Priestly Society of Saint John Mary Vianney - Subsequent History

Subsequent History

During the 1980s and 1990s, some claimed that followers of the Priestly Union of Saint Jean-Marie Vianney constituted the majority of the Catholics of Campos, who had never known the revised Liturgy of the Mass, as their diocesan bishop Antônio de Castro Mayer had, during the 1970s, retained the Tridentine Mass in his territory. However, when at the end of 2003 separate statistics were, for the first time, gathered for the Diocese of Campos and the new personal apostolic administration, the latter reported 28,325 Catholics, 28 priests, 9 seminarians, 75 religious sisters and 24 schools, while the diocese reported 854,000 Catholics, 48 diocesan and 17 religious priests, 30 seminarians, 19 religious brothers and 67 religious sisters, and 5 schools (Annuario Pontificio 2005). The corresponding figures seven years later were, for the personal apostolic administration, 30,733 Catholics, 32 priests, 7 seminarians, 38 religious sisters and 24 schools, and for the diocese 940,000 Catholics, 69 diocesan and 16 religious priests, 27 seminarians, 18 religious brothers and 81 religious sisters and 18 schools.

In his letter of 25 December 2001, Pope John Paul II promised to ensure the episcopal succession of Bishop Licínio Rangel, and when Bishop Rangel asked that he be given an auxiliary bishop, recommended him to ask instead for a coadjutor, who would have the automatic right of succession. The Pope then, on 28 June 2002, appointed to that post Bishop Rangel's vicar general, Fernando Arêas Rifan, who automatically succeeded Bishop Rangel as Apostolic Administrator, when the latter died on 16 December 2002.

A group of traditionalist Catholics was thus accommodated fully within the Catholic Church. They accept the authority of the Pope as Vicar of Christ and Shepherd of the Church, the legitimacy of the Second Vatican Council and the validity of the Mass approved by Pope Paul VI. The clergy of the apostolic administration possess the faculty to celebrate in Latin the Mass, the sacraments and all other sacramental rites in the form codified by Saint Pius V and modified by his successors down to Blessed John XXIII.