The General Chapter of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, which is currently being held at Our Lady of Guadalupe International Seminary in Denton, Nebraska, has elected Fr. John Berg as Superior General for a third (non-consecutive) term of 6 years. He previously held the role from 2006-18, and this upcoming change in office marks the fifth tenure of an FSSP Superior General since the order’s founding in 1988. The election of the superior general’s Assistants and Counselors is expected to follow shortly over the next several days.
The FSSP consists of priests and seminarians who pursue the goal of Christian perfection according to a specific charism, which is to offer the Mass and other sacraments according to the Roman Rite as it existed before the liturgical reforms that followed the Second Vatican Council. Thus, the fraternity is in communion with Rome, and uses the Roman Missal, the Roman Breviary, and the Roman Ritual from 1962, the last edition before the revisions that followed Vatican II. The FSSP as an order is responsible for the formation and maintenance of many of the Catholic Church’s “Traditional Catholic” communities. Within recent months, Pope Francis has held audiences with the leadership of both the FSSP and The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, another Traditional Catholic order, thanking them for their work and encouraging them to continue caring for the faithful according to their unique charisms.