminarians divided between St. Peter’s Seminary, our European seminary in Wigratzbad, Germany, and Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary, our North American Seminary in Pennsylvania. Both locations are already too small to accommodate the ever-increasing number of fine men wanting to join us so we have plans for building in both places. The situation is especially critical here, as we had to rent an old motel-resort as a temporary site for Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary.

3. What do you require from young men who want to enter? Is this order tough to get into?

Young men who are interested in becoming priests in our Fraternity are requested to come for a 3-day vocational retreat. During the retreat, we give them the basic teaching of the Church regarding the priesthood and we introduce them to the charism of the Fraternity. They follow a schedule very similar to that of the seminary and get to know the specifics of seminary life and formation. We require a two year college degree. Most seminarians come with a B.A. or equivalent. The first year focuses on spiritual life so that the future priest acquires a solid and authentic interior life. The two following years are centered on genuine Thomistic philosophy. Finally, they study theology for four years using the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas as their principal text.

We are interested only in young men willing to dedicate their life to God, to pursue the mission of Jesus Christ, a mission essentially of salvation. The young men must be able to do some higher studies and to adapt themselves to our particular charism and mission. Right now, we are a little short of space, but it should not discourage anyone from coming to a vocational retreat, to know more about the Fraternity and its seminary.

4. Similarly, what would the Priestly Fraternity do if a schismatic priest, say from the Society of St. Pius X or St. Pius V, wanted to join your order? And how often is this happening?

First of all, let me say clearly, they are most welcome! The reconciliation of such priests with the Church is one of our missions. Unfortunately, their leadership is very sectarian. They spread or encourage all kinds of false rumors about us, in order to discourage their priests to even consider joining us. It is always a complete surprise for their priests when they come and visit us to discover that we are not as bad as they were told again and again. Any one who leaves the Society immediately becomes a “traitor” who will most certainly lose the “true faith” because he left “Tradition” (them).
In spite of this, once in a while we succeed in assisting in the reconciliation of former SSPX priests. In the past year, for example, a group of priests and seminarians left them and we are helping them start their own community, as they do not wish to serve as parish priests but to form some kind of oratory. We are happy to assist them in their endeavor.

Many leave the Society of St. Pius X but only a few join us. Some leave the priesthood or join more radical groups. Some others go on their own and wander around. Fortunately, a few also join dioceses or other priestly societies.

5. I understand that you only work in dioceses into which you have been invited. At this time, in which dioceses in the U.S. are you active?

Our priestly Fraternity follows the same rules as any other religious order. In order to work in a diocese, our priests need to be given a mission by the local ordinary. Like any priest, we work under the authority of a bishop. We provide a full ministry centered on the Latin Mass and we have no problems in finding enough work for our priests. Quite the opposite! In the Fall of 2000, we will have our first priestly ordination of seminarians who have done all their studies here in America. So far there have been ordinations every year but limited in number. This year three new priests will be ordained on the 27th of June (9:00 AM) by Archbishop Marcel Gervais, Archbishop of Ottawa in his Cathedral. The same day six priests will be ordained at our seminary in Germany.

We are active in the archdioceses of Atlanta (Georgia), Denver (Colorado), Indianapolis (Indiana), Kansas City (Kansas), Oklahoma City (Oklahoma), Omaha (Nebraska), Ottawa (Ontario) and in the dioceses of Corpus Christi (Texas), Dallas (Texas), Lincoln (Nebraska), Little Rock (Arkansas), Paterson (New Jersey), Rapid City (South Dakota), Sacramento (California), Scranton (Pennsylvania), St. Catharines (Ontario), Trenton (New Jersey), Tulsa (Oklahoma), and Youngstown (Ohio). In some of these dioceses, there is a school attached to our parish. We also have a prep-school for boys in Pennsylvania, St. Gregory’s Academy, which provides an authentic Catholic education. We can only accommodate 60 boys at the current time so it has a familial atmosphere.

6. Surely, it is hard to measure success, especially in matters spiritual. Even so, are there signs that your presence is helping to disarm the schismatic presence in any particular area? Do you have any examples or stories of conversions to illustrate this?
Many of the people who attend unapproved Traditional Latin Masses do so because there is no real alternative, i.e., at least a regular Sunday Traditional Latin Mass approved by the diocese. Some go in good faith to the Chapels of the Society of St. Pius X because they are told by those priests that it is OK. They are given a flyer published by the Society in which they affirm : “Is the Society of St. Pius X schismatic? Excommunicated? Rome says NO. Can anyone go to their Latin Masses? YES.” So I do not think in most cases it is strictly a conversion when people realize they have been misled and stop going to those Masses.

Wherever we have been allowed to function and have a full parish or a full ministry for the people attached to the traditional Latin Liturgy, many stopped going to SSPX to come to our own parish. This has been the case in two of the dioceses where we have been working for over five years, Scranton and Rapid City. Further, we have been able to reconcile with the Church entire communities. Let us take for example Queen of the Holy Rosary Chapel in Vienna, Ohio which used to be an “independent” chapel. Thanks to the ministry of several of our priests, it is now a full fledged parish in the diocese of Youngstown. And I could mention a few more similar cases. What those people need is more a healing than a conversion: they have been wounded; they were confused and no one was there to answer their questions; they asked for help and received none. In some cases they left the church or stopped practicing their faith. Interestingly, a great number of the faithful who belong to our parishes are converts.

