Official Note from the FFI

Father Stefano Manelli

An official note from the FFI issued yesterday as a reply to a number of allegations by an Italian Vaticanist, 

presumably Andrea Tornielli states that:

a) Fr. Stefano Manelli not only has never imposed to all Communities the exclusive use of the Tridentine Mass, but did not even want it to become the exclusive Rite. He himself set the example by celebrating anywhere according to one or the other Ordo.

b) Before, during and after the Apostolic Visitation (July 2012-July 2013), most communities of the FFI made either exclusive, or in the majority of cases, use of the Novus Ordo.

c) Fr. Stefano Manelli, as Minister General, together with the General Council has undertaken legitimately the work of promoting the Vetus Ordo in accordance with the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum (2007), in accordance with the decisions of the FFI's General Chapter of 2008 and in respect of Universae Ecclesiae (2011).

d) By letter Prot. 77/2011, dated 21 November 2011, the FFI Secretary General, on behalf of the General Council, informed all FFI houses, about non-binding rules on the use of the Vetus Ordo and the harmony between the Vetus Ordo and the Novus Ordo in its communities and in its Institute.

e) After that letter, various communities have continued peacefully to privilege the Vetus or the Novus Ordo. So, there was no imposition by Fr. Manelli.

f) Some monks, however, objected to the letter. Therefore, the FFI asked the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, which in its reply of 14 April 2012, (Prot. 39/2011L), established that there is conformity between the same letter Prot. 77/2011 and the mens of Pope Benedict XVI expressed in Universae Ecclesiae (No. 8a).