Separated apart - Why are we still here?

Why are we still here?

We are still here because we want to stay here as long as we can. We are peacefully resisting eviction from our monastery. Our monastery is our home and it connects us with the families and people who have need of the Traditional Latin Mass. We are here especially for them. It is a good thing that we own our monastery and oratory; it is a help to remaining here. And we will try our best not to be evicted because we are committed to being here for the good of souls.

Expulsion of the Carthusians by the Government in 1903

Eviction is a pretty horrible experience for anybody. In our time it does not happen very often that priests and monks are evicted from their homes. It happened in April 1903 when the French Government closed monasteries. Today the religious authorities want our eviction.

Eviction - Invasion - 'Booting Out' the Jesuits in 1880

As candidates for eviction we soon learn that we were to be avoided by decent people, and that we had been separated by authority. We felt that we were now to be viewed as bad Catholics and held in contempt. Those who plotted our eviction would now be satisfied and could say: "Good riddance!" "Can't wait for them to go!" "Get out of town." "We don't want to know you."

 Our ostracization was public: "Bishop Michael would like to remind the faithful that any public Masses those priests celebrate are illicit – that is, outside the rules of the Church." 

Now we were no longer counted as brethren and respected clergy. We were separated off as "... those priests...". We are separated-out to be ostracized, not by the NZ Government, but by the leading religious men who, for others, would protest that all men should be held as innocent until proven guilty of some crime.

But priests and monks who worship God in the Latin Mass are separated into a different class of people. We exist only in the lower of a two tier system. Before the Holy See has decided matters our presence has been taken from the Christchurch diocese website; our names have been deleted from the official list of clergy and wiped from the list of priests present as recorded in the New Zealand Clergy Directory.  

May ostracization and public separation cease. May sincere respect find its rightful place so that the Peace of Christ may rejoice in our hearts, in His kingdom of truth and justice.