Recently, Fr. Nicholas Rynne has taken up a post in Northern Tasmania. He is a very traditional priest (i.e. cassock and collar at all times, Latin Mass, last to bed/first to rise kind of guy) and has been busying himself with trying to undo some of the damage done to Australia.
This is a letter that was sent to him by a, no doubt very religious and spiritual, member of the Catholic Church in Tasmania:
Of your charity, please keep Fr. Rynne in your prayers, thank you.
Easier to read text of the above:
Elizabeth Town
18 February 2019
to Father Rynne
In explaining yourself this weekend you have made me realise even more clearly why we in this - our - parish feel such hostility to you being appointed to run this parish.
You complain of meeting hostility within our church for your beliefs wherever you go. If people other than our Archbishop do not agree with your brand of religion you should expect it and stop putting forward a sob story about how badly done you are. You accused us of being apostates when it is you who is setting up a sect within our religion and trying to indoctrinate everyone that yours is the only true religion. Every sect leader in history has done this. Jesus did not join the Essenes in his time but went out into the countryside and led the people to understand the true love of God and your fellow man is the way to heaven.
In the days of the Tridentine rite pre-Vatican II there was little love for your fellow man in any of the religion that was rammed down our necks. You have no idea what it was truly like for all of us born into the Catholic Church who were treated as “others” and not Christians by all and sundry. You know why you are spat on for wearing clerical dress and I am with those who do so as I think that it is ridiculous to wear a cassock and even a collar in this day and age. Those who grew up in, what to you is a mythical age, associate all the ills of not just the Catholic religion but so many of those who supposedly served God, to the clerics of that time especially who dress up like you. Priests, brothers and nuns in their habits to whom our parents were forced to hand us over to be educated, who carried out the sexual abuse for which we are now being called to account, but also the physical and mental abuse to keep children in line in boarding schools and orphanages to make us fit in the box they considered was the only way to God.
We have no love for clerical dress and have embraced those priests and nuns who have shown us that by dressing in the same way as the rest of us they are human beings who have given their lives to God but have taught us the love of God and neighbour not the fear of God which your religion favours. They have earned our respect, not by their clothes but by their actions.
Your dress and actions have not earned you respect nor will they. You only have to read on a daily basis the mental sufferings of those brought up in the Catholic Church often inflicted by their own families who, brought up in this medieval church you cling to, threw them out of their homes for daring to buck the system. In Saturday’s Australian [one of Australia’s lest disreputable newspapers - editor’s note] is such a story which does not claim that the actions of the mother were done in the name of religion (the Irish name gives it away) where the author’s mother is now old and frail and admits to having been wrong.
You can complain as much as you like that you feel badly done by for the hostility you create. All the wars in history and going on around the world today are caused by people such as you walking into a situation that is relatively happy and contented and trying to force religious change on people with dire results. We do have a Syrian Christian in our parish who fled his country before the conflict. This is how many people feel about you coming into our parish and giving your manifesto at your first chance to both congregations. We did not know what to expect but it was worse than we anticipated so yes most of us are angry about having you inflicted upon us. For us it is the same as ISIS or the Taliban coming into town with their troops and telling us, “This is the way it will be done from now on”. To me your religion is akin to both these extreme movements because you do not allow any dissent from your opinion.
Your attitude to women on the altar, depriving us of position we have humbly held in the past and the jerky manner in which you now turn to the people and the way you pray the consecration are all annoying.
I have no desire to have a one-to-one with you on these matters as like the Archbishop you will try to charm us into accepting your way as the only way while disregarding anything we say just like Julian Porteus [sic, Archbishop of Hobart diocese] and I presume other members of your sect. I have spoken to others who share my views who have already tried to show you why we object to how you have started in this parish and I see that this weekends sermon was your response so I am putting it in writing.
Many people’s response to what you said and did on that first day was that of fight. I do not intend to flee the situation so you know what my response is.
Yours sincerely
Maureen Bennett
Go be a protestant somewhere else
Update: last night, following the Vigil Mass for Laetare Sunday, Fr. Rynne was physically assaulted by the above Maureen Bennett. He has contacted the Tasmania police, but please pray that he is not moved on from this position as there is a small, growing congregation of Faithful who cannot bring themselves to attend another Novus Ordo Mass.
Here is Regina Magazine’s initial post and their update:
Originial Regina Magazine post w/letter
MEANWHILE IN TASMANIA
A young Latin Mass priest was physically attacked – taunted and spat upon – by members of his Novus Ordo congregation last night after Mass.
Please pray for him (Fr. Nicholas Rynne) and archbishop Julian Porteous.
A hateful letter addressed to Fr. Rynne by an older female has been widely circulated on social media. Scroll down our Page to see the letter and comments by Fr. Zuhlsdorf.
It is with great regret that I update this thread: Fr. Rynne has been moved on from this parish.
