VATICAN CITY — As the Fraternity of St Peter awaits the results of an Apostolic Visitation, the group’s Superior General met privately with Leo XIV Monday, receiving his blessing for the traditional Mass society and fielding his questions.
Somewhat two years after Pope Francis confirmed the Latin Mass charism of the order, superiors of the Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP) were back in the Apostolic Palace once again.
As detailed in the Holy See Press Office bulletin Monday morning, Leo XIV received Superior General Father John Berg in private audience, along with Father Josef Bisig who is one of the co-founders of the FSSP. No details were released by the Vatican, a discretion which is customary for such private meetings.
The Fraternity requested the meeting with Leo, and in a statement issued Tuesday, they commented that it was a “cordial” encounter, providing a useful opportunity for them to update the Pope on their activity and to address his questions.
The statement read:
The cordial half-hour meeting was an opportunity to present to the Holy Father in greater detail the foundation and history of the Fraternity, as well as the various forms of apostolate that it has been offering to the faithful for almost 38 years. The proper law and charism that guide the sanctification of its members were recalled.
This audience also provided an opportunity to evoke any misunderstandings and obstacles that the Fraternity encounters in certain places and to answer questions from the Supreme Pontiff. At the end of this meeting, Pope Leo XIV gave his blessing, which he extended to all members of the Fraternity.
The FSSP is known as one of the most prominent priestly fraternities dedicated to the celebration of the traditional liturgy. As a Society of Apostolic Life of Pontifical Right its constitutions were officially approved by the Holy See in 2003 and stipulate that one of the key aims of the Fraternity is to achieve the “sanctification of priests” through the “faithful observance of the ‘liturgical and disciplinary traditions’ according to the dispositions of the Motu proprio Ecclesia Dei of July 2, 1988, which is at the origin of its foundation.”
Now numbering nearly 400 priests and with just under 200 seminarians between its two houses of formation in Europe and North America, the Fraternity is still relatively young, having been founded just 38 years ago.
Berg has served as the Superior General of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP) since his latest election to the office for a six year term in July 2024. The American priest previously held the position from 2006-2018, and since then has been working in churches served by the FSSP in North America.
Following the July 2021 promulgation of Traditionis Custodes by Pope Francis, the FSSP met privately with the pope in February 2022 who confirmed that they were exempt from his restrictions.
A decree signed by Francis declared that:
“The Holy Father Francis, grants to each and every member of the Society of Apostolic Life “Fraternity of Saint Peter”, founded on July 18, 1988 and declared of “Pontifical Right” by the Holy See, the faculty to celebrate the sacrifice of the Mass, and to carry out the sacraments and other sacred rites, as well as to fulfill the Divine Office, according to the typical editions of the liturgical books, namely the Missal, the Ritual, the Pontifical and the Roman Breviary, in force in the year 1962.
Pope Benedict XVI also sent a private letter to the order expressing his support for them and offering encouragement, some months before his death in December 2022.
A subsequent meeting between Pope Francis and FSSP superiors in February 2024 saw the superiors relate to Francis “the difficulties encountered” in the living out of their charism celebrating the traditional Mass. The Fraternity has encountered difficulties in certain dioceses – particularly in France – following Traditionis Custodes, leading on occasion to the cessation of Mass centers.
A statement from the FSSP at the time noted that “the Pope was very understanding and invited the Fraternity of St. Peter to continue to build up ecclesial communion ever more fully through its own proper charism.”
In September 2024, the FSSP announced briefly that the Vatican had organized an Apostolic Visitation of the community. Such information came to the Fraternity via the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL), which oversees the FSSP since the dissolution of the Ecclesia Dei office at the Vatican.
According to the Fraternity, the Congregation’s prefect at the time, Cardinal Braz de Aviz, affirmed the visit “does not originate in any problems of the Fraternity, but is intended to enable the Dicastery to know who we are, how we are doing and how we live, so as to provide us with any help we may need.”
It was the first such visitation into the Fraternity since 2014.
Shortly after, Vaticanist Diane Montagna reported that the retired Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin, and the former Archbishop of Tours, Bernard-Nicolas Aubertin, had been named as the visitors.
Pelican+ understands that the visitation has been concluded for some time, but the results have not yet been made known. There was no mention by the FSSP about the visitation in the public details they shared following Monday’s papal audience.