Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter

Canonical status

According to Canon law, the F.S.S.P. is a "Clerical Society of Apostolic Life of Pontifical Right". It is not, therefore, an Institute of Consecrated Life, and members take no religious vows, but are instead bound by the same general laws of celibacy and obedience as diocesan clergy and, in addition, swear an oath as members of the Society. The Fraternity's pontifical-right status means that it has been established by the Pope and is answerable only to him in terms of its operation (through the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei), rather than to local bishops. A local bishop still governs the Fraternity's work within his respective diocese. In this sense its organization and administrative reporting status are similar to those of religious orders of pontifical right (for example, the Jesuits or Dominicans).

Mission and charism

The F.S.S.P. consists of priests and seminarians who intend to pursue the goal of Christian perfection according to a specific charism, which is to offer the Mass and other sacraments according to the Roman Rite as it existed before the liturgical reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council. Thus, the Fraternity uses the Roman Missal, the Roman Breviary, the Pontifical (Pontificale Romanum), and the Roman Ritual in use in 1962, the last editions before the revisions that followed the Council.

The 2007 motu proprio Summorum pontificum has authorized this older form of the Mass, known as the Tridentine Mass, not only for the Fraternity, but for all Latin Rite priests as an extraordinary form of the Roman Rite.

Following from its charism, the Fraternity's mission is twofold: to sanctify each priest through the exercise of his priestly function, and to deploy these priests to parishes. As such, they are to celebrate the sacraments, catechise, preach retreats, organize pilgrimages, and generally provide a full sacramental and cultural life for lay Catholics who are likewise drawn to the rituals of the 1962 missal. In order to help complete its mission, the Fraternity has built its own seminaries with the goal of forming men to serve the Fraternity.

Founding

For the honour and glory of the holy Catholic Church, for the consolation of the much troubled faithful, and for the peace of their conscience, the undersigned, members until now of the Fraternity of Saint Pius X, declare with profound regret over the illicit consecration of bishops on 30 June [1988] that they have remained within the Catholic Church as pars sanior of this same Fraternity, and that they have but one desire: to be able to live as a religious society in this Church and place themselves at her service under the authority, of course, of the Roman Pontiff, her supreme head.

The F.S.S.P. was established on July 18, 1988 at the Abbey of Hauterive, Switzerland by twelve priests and twenty seminarians, led by Father Josef Bisig, all of whom had formerly belonged to Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre's Society of St. Pius X; they were unwilling to follow that movement into what the Congregation for Bishops and Pope John Paul II declared to be a schismatic act and grounds for excommunication latæ sententiæ due to the consecration of four bishops without a papal mandate. Father Josef Bisig became the Fraternity's first superior general.

Organization

As of October 2016, the Fraternity included 425 members: 270 priests, 23 deacons, and 132 non-deacon seminarians in 124 dioceses spread among Australia, Austria, Benin, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Nigeria, Poland, Switzerland, and the United States. The Fraternity's membership represents 35 nationalities, and the average age of its members is 37. The lay Confraternity of Saint Peter enrolls 5,231 members who spiritually support the Fraternity's charism.

Superiors General

The F.S.S.P.'s current superior general is the Very Rev. John Berg. The Vicar General and Assistant is the Very Rev. Patrick du Faÿ.

Districts and regions

The Fraternity is divided into three districts and two regions:

Educational institutions

The Fraternity has two seminaries:

Ezekiel House, a house of formation for first-year seminarians, exists in the city of Sydney, Australia. The Director of Ezechiel House is Fr Duncan Wong FSSP.

In 2015, the Fraternity established in Guadalajara, Mexico, Casa Cristo Rey, an apostolate which it plans to develop into a house of formation for first-year seminarians for native Spanish-speaking postulants. Presently, Casa Cristo Rey serves as a priestly discernment program for young men from Spain and Latin America. In 2016 Casa Cristo Rey opened the Junipero Serra Spanish Institute, a program offering 6 or 8 weeks of Spanish immersion for priests and seminarians.

Until 2012, the Fraternity also operated a boarding school—St. Gregory's Academy in Elmhurst, Pennsylvania.