Warning from bishop

Press, 13 December 1985, Page 5

Warning from bishop

PA Auckland Catholics who receive confirmation this week from the visiting rebel Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre are breaking Church law, says the Catholic Bishop of Auckland, the most Rev. Denis Browne. Confirmation of 70 Catholics and the blessing of New Zealand’s first traditionalist church in Wanganui would be valid but illicit, he said. Archbishop Lefebvre was suspended from the Church

and stripped of his priestly powers by Pope Paul VI. He refused to close his Swiss seminary and ignored orders to comply with Vatican reforms.

His visit to New Zealand is supported by a small group 'of ultra-conserva-tives, the Concerned Catholics group, who want a return to the Latin Mass.

The vicar-general of the Wellington diocese, the Rt Rev. Owen Dolan, said that for any bishop to perform

confirmation without seeking the permission of the local Church was a clear sign of dissent

But the chairman of Concerned Catholics, Mr Jack Shaw, said he did not need anyone’s approval to exercise his faith.

“If I had asked they would have said no,” he said. He said Concerned Catholics numbered 1000 in the three main centres and Wanganui.