A reader alerted me this. It is significant enough to let everyone know about it. This is from 14 October!
For your Brick by Brick file.
All friends and supporters of Saint Benedict Center are hereby informed that Father David Phillipson has been appointed to serve at Saint Benedict Center, Richmond. Father has been granted faculties by the Bishop of Manchester to offer Mass and hear confessions at the Center’s Immaculate Heart of Mary Chapel. Please join the Brothers and Sisters, Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, in our gratitude to Bishop McCormack for approving our chapel as a place of Catholic worship and for allowing Father Phillipson to serve here.
This concerns some of the descendants of the followers of Fr. Feeney who had not yet been reconciled with the Church.
Te Deum.
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Te Deum absolutely. I’ve been impressed with these people’s work and am happy to see them regularized.
Forgive my ignorance on this point, but who is Fr. Feeney and why is this significant?
This is great news. They have a wonderful website with some excellent articles. OK so it’s great news because they are reconciled, not simply because they have a great website!
czemike –
Here’s an article on Fr. Feeney. Lots to be found on the web…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Feeney
If anyone is wondering, the Still River, MA (original) St. Benedict Center had a friendly visit from their local Bishop years ago.
Te Deum indeed! I’ve seen some of the Brothers and Sisters when they come to the ‘Pilgrimage for the Catholic Restoration’ at the National Shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs, Auriesville, NY.
Father David Phillipson-is he in the FSSP? When the Fraternity priests used to come to Upstate NY to say the EF Mass twice a month, there was a priest by that name. He was originally a diocesan priest who transferred to the Fraternity.
Te Deum indeed! I had the privilege of meeting 4 of the Sisters last May in Lincoln. The materials they shared and the ministry they have for the families in MA seemed quite faithful and on fire. I am so happy for them and look forward to spending more time with them in the future. I also plan to buy many Christmas gifts from their giftshop. They make wonderful tapestries. So great to read about Unity within the Church!!! Go Papa Benny!
This community has a fine publishing house. Years ago, I used their recorded lectures of the “Philosophia Perennis” to tutor my son in Philosophy, while he was a senior in a public high school, to supplement his class of the same subject. His final presentation was on Thomas Aquinas and the proof of the existence of God. To this day, his MySpace page lists the Summa as one of his favorite books. My thanks to Brother Francis (may he rest in peace) for this fine apostolate, and all those who made this reconciliation possible.
irishgirl: I have it on good authority that yes, it’s the same Fr. David Phillipson you’re thinking of.
This is fantastic news. I believe the Richmond, N.H. location is the largest of the branches, which sadly suffered some division. Brother Francis, who just died, would no doubt be thrilled to hear this. It also validates the notion that Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus, as strictly interpreted by these devout Catholics, is not an illicit viewpoint.
Their old chaplain was a retired priest in good standing. But I agree that this appointment by their Ordinary is a great thing for them. Deo gratias et Mariae!
ppb-oh, that’s good to hear! He was a wonderful priest, as were all the FSSPers who came to say Mass. In fact, there were a few times when he was able to stay after Mass, and so we took him out to breakfast.
I’ll have to go on the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart website and read this.
ppb-I just commented on Brother Andre Marie’s blog expressing my joy at the appointment of Father Phillipson. Brother responded, saying that Father was ‘not of the FSSP, but a priest of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe, New Mexico.’ [big ‘oops’ on my part]
If the FSSP had an apostolate in New Mexico, maybe Father Phillipson WAS there…who knows? It would be coincidental that two different traditional priests bore the same name.
Deo Gratias! The Traditional communites of the Saint Benedict Center have done so much good for the faithful of that area for so long, including myself. I am overjoyed at this great news! Fr. Philipson is a courageous and holy priest who is a true inspiration. May God bless him abundantly as he begins this new mission.
irishgirl: I believe it’s still the same Fr. Phillipson. He definitely started off as a diocesan priest in the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. After that, he spent some years as a “friend” of the FSSP serving at their various apostolates in other places (there isn’t one in NM) , but apparently never officially affiliated with them.
I have never heard of the publishing house or the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The first thing I saw was a book of essays by Prince Gallitzin! Now I am very fond of Fr. Gallitzin, whom my family (from Altoona, PA) assumed I knew all about because they knew all about him growing up. He was a Russian prince who became a priest and lived out in rural Pennsylvania. I know that there is a cause for his sainthood but I didn’t know that he had written any books, much less that anyone had reprinted them. I am very excited…
A few years ago I was in a class on the history of the Church in America with an elderly man who told us all he had heard Fr. Feeney when he was a young man. I didn’t know anything about Fr. F. so I went home and looked him up, and after class the next week I told him I had read Fr. Feeney and that even just reading a few of his speeches him I could tell that he must have been a powerful speaker , and that I thought I would have believed him too. He was very moved and thanked me for saying so! He said he had always wondered if there was something wrong with him for being an ardent follower in his youth, but that if someone young today felt the same way then Fr. Feeney must really have been persuasive. I don’t remember his name but I always pray for his soul when I think of him — he has since died — he seemed like such a kind, devout man. You never know when something you say is going to mean a lot to someone else.
ppb-thanks for the info. Yes, Father Phillipson ‘was’ a diocesan priest and ‘was’ a ‘friend of the FSSP’ as you state. He himself said as much himself when he came to Upstate New York to say Mass. So he ‘must be’ one and the same!
Those of us here who met him liked him very much, as we did all of the FSSP priests. I’ll always remember that he wore a black zucchetto on his head (same kind some Benedictine monks wear) and carried a….Blackberry! When he went to breakfast with us, sometimes he’d take it out to check his messages!
The Wikipedia article Frank H linked to Fr. Feeny made some mention of his apparent anti-semitism. Given the shaky authority of Wikipedia, can anyone shed further light on this aspect? To keep from going down a rabbit hole on this topic, send me your reply here.
Fr. Phillipson was at some time part of the FSSP. He was a diocesan priest before that and again now, so it is the same Fr. Phillipson, and yes, he is truly a wonderful gift to any community…very holy and traditional. Keep him in your prayers.
Just FYI, there has been some confusion between the two Saint Benedict Centers, one in NH and one in MA. They all started out from the same SBC in MA back when Fr. Feeney was alive. However, they are two separate communities (with the same name, just to be confusing…;-) ) and are not at this time connected. The sisters who went to Lincoln, were from the SBC in Massachusetts (Still River aka Harvard, MA)
Tony Layne,
“Feeneyites” do not hold to Fr. Feeney’s views on everything, but on the dogma Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus.