Vatican keeping an eye on monks refusing orders to leave Christchurch

Saturday, 29 November 2025

Father Anthony, centre, with postulant Brother Benedict, left, and novice Brother Raphael at the Sons’ monastary near Geraldine in 2021. Benedict’s name was not on the open letter.

A group of Catholic monks are defying the Christchurch Bishop’s “evil” orders to leave the diocese and say their beliefs are “incompatible” with the Catholic Church of today.

The professed members of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer were meant to leave Canterbury by November 1, but have not, and instead are openly criticising the church, describing the actions of leaders, including the late Pope Francis, as “evil”.

“The Bishop of Christchurch has made us to be as the offscouring or scum of the earth,” the group declared in an open letter, adding that “higher duty” forbade them from leaving.

The ripple effects are now being felt in the group’s home diocese in Scotland, where the local bishop has condemned the group’s divisive tone and will no longer have them provide the older rite of the Roman Mass at a local church.

The Sons’ priests and brothers, led by New Zealand-born Father Michael Mary, were asked to leave the Christchurch diocese following a Vatican investigation in 2023 and 2024 regarding allegations of unauthorised exorcisms and abusive behaviour.

A subsequent investigation by The Press revealed the church also looked into reports of the Sons setting up a group of unauthorised nuns called Daughters of the Most Holy Redeemer.

Although the Vatican findings remain secret, in mid-2024, Christchurch Bishop Michael Gielen - acting on advice from the Vatican - revoked the Sons’ permission to exercise priestly ministry and asked them to leave the diocese within 90 days.

The Sons, through a third party, bought the St Alban’s Anglican Church in Ōhoka, under false pretenses, with Anglican Bishop Peter Carrell saying they would not have agreed to the deal had they known who the buyer was.

The Sons bought themselves an extra year with an unsuccessful appeal, but in the meantime expanded the group by buying a church in Ōhoka under false pretences and the group continued to give mass. A spokesperson for the Sons described it at the time as private mass and said it was “a grey area”. Gielen described it as disobedient.

In late October, 27 monks - many based in Scotland - from the Sons published an open letter on their blog, which they also shared on social media, saying they refused to leave the Christchurch diocese because a “higher duty forbids it”.

However, they also said their way of practising Catholicism was “incompatible” with the church today, and appealed to people who sensed “something tremendously wrong in the church”.

The group also reportedly established an illicit order of nuns, who live in cabins owned by the Sons in North Canterbury.

They said Gielen had made them out to be “scum of the earth” and blamed him for being expelled.

The letter included a list of things the group rejected, like permitting Holy Communion “to couples living in sin”, to “the scourge of religious indifference in New Zealand and throughout the church”.

In a recent interview with a Brazilian religious educator, Mary said his group was being targeted out of jealousy, because there was growing interest in their community.

Although a spokesperson for the Sons said the Daughters were not claiming to be nuns, members of the community refer to them as such.

Some of the documents and statements coming from church leaders that they rejected “are, actually, evil”, Mary said, one of which was the church’s friendliness with other religions.

He called Anglicanism “a false religion”. Christchurch Anglican Bishop Peter Carrell was also mentioned in the open letter, with the group criticising Gielen for receiving his ashes from Carrell during Ash Wednesday rituals.

Mary challenged the “backbone” or “spine” of Catholics who did not follow their order’s more conservative, or ‘traditionalist’, form of Catholicism. The current form was open to “heresy”, he said.

Bishop Michael Gielen told the Sons to leave the diocese on the advice of the Vatican, and the orders were upheld earlier this year.

“It’s very clear that there is no place for us in the church,” he said.

He speculated that it could also be political, as the Sons opposed Covid-19 mandates and attended the 2022 protest on Parliament grounds.

Mary suggested that by following Gielen’s orders to leave the diocese they would be “complicit with what is evil”.

At another point in the interview he said he hoped they would stay within the structures of the church.

Gielen and Gilbert have spoken about the monks and say they are following Rome’s guidance.

“If because we speak up, we’re thrown out, then we’ll be thrown out,” he said.

The Sons’ actions have not gone unnoticed.

Bishop Hugh Gilbert, of the Aberdeen diocese in Scotland, has condemned the open letter as “incompatible with the Catholic sense of the church’s unity”.

Gilbert is the bishop who canonically erected the Sons (previously operating outside of the church) as a religious institute in 2012, paving the way for the group to legitimately exercise ministry.

But, in a recent statement, Gilbert said the diocese will no longer use the Sons’ services at a local church.

He was also awaiting canonical and doctrinal guidance on the matter from the Vatican.

Alex Bailey, chief operating officer of the Catholic Diocese of Christchurch, confirmed to The Press that Gilbert and Gielen have spoken about the situation and are both concerned about the “divisive nature” of the letter.

He said the diocese has followed Rome’s guidance on all matters concerning the Sons.

“The Vatican is now considering these latest developments.”

Meanwhile, no mention of accusations against Christchurch diocese priests, the Vatican investigation, or illicit mass was mentioned in the public summary of the latest review into the diocese’s safeguarding practices.

The review, the first since allegations against the Sons were made public, with the last one being in 2021, was by the National Office for Professional Standards (NOPS), the Catholic Church’s safeguarding arm, which also oversees abuse complaints.

Virginia Noonan, NOPS national director, said complaints against the Sons were taken seriously by the church, including the establishment of a “rare” Apostolic Visitation (the Vatican investigation).

“The outcome of that visitation was the imposition of very serious sanctions,” she said.