Transalpine Redemptorists Say the Not-so-quiet Part Out Very loud

This is the conclusion of a religious congregation that spent years trying to make “recognize and resist” work from inside the system.

For nearly two decades, the Transalpine Redemptorists of Papa Stronsay were presented as the model of “traditionalism in full communion.” Founded in the orbit of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, regularized under Benedict XVI, and canonically recognized as the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer, they were held up as proof that one could preserve Tradition while remaining peacefully inside the post-conciliar structure.

That experiment has now publicly collapsed. In their May 2026 declaration, The Dogma to Steer By, following their explosive October 2025 Open Letter, the monks have effectively crossed the line into a sedevacantist position: the post-conciliar claimants, they correctly argue, have imposed a religion incompatible with Catholic dogma, and Catholics cannot obey commands destructive of the Faith. The practical conclusion is unmistakable: the authority claiming to govern the Church is not functioning as Catholic authority at all.

Keep in mind that this is not the rhetoric of anonymous internet polemicists but the conclusion of a religious congregation that spent years trying to make “recognize and resist” work from inside the system.

The Redemptorist Inheritance

The original Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer was founded in 1732 by St. Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church, to preach missions especially to the poor and abandoned. The Redemptorists were marked by doctrinal clarity, missionary zeal, Marian devotion, and fierce opposition to the theological laxity of their age.

The Transalpine Redemptorists were founded in 1988 by Fr. Michael Mary Sim, originally as a traditional Redemptorist community attached to the wider SSPX world and encouraged by Archbishop Lefebvre’s resistance to modernism. Their purpose was simple: preserve the old Redemptorist life, the traditional Roman Mass, and the anti-modernist Catholic Faith.

Eventually they settled on Papa Stronsay, a remote island in Orkney, building Golgotha Monastery.

In 2008, encouraged by Benedict XVI and the apparent thaw represented by Summorum Pontificum, they sought reconciliation with Rome. Their canonical censures were lifted, and in 2012 Bishop Hugh Gilbert of Aberdeen erected them as a diocesan institute under the name Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer.

For conservatives, they became the poster child of canonical normalization. That status is now in ruins.

When the Illusion Broke

The recent crisis did not begin with Francis, though Francis made it impossible to ignore.

The pressure intensified through years of conflict over liturgy, authority, and doctrinal compromise. Their apostolate in New Zealand became especially contentious. In Christchurch, tensions with diocesan authorities escalated until Bishop Michael Gielen expelled them from the diocese in July 2024. Officially, the issue was framed as obedience and unity. In reality, traditional Catholics recognized the familiar pattern: canonical recognition lasts only so long as one behaves like a museum exhibit rather than a Catholic priesthood.

Then came October 2025. Their Open Letter was not yet a formal sedevacantist declaration, but the premises were already there.

They wrote: “Through years of trials and experience we have come to the unfortunate conclusion that the Traditional Catholic Faith, and the way of life and worship which is its natural expression, is incompatible with the new, modern Church. They simply cannot coexist.” That sentence alone destroyed the polite fiction. They continued: “The chain of command has been broken.” And: “We can no longer remain silent while the Faith is undermined and the sacred priesthood is reduced to a functionary of a new religion.”

Then the line that many had thought, but few clergy dared to print: “We will not be complicit by silence in this ongoing destruction of the Church.” Once that was admitted, the rest became a matter of logic.

The Dogma to Steer By

The May 2026 declaration simply says openly what the earlier letter implied. The monks insist first on a fundamental Catholic principle: “Authority in the Church is ministerial. It is not absolute. It exists to hand on faithfully what has been received, not to innovate, manipulate, or destroy.” This statement is completely in line with Catholic teaching as espoused at Vatican I.

Then comes the inevitable conclusion and application: “When a superior departs from his own obedience to Christ the King, his command is no longer the arm of Christ but the gesture of a man.” This is of course the death blow to the conservative slogan “the Pope must be obeyed no matter what.” No, authority binds only insofar as it serves the Deposit of Faith.

They continue: “If the shepherd commands what destroys the flock, he is not acting as shepherd.” And still more plainly: “These churchmen disobey God.” The document therefor serves, in no uncertain terms, as a judgment against the hierarchy, showing it has become an instrument of contradiction to the very Faith it claims to guard.

The monks then return to the liturgical question, where the revolution became visible to ordinary Catholics: “Tolle Missam, Tolle Ecclesiam. Take away the Mass, you destroy the Church.” They explain: “The attack on the immemorial Roman Rite was never merely disciplinary. It was doctrinal. The lex orandi was changed because the lex credendi had first been altered.”

The Public Repudiations

Then follows their explosive list:

“We repudiate Amoris Laetitia, which places human affection above divine law.”

“We repudiate Traditionis Custodes, which persecutes what the Church herself canonized.”

“We repudiate Fiducia Supplicans, which attempts to bless what God condemns.”

“We repudiate ‘the Synodal Church’ as distinct from the Divinely constituted Catholic Church founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The final line is crucial as they are saying what so many of us has been saying , or at least been thinking, for a very long time: something distinct from the Church is presenting itself as the Church.

“Whatever may be the cost to us, with the Apostle we must say: even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel other than that which you have received, let him be anathema,” reads their final apostolic note.

The Confession That Matters Most

Perhaps the single most important line in the document is the confession of their own former hope: “We believed it was possible to live as faithful children of Tradition within the structures of the modern Church, preserving the old Mass and the old Faith while remaining under authorities who no longer believed either. We did not know how wrong we were.”

Critics who just want to dismiss these godly men, must really take a moment and consider the following. These are not lifelong sedevacantists looking for confirmation, but men who tried the Benedict solution. They accepted regularization and they spent seventeen years inside the Ecclesia Dei framework until it became unbearably clear that they were in communion with something alien to the Catholic Church. Now they are saying it does not work. Their testimony carries a weight that no argument can match.

The Not-so-quiet Part

For years, many clergy attempted to maintain the fiction that one could indefinitely “recognize and resist”: acknowledge the authority, reject its commands, denounce its teaching, but never draw the theological conclusion.

The Transalpine Redemptorists are saying the conclusion must finally be drawn. If the new religion is incompatible with Catholicism, if the chain of command is broken, if the liturgical revolution destroys the Church’s visible life, and if the authorities commanding these things “disobey God,” then Catholics cannot continue pretending this is merely a bad papacy.

Papa Stronsay has now added their voice to the choir of those who declare that the Synodal Church is not the Catholic Church and said the not-so-quiet part very loud indeed. The time has come that more hear, and heed, this message.

Note: I know by the time of this article being published many have already covered the story, such as my colleagues Stephen Kokx and WM Review, but if you haven’t read the document yet, do so by clicking here.

Our Lady, Co-redemptrix, pray for us…

Our Lady, Mediatrix of all Graces, pray for us…

Viva Christo Rey!

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