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Timeline: Leonard Feeney

Key moments in the traditionalist Catholic world — councils and documents, communities and their founders, media launches and controversies — each with its sources.
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1972

  1. Leonard Feeney reconciled with the Catholic Church

    Leonard Feeney was reconciled with the Church in 1972 without recanting his views on salvation. Saint Benedict Center's own history credits Cardinal Humberto Medeiros of Boston as the main figure in the negotiations. Catholicism.org maintains that the lifting of censures involved no change in Feeney's teaching.

    SourcesLeonard Feeney (Wikipedia)Saint Benedict Center History, Part VI: Move to the Country (Saint Benedict Center (saintbenedict.com))Father Feeney Fact Sheet (Catholicism.org)Father Feeney and the Bloggers (Ad Rem No. 31) (Catholicism.org)

1953

  1. Holy Office declares Fr. Leonard Feeney excommunicated

    After Leonard Feeney declined repeated summonses to Rome to explain his views, the Holy Office declared him excommunicated in February 1953. Sources give the date as 4 or 13 February. His followers argue that the decree was procedurally defective and contained no doctrinal condemnation.

    SourcesLeonard Feeney (Wikipedia)Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (Wikipedia)Father Feeney Fact Sheet (Catholicism.org)Saint Benedict Center History, Part IV: Politics of Liberalism, continued (Saint Benedict Center (saintbenedict.com))Fr Feeney (pamphlet by Bishop Clarence Kelly) (Congregation of St. Pius V (congregationofstpiusv.com))

1949

  1. Holy Office letter to Archbishop Cushing addresses the Feeney controversy

    The Holy Office sent Archbishop Richard Cushing of Boston a letter (Protocol 122/49) on the axiom "outside the Church there is no salvation." It responded to a dispute involving associates of Saint Benedict Center and Leonard Feeney. Excerpts appeared in The Pilot in September 1949, and Cushing published the full text in 1952. The letter was never printed in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis, a point Feeney's followers cite against its authority.

    SourcesLetter to the Archbishop of Boston (Holy Office, 8 August 1949) (EWTN Library)Letter to the Archbishop of Boston (pamphlet, Protocol No. 122/49) (Evangelization Station)Feeneyism (Wikipedia)Some Thoughts on the 1949 'Letter to the Archbishop of Boston' (Ad Rem No. 507) (Catholicism.org)