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Fr Michael Mary of the Sons of the Holy Redeemer was installed on Saturday, July 25 as bishop of the order by Monseigneur Pierre Roy, leader of a schismatic Catholic group in New Brunswick, Canada.
The consecration defied the clear instructions of the Bishop of Aberdeen, Hugh Gilbert. He warned that the ceremony would represent “spiritual suicide” for anyone, including laity, taking part.
In consequence and following canonical process, Bishop Gilbert announced that Fr Michael Mary was guilty of schism and has been excommunicated. He is forbidden from celebration of Mass or other sacraments. Bishop Gilbert instructed lay Catholics to have no dealings with the order.
Roy is the founder of Our Lady of Joy Mission, which states on its website that it is not in communion with Pope Leo XIV and disagrees with core tenets of the Second Vatican Council including religious liberty, ecumenism, collegiality and the Novus Ordo Missae or New Mass.
Bishop Roy is believed to have contacted the Orkney order, known as the Transalpine Redemptorists because they are fellow sedevacantists who, like him, recognise no Pope as legitimate since Pius XII who died in 1958.
The Sons of the Holy Redeemer, known as the Transalpine Redemptorists have been based at Golgotha Monastery on Papa Stronsay since they bought the island from a local farmer and landowner in 1999.
In 2012, the order was canonically established as part of Aberdeen diocese, but developed a rift with Bishop Gilbert that heightened after three Transalpine Redemptorists recently left the community.
Bishop Gilbert invited the former Stronsay monks to celebrate the Tridentine Rite Mass in an Aberdeenshire parish, thus increasing provision of the Traditional Mass there from once a month to every Sunday.
In April, a 24-year-old members of the order, Justin Evans, known as Brother Ignatius, went missing and was subsequently found drowned.
In excommunication, the order joins the small group of Black Hermits on Westray, another island in the Orkney archipelago, who entered schism on Christmas Eve 2020 after calling Pope Francis a heretic.
Fr Michael Mary stated in a blog post that the present Catholic hierarchy represented a “new religion” bent on destroying the Catechism and the Sacraments. He has referred to Pope Leo and the current Magisterium as “squatters”.