The Roman Catholic Bishop of Aberdeen declared Father Michael Mary excommunicated and removed him from ecclesiastical office after he underwent an episcopal consecration without Vatican approval. The ceremony took place on Papa Stronsay and involved the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer, an ultra-conservative religious community.
Bishop Hugh Gilbert said a diocesan canonical process found the priest guilty of charges led by schism. The judgment also prohibited Michael Mary from celebrating Mass or other sacraments. Relevant departments of the Roman Curia had been kept informed, the bishop said. He added that the penalties could be lifted if the priest sincerely reversed course and made reparation.
The Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer adheres to sedevacantism, a movement whose followers argue that popes since Pius XII's death in 1958 have lacked legitimacy because of alleged heresies associated with reforms following the Second Vatican Council. Michael Mary and the community do not accept Pope Leo XIV as a legitimate pontiff, according to the supplied reporting. Mainstream Catholic authorities reject that position.
Sedevacantist bishops carried out Saturday's consecration without permission from the local bishop and without the papal mandate required by Catholic law. Gilbert said the act deepened an existing rupture and exposed the priest and participants to additional canonical sanctions. The diocese had already investigated public comments about the pope, the Church and the Mass that it regarded as incompatible with Catholic faith.
In its judgment, the diocese said the congregation and its deposed superior had placed themselves outside communion with the Catholic Church. Gilbert advised Catholics in the diocese not to engage with them, while inviting those involved to repent and return. The language combined a formal disciplinary determination with an offer of reconciliation if the group changed its position.
The ceremony's organizers had publicly defended their action. Michael Mary was proclaimed a bishop on Saturday and supporters said history would vindicate Papa Stronsay. Within Catholic governance, however, episcopal consecration is not simply a local appointment: it requires authorization tied to communion with the pope. The competing claims therefore concerned both the ceremony's lawfulness and the underlying question of papal legitimacy.
The ruling applies ecclesiastical penalties rather than civil or criminal sanctions. It determines Michael Mary's status and permitted ministry within the Catholic Church as judged by the Diocese of Aberdeen. The evidence supplied did not include a subsequent response from him or a formal appeal against the decision.
Michael Mary had sought ordination from bishops outside the Church's recognized authority after the diocesan inquiry was already under way. Gilbert treated the ceremony as compounding, rather than beginning, the breach. That chronology explains why the judgment addressed both earlier declarations and the later consecration.
