Posted on 03/10/2024 5:53:10 PM PDT by ebb tide
PIPE CREEK, Texas (LifeSiteNews) – A priest named by the Archbishop of San Antonio in an order forbidding Catholics from assembling at a private business is determined to fight back.
Father Donald Kloster, ordained a priest of Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1995, told LifeSiteNews in a recent interview that he is prepared to take legal action against Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller for publishing what he says is libel against him in the January 30 “Prohibition” against the family-owned Sanctus Ranch retreat center where he lives.
Sanctus Ranch is geographically located within the Archdiocese of San Antonio, and has hosted retreats since 2017.
“It was shocking the way in which [Archbishop García-Siller] slandered Mr. Sevigny, the owner of this property, as well as myself and Father Fasching, citing things that were totally not true. I’m thinking, well, you know, your spies were really bad because they didn’t get things right, and he said some libelous things in there,” Kloster said.
“I was always told as a young priest, you sue a bishop—you sue a sitting bishop—and you’ll be blacklisted, so I never even thought of it before,” he added. “Now they’ve pushed me too far, and I’m going to find a lawyer and I’m going to do whatever I can to clear my good name.”
In his “Prohibition,” García-Siller claimed that the priests at Sanctus Ranch do not possess faculties, are not in good standing—which he defined as acting “under the authority of a bishop […] in communion with the Holy Father,” do not have the required permission to exercise ministry in the Archdiocese of San Antonio, and have been “disciplined” by their bishops.
The archbishop claimed also that the chapel in the center is run as a “pseudo parish,” that Kloster is hearing confessions, and that the “validity and liceity” of the sacraments celebrated at the center “cannot be guaranteed.” In a particularly suggestive passage, the archbishop stated that the “unauthorized priests, personnel, and volunteers” at the center’s private micro-school, Lumen Christi Academy, “are not safe environment certified.”
Kloster told LifeSiteNews that he has not been hearing confessions—the archbishop not having granted him the necessary permissions—but that as a validly ordained priest he can say Mass in his own home.
“A priest at his domicile has a right to say Mass,” he told LifeSiteNews.
“Now the ecclesial authorities call it a private Mass, [but] there’s no such thing in canon law. It’s a Mass! All Masses are by their very nature public, and if a priest says a Mass that he has a right to say every day, and people come to that Mass, they have a right to come.”
Kloster made it clear that he has not been celebrating Mass in a church at a published time.
“I have said Mass in the sacristy at a non-published time in a parish in these 11 months, but no one came. It was just me and the sacristan,” he underscored.
“So again, this is totally legitimate. We’ve cleared it with canon lawyers, we know what we’re talking about, and if people want to criticize from the outside, present us the evidence.”
He also vigorously defended the validity of the Masses he has been saying at his home on the ranch, underscoring that he is a validly ordained priest.
Kloster said he was shocked by the veiled suggestion that he and his fellow priests might render an environment unsafe.
“It implied that […] Father Fasching and myself were either mentally unstable or were abusing children,” he said. “Now that implication […] is so libellous. I would never say anything remotely like that publicly to anyone.”
Meanwhile, Kloster believes he first fell from episcopal favor because he refused to offer the Ordinary Form of the Mass.
“I was canceled mainly because I wouldn’t offer the Mass in English,” he told LifeSiteNews.
“I had been saying the Traditional Latin Mass in the Diocese of Bridgeport for over two years with the bishop’s knowledge and presumed his willingness to let me do it, and then all of a sudden things changed,” he continued.
“It became very clear that they were singling me out because I was the only one other than a retired priest who said [only] the Traditional Mass … and so I lost my faculties on March 7 of last year.”
Kloster’s stated objection to the Ordinary Form of that Mass was that, after celebrating it for 25 years, he noticed that it ultimately attracted no vocations to the priesthood, whereas 21 young men who assisted at his Traditional Latin Masses are either now priests or still on their discernment journey towards priesthood.
“I’m tired of […] beating my head against the wall and getting no results,” he declared. “I know the Traditional Mass is fruitful; why would I offer a Mass that gets me no results?”
Regarding the cancelation of Sanctus Ranch, Kloster said he believed the motivations were political and financial and had to do with the Traditional Latin Mass being offered there as well. Meanwhile, he is not fazed by episcopal attacks on the ancient liturgy. Catholics who love the Traditional Mass—and the traditional faith—are flocking to places like Sanctus Ranch, he said. He also observed, based on his research, that children who now grow up in the Rite are least likely to abandon their faith as adults.
“These bishops, I don’t think they realize that they’re fighting against God,” Kloster said.
In an interview with Catholic radio show host Joe McClane published March 1, Dan Sevigny described Kloster and Fasching, who also lives on the property, as “good and holy priests who are serving the laity in ways that they can.”
Including retired San Antonio priest Father David Wagner in his description of priests at Sanctus Ranch, Sevigny said its micro-school was “incredibly blessed.”
“So we’re just incredibly blessed to have these men, that have given their whole life to the priesthood, that currently aren’t assigned, teaching in our school. And I don’t see how there’s any challenge with that, and that’s what’s so shocking about most of this.”
2023 was a difficult year for the Archdiocese of San Antonio in that at least three of its priests were shown to be real dangers to the faithful. George Mbugua Ndungu, also known as Father Wanjiru, assigned to several parishes in the archdiocese from 2017, was charged with sexually assaulting a 75-year-old woman. In addition, Fathers Alejandro Ortega and Jesus Eduardo Martinez-Solis, both incardinated in the diocese in 2021, were in 2023 credibly accused of recent sexual misconduct against minors.
In 2016, Archbishop García-Siller was criticized for welcoming into his archdiocese Fr. Marco Mercado, a priest removed from ministry in the Archdiocese of Chicago for having “an inappropriate relationship with another man.” Prior to being named Archbishop of San Antonio in 2010, García-Siller served as an auxiliary bishop in Chicago from 2003.
LifeSiteNews reached out to the Diocese of Bridgeport, CT, for comment but has not yet received a response. A spokesman for the Archdiocese of San Antonio told LifeSiteNews, in connection with a related story, that it was “unable to publicly elaborate on personnel matters regarding priests.”
To make your respectful opinions known, please contact Archbishop García-Siller at pablo.garcia@archsa.org or 210.734.2620.
“A priest at his domicile has a right to say Mass,” he told LifeSiteNews.
Kloster made it clear that he has not been celebrating Mass in a church at a published time.
“I have said Mass in the sacristy at a non-published time in a parish in these 11 months, but no one came. It was just me and the sacristan,” he underscored.
“So again, this is totally legitimate. We’ve cleared it with canon lawyers, we know what we’re talking about, and if people want to criticize from the outside, present us the evidence.”
He also vigorously defended the validity of the Masses he has been saying at his home on the ranch, underscoring that he is a validly ordained priest.
Was this priest SUSPENDED for faithfully celebrating the Traditional Latin Mass?
Ping
Another modernist Judas bishop. If you’re a traditional Catholic Bergoglio and his minions are after you!
Sure smells like someone got blackmailed into saying something they didn’t want to .. that sure sucks if it’s so,, no sympathy for beings who mentally think they are minor attracted whatever’s.
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