A New Zealand priest has been excommunicated for schism after being ordained illicitly as a bishop in a remote monastery in the Orkney Islands.
Fr Michael Mary Sim, founder of the Congregation of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer, has also been dismissed from his ecclesiastical office as superior of the community and forbidden to offer Mass and other sacraments by Bishop Hugh Gilbert of Aberdeen.
Fr Michael Mary and his community are sedevacantists who believe that all popes elected after Vatican II, from St Paul VI to Leo XIV, are “papal pretenders” and that the See of Rome is vacant. He was ordained by three sedevacantist bishops.
The ordination took place on 25 July on the island of Papa Stronsay in the congregation’s monastery. The island has only 10 inhabitants, but the ceremony was live-streamed on YouTube and created a stir on the internet.
Bishop Gilbert immediately issued a statement announcing the excommunication. He said, “This is a clear break with the church.”
“By means of these events, the congregation and its now deposed superior have removed themselves from the communion of the Catholic Church, and the faithful of the diocese should have no dealings with them.
“On her part, the Church urgently invites those involved to repent and to return to that union which they once enjoyed. The church, who is the Mother of us all, will welcome them warmly.”
The congregation also has a house in Geraldine, New Zealand.
Last year, after a Vatican investigation, Christchurch Bishop Michael Gielen banned the community from ministering and asked them to leave. He removed the faculties of priests in the community, meaning that their Masses would be illicit.
Fr Michael Mary, whose secular name is Gregory Wilson Rae Sim, was born in New Zealand in 1954. He was ordained a priest in 1978 in the Christchurch diocese.
Although the group is also known as the Transalpine Redemptorists, it has nothing to do with the Redemptorist order founded by St Alphonsus Liguori.