7. How does your order serve Catholics who prefer the old Mass rite for aesthetic reasons but would never part ways with Rome over the Novus Ordo? Are you ever criticized for creating liturgical disharmony and encouraging nostalgia?
Most people do not go to the old Mass for aesthetic reasons but for spiritual ones. They want an atmosphere of sacredness and reverence which is so characteristic of this liturgy. There is more silence, less teaching, more prayer. Participation is before all interior, and, even when exterior, it is not a hindrance but a help to interior participation. The Fraternity is not against participation. For example, there is probably more congregational singing at our Masses than at most English Masses in this country. The traditional Latin Mass stresses the vertical aspect of the liturgy, the worship of God the Father through the re-enactment of the unique Sacrifice of His Son offering his life for our Redemption and the bringing down of the graces merited by Christ on the cross. This liturgy speaks eloquently more by the symbols and gestures which accompany the text of the Mass than by the very meaning of these beautiful and ancient prayers.

Anyone who goes to a Traditional Latin Mass will be surprised to see that the majority of the participants are young or middle-aged families. Very few, if any, are there because of nostalgia. The great majority is there because they wish to pray and they have experienced that they can do better at that Mass. If the Mass is a well-sung High Mass in chant or classical polyphony, the beauty of the singing is not distracting or sought for itself, but because it induces to a more fervent prayer.

Procustes, the mythical giant of the antiquity, wanted everyone to be the same size. He would seize passers-by, tie them to a bedstead, and either stretch them or cut off their legs to make them fit in. Some think in a similar fashion in the Church: they want perfect uniformity. They contend everyone must worship the same way. There are at least 12 different liturgical rites still in use in the Church. A certain diversity is not opposed to unity. Unity in the church should be an unity in faith, sacraments, and communion. This is perfectly compatible with a certain diversity of rites.

Pope John Paul II declares in the Motu Proprio Ecclesia Dei: “However, it is necessary that all the Pastors (i.e., bishops and priests) and the other faithful have a new awareness, not only of the lawfulness but also of the richness for the Church of a diversity of charisms, traditions of spirituality and apostolate, which also constitutes the beauty of unity in variety: of that blended “harmony” which the earthly Church raises up to Heaven under the impulse of the Holy Spirit.” He also declares in a speech to the monks of Le Barroux in September 1990: “In this way, the holy See has upheld what the Council document defines concerning the holy liturgy, when it recalls “that the church, in all areas that do not affect Her general welfare or the Faith, does not wish to impose a strict uniformity, not even on the liturgy; on the contrary, She fosters the distinctive traits and gifts of the various peoples, and develops them.” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, No. 37)

8. I am a firm believer that each religious order has something to offer every other religious order, and that infighting between them is sickening. Has your reception by fellow priests been positive or negative? And what do you think the FSSP’s gift is to all the various religious communities today?

Actually many priests and religious have been very supportive of our work of reconciliation. Of course, we have to overcome ignorance and prejudice but anything new must face the same. When we work in a diocese, we try to be as much as possible part of the presbyterate. Our priests go to deanery meetings and other diocesan activities. Sometimes people imagine that because we are saying Mass in Latin, we must be severe and narrow-minded. Quite the contrary! We are not trying to resurrect the 1950’s. We are not interested for example in an abuse too frequent at that time of rushing Low Mass in 15 minutes or less. We simply wish to benefit by the same liturgical richness that Latin rite Catholics have enjoyed for over a millennium, and to provide it to all those who will find it spiritually beneficial.
If the Fraternity of St. Peter does not care for those who long for the spirituality of the Traditional Latin Mass, where will they go? Why should people who are attached to the liturgical Latin tradition of the Church be compelled to be members of illegitimate or schismatic groups? Our work is complementary of other parish priests of the Latin rite. The church has special ministries for special needs groups of people such a ethnic or linguistic groups. Why should there not be a special ministry for people who do not fit in, liturgically speaking?

9. How can we, the average Catholics, assist your order spiritually in its mission, and spread the word to those who most need to hear about you?
Pray for our priests so that they are faithful to their vocation and that they are successful in their work of reconciliation. Pray for our seminarians, so that they become good and holy priests. Ask God, through the intercession of Our Lady of Guadalupe, that we are able to build a permanent home for our seminarians. I mentioned we helped to make an “independent” chapel become a fully fledged parish of the diocese of Youngstown. They were so many obstacles to our being invited by the diocese when I was first approached by the members of that chapel, that I doubted it would ever happen. Imagine my surprise when I was called by the diocese shortly before Christmas 1992 and informed the Bishop wanted me to send a priest to the chapel. I have no doubt the Fraternity was invited to do its work of reconciliation there because a large number of the faithful of that chapel met once a week and prayed the entire 15 decades of the Rosary for this very intention!

10. On a much more practical note, being a new community you are certainly undergoing a lot of growth. Are you in need of material resources and assistance, and how should an interested donor reach you?

We are very grateful to God for the constant support of thousands of faithful friends, who send us regularly whatever they can afford. However, we need a permanent site for our seminary. We thought we could find an existing place but after a four year search, we have been unable to find the right place. We have therefore decided to build a brand new seminary. Obviously, it will cost us much more than we had planned and so donations are most welcome. We can handle any kind of donations: money, stock, land, long term gift, etc... Just give us a call or write to us for more information: Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, Griffin Rd., P.O. Box 196, Elmhurst PA 18416. Tel.: 717-842-4000; fax: 717-842-4001; e-mail: fssp@trincomm.org; web site: www.ewtn.org\fssp.

Catholic Dossier - July/August '98 - Table of Contents