Free Republic

The Congregation for Religious' struggle against the Franciscans of the Immaculata is going into a new round. On March 2nd, the legal representatives of the founder and General Superior dismissed by the Vatican, Father Stefano Manelli, has issued a complaint to the state prosecutor of Avellino. He founded the Order in the 1970s, it was recognized by the Holy See in 1990, returned to the original Franciscan Rule and also followed Pope Benedict liturgically. After the Motu proprio Summorum Pontificum he implemented the traditional liturgy internally, while offering the Sacraments in both forms of the Roman Rite for pastoral reasons....

Sic transit gloria mundi. For the Franciscans of the Immaculate, the Institute founded by Father Stefano Maria Manelli, ( externally commissioned on 11th July 2013) the “era of Volpi” , which will certainly be remembered as one of the saddest in the history of this religious order, is over. Father Fidenzio Volpi, assigned by the Congregation for Religious as Apostolic Commissioner to liquidate Father Manelli’s order, is in fact in a Roman clinic, after suffering a cerebral ischemia, followed by a hemiparesis, which has seriously compromised his health, forcing him to renounce, irrevocably, his appointment as Commissioner. In February 2014,...

(Rome) Father Fidenzio Volpi, with the approval of Pope Francis in July 2013, has surprised again and again as Apostolic Commissioner of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate, although rarely in a positive way. The Apostolic Commissioner has changed his mind and withdrew his signature on the agreement with the family of FFI Founder Father Stefano Maria Manelli. This past February 12 Commissioner Volpi and the family Manelli had agreed following a mediation in civil matters (mediazione civile). The blog Le pagine di Don Camillo, who first reported on the agreement, falsely wrote about a "patteggiamento", a specialized institution of...