Personal Apostolic Administration of Saint John Mary Vianney

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Antônio de Castro Mayer, who was born on 20 June 1904 and ordained a priest on 30 October 1927, was Bishop of the Diocese of Campos in Brazil from 3 January 1949 until his resignation on 29 August 1981. He opposed the use of Pope Paul VI's revision of the Roman Missal in his diocese and held to the Tridentine Mass. After his resignation, he continued to lead opposition in the diocese to the revised liturgy and on 30 June 1988 joined with Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in consecrating as bishops, against an express prohibition by Pope John Paul II, four priests of the Society of St. Pius X. For this action he was declared to have incurred excommunication.

The priests of Campos who shared his traditionalist Catholic views formed themselves into the Priestly Union of Saint Jean-Marie Vianney, also known as the Sacerdotal Society of St. John Marie Vianney (SSJV) and, when Bishop de Castro Mayer died in April 1991, chose as his successor Licínio Rangel, who was given episcopal consecration later that year by three bishops of the Society of St. Pius X.

The group made a pilgrimage to Rome during the Jubilee Year 2000 and was welcomed by Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, President of the Ecclesia Dei Commission with a lunch and dialogue.[1] They decided to seek reconciliation with the Holy See and, on 15 August 2001, wrote a letter to Pope John Paul II in which they all renewed their profession of Catholic faith, declaring full communion with the Chair of Peter, recognizing "his Primacy and the government of the universal Church, her pastors and her faithful", and likewise declaring: "For no reason do we wish to be separated from the Rock (Peter) on which Jesus Christ founded his Church".[2]

Pope John Paul II "received them into full communion" with the Catholic Church and established for them, with effect from 18 January 2002, the Personal Apostolic Administration of Saint John Mary Vianney, with authority over those Catholics in the Diocese of Campos - present or future - who wished to use the Roman rite in the form it had before the revisions of the 1960s and 1970s. The priests of the Apostolic Administration have the faculty to celebrate the Liturgy, not just the Holy Mass, according to the Roman rite and the liturgical discipline codified by Saint Pius V, with the adaptations introduced by his successors up to Blessed John XXIII.

During the 1980s and 1990s, it was claimed that followers of the Priestly Union of Saint Jean-Marie Vianney constituted the "vast majority" of the Catholics of Campos, who had never known the revised liturgy of the Mass, as their diocesan bishop Antônio de Castro Mayer had, during the 1970s, retained the Tridentine Mass in his territory. However, when at the end of 2003 separate statistics were for the first time published for the Diocese of Campos and the new personal apostolic administration, the latter had 28,325 Catholics, 28 priests, 9 seminarians, 75 religious sisters and 24 schools, while the diocese had 854,000 Catholics, 48 diocesan and 17 religious priests, 30 seminarians, 19 religious brothers and 67 religious sisters, and only 5 schools (Annuario Pontificio 2005).

Pope John Paul II promised to ensure the episcopal succession of Bishop Licínio Rangel, and when Bishop Rangel asked that he be given an auxiliary bishop, recommended him to ask instead for a coadjutor, who would have the automatic right of succession. He then, on 28 June 2002, appointed to that post Bishop Rangel's vicar general, Fernando Arêas Rifan, who automatically succeeded Bishop Rangel as Apostolic Administrator, when the latter died on 16 December 2002.

A group of traditionalist Catholics has thus been accommodated fully within the Roman Catholic Church. They recognize the authority of the Pope as Vicar of Christ and Shepherd of the Church, the legitimacy of the Second Vatican Council, and the validity of the Mass approved by Pope Paul VI; and they have the faculty to celebrate in Latin the Mass and all the other sacramental rites in the form codified by Pope Pius V and modified by his successors down to Pope John XXIII.[3]

In his first pastoral letter to the clergy, religious, associations and other faithful of the Apostolic Administration,[4] Bishop Rifan stressed the importance of the papal mandate or canonical mission given to him, quoting the Council of Trent's anathema against any who would say that one who lacks it is a lawful preacher of the word of God and minister of the sacraments.

He also warned those to whom he addressed his pastoral letter against two errors. One is heresy, attacks against the traditional Faith. He saw as a defence against that the traditional Latin liturgy and liturgical discipline that the Apostolic Administration keeps. The other error is schism, attacks against the unity of governance of the Church. Members of the Apostolic Administration must be on their guard against this too, he said, especially since their rightful efforts to preserve the Catholic faith had some unfortunate effects, in particular the onset of "a certain schismatic spirit that showed itself in a general taste for systematic criticism of Church authorities, a spirit of resistance, disobedience, disrespect, suspicion, backbiting, independence from the Church's Hierarchy and Magisterium, contentment with the abnormality of the situation, uncharitableness, a feeling of owning the whole of truth, a sectarian attitude that made us out to be the only good people ... with the underlying notion that 'the gates of Hell' had prevailed against the Church - something that, through the infallible help of our Saviour, is impossible."

In a 2005 interview, Cardinal Castrillón stated that there were cordial relations between the Personal Apostolic Administration and the Diocese of Campos at all levels, and that priests of the Apostolic Administration were celebrating Mass in the older form for the traditionalist faithful in another dozen dioceses in Brazil in accordance with signed agreements that they had with the diocesan bishops.[5]

[edit] External links

• Personal Apostolic Administration of Saint John Mary Vianney
• The Apostolic Administration's principal church (equivalent to a cathedral)
• Significance for discussions with Society of St Pius X

Note that the English translation of a talk Bishop Fernando Arêas Rifan gave in London, once available on the Apostolic Administration's no longer active old site, is not found, at least as yet, 15 September 2006, on its present website.