The very first time I heard the name of this priest was when I found out that Mel Gibson had a Canadian priest, Fr. Stephen Somerville, celebrate the Traditional Roman Catholic Latin Mass for the film crew each day for the movie, The Passion of the Christ. After that I found out about the open letter below which I think every catholic should take very seriously because we are living through the apostasy that the Bible warns us about and the danger of being deceived by wolves in sheep's clothing.
An Open Letter to the Church Renouncing my Service on I.C.E.L.
by Father Stephen Somerville, STL.
Dear Fellow Catholics in the Roman Rite,
1. I am a priest who for over ten years collaborated in a work that became a notable harm to the Catholic Faith. I wish now to apologize before God and the Church and to renounce decisively my personal sharing in that damaging project. I am speaking of the official work of translating the new post-Vatican II Latin liturgy into the English language, when I was a member of the Advisory Board of the International Commission on English Liturgy (I.C.E.L.). Read the entire letter here.
On July 15, 2004, Fr. Stephen Somerville was suspended from the priesthood by Toronto's Archbishop Aloysius Cardinal Ambrozic. There are always two sides of the story and in defense of Fr. Somerville you should read this information.
Fr. Somerville is one of many Novus Ordo Priests who returned to the Latin Tridentine Mass. An excellent book documenting the stories of the other priests can be found here.
