Fr. Michel Rodrigue ... Bishop's response

Email response I received from the diocese after inquiring about Fr. Rodrigue and his alleged prophecies:

Peace be with you :

I thank you for your e-mail requesting some information about the teaching and the standing of Father Michel Rodrigue, a priest incardinated in the diocese of Hearst-Moosonee, Ontario, and working in this diocese of Amos, Québec, for a few years. He is the founder of the Fraternité Saint-Benoît-Joseph-Labre, a lay association of the faithful which is not a religious institute.

As you probably did too, I read on the Countdown to the Kingdom website related to Fr Michel and also in the book of Christine Watkins, The Warning. Testimonies and Prophecies the Illumination of Conscience (Note 84, p. 278 and p. 280), that : “ Michel Rodrigue receives the full support of his bishop, and all of his locutions and visions are submitted to his local ordinary for approval. “ This quotation was removed these days from the website after a request I sent to Fr Michel. No mention is made of the reason for the removal, that is to say: because it was untrue. However, the quotation remains in the book mentioned above.

I have to tell you that Fr Michel never submitted to me any of his locutions and visions for discernment or approval. Accordingly, I could not have supported the content of his talks which are not presented in my diocese nor elsewhere in the Province of Québec as far as I now, but mostly in the United States. Moreover, I learnt about his teaching while reading some reports on the website mentioned above. I did not and I do not approve his teaching with regard to his locutions and visions. Consequently, it is untrue that he “receives the full support of his bishop” as it is written in the Countdown to the Kingdom website and in the quoted book.

I thank you for your request. If you wish any further information, I will be pleased to respond as much as possible.

Truly yours in Christ,
+ Gilles Lemay,
Bishop of Amos, Québec​

 

I find it hard to believe that a bishop would write a letter in this regard, as it would be very undignified for a bishop to respond in this way against one of his priest sons to anyone who might randomly acquire of him. Clearly, this is something anyone could have written and thus gives no credence. Now, if it is true, one could easily post the actual letter with actual letter head if one wanted bring some credibility as to the alleged letter from Father Michel's bishop. Doesn't pass the smell test to me.

 

I firmly believe in the bishop's response, and he showed a great deal of dignity in giving an answer based on the truth. His answer passed on all veracity tests. Very holy and humble Bishop.

 

As a manger of employees in a large global company, I can tell you that I would be fired to openly criticize my staff, as it would be totally unprofessional in doing so. Every manager knows this to be true. I would assume a bishop would also understand this and that is why I challenge new member, Franciscan, to post the actual letter if he wants to show credibility, because I have a hard time believing a bishop does not have the best interests of his priests and would not speak like this publicly to an unknown person. Very unprofessional, if he did, to say the least.

 

I also am in the business world in administration, and I do not see anything in the bishop’s response that would lead me to believe it is fake. Not only does it seem to fit with the other email we know of from a poster at Catholic Answers, but I believe that the bishop acted charitably - especially since it is apparent that Father has lied about submitted messages to him for approval.

Thanks Franciscan for posting the reply.

Perhaps doubters could email the bishops themselves and post the reply they receive.

 

It seems as though the Bishop is open to communication.
Yes, thanks for posting the reply, Franciscan.

 

The Bishop had to clarify the situation. He had to. There were erroneous statements in print that needed clarification. He was the one to do it.

 

Has Fr. Rodrigue ever made mention of who his spiritual director is? For him to be saying all that he is, especially when it pertains to the life and safety of current Church authorities is quite bold and has the potential to be a loose canon without the proper reigns in place.

Also, it has not been made clear by the collaborators at Countdown to the Kingdom how it happened that they believed as true and stated that Father had the full support of his bishop. Did they assume it? That option seems sloppy on their part. Or did Father tell them that? (If this is correct, that would give me great concern.)

Father Rodrigue does seem to truly believe in the things he has been saying and it is clear that he is operating under a great urgency. But, I take pause at Father telling us that the Blessed Virgin Mary told him that he has already a title as the "Apostle of the End Times".

 

Next time read my post more carefully.... I said it was an email reply to me, not a letter. And YES it is authentic and was sent to me directly by the vicar general of the diocese! Sorry you don't like it but it is an official response from the bishop. By the way, be careful of criticizing "new" members... I have been on this forum almost since the beginning as a reader and not a poster...

 

I don't think members should try to "pull rank". I don't care about job descriptions, or how long members, I care about opinions and evidence. We don't/shouldn't know who we are in real life, on a public forum, we are all Catholics here! And--not you, Fatima--but people can lie online ;-(

 

and the Bishop mentioned that the quotation “remains in the book.”
How is Ms Watkins going to handle that?

 

Mrs. Watkins can make the changes in her ebooks without much difficulty.
She could make an announcement in her many public accounts and specifically this book's website.

 

I think if you can spare the time to go back and read the many comments on the first Fr. Michel thread of the forum about this support in question by this Bishop you would find the listed reasons to assume that Fr. Michel had support of his bishop and those are pretty obvious anyway. There are the pics of the participation of the Bishop in the official ceremony/s of the new Apostolic Fraternity with its new priests, vowed laity, and families. There was also the necessity for the Bishop to approve its constitution.

The Saint Benedict-Joseph Labre Apostolic Fraternity is a work of evangelization made up of three branches: the first is priestly and diaconal, the second is for married couples and the third is for lay people wishing to dedicate their lives as an offering to the Father for the advancement of the Kingdom. The Fraternity is constituted and recognized by the local bishop for the priority service of small Christian communities. Priests and deacons will be incardinated in the diocese from which the Fraternity originates and, with the agreement of the superior and the bishop, will work according to the charism of the Fraternity in the diocesan circles designated by the agreement between the superior and the bishop. All brothers and sisters share the same goal and the same spirituality.



All of that had to be approved by an involved Bishop, knowing the reasons behind such requests that also required (due to urgency of the particular message that insisted the second one be built in 2020) Fr. Michel being released from some of his diocesan responsibilities that also needed his authority's okay.

So people here did not have to "assume" any support of the Bishop for what was contained in the messages but saw the evidence of that. Remember the reported statement of the Bishop said that Fr. Michel had not submitted the messages to him for approval. To an authority over any PRs that kind of "submission for approval" would necessarily mean a request for some kind of formal inquiry following the protocol of the Church.....not merely some personal opinion which, of course in this case, would involve an authority who would be prejudiced toward such obvious events, accepted by Popes and early Church Fathers, as well as scripture, as chastisement, Era of Peace, places of refuge, all contained within Fr. Michel's messages. And such formal approval usually doesn't occur while a PR continues or have the messages involving a future time as yet fulfilled. Anyway Fr. Michel promptly obeyed w/o attempting to defend himself....at least from what I've read. Rather, it appears more that the Bishop tried to explain himself....to a blogger, btw!.....once confronted w/a question about his support and pointed to Fr. Michel as the culprit within a very legalistic explanation. As Fatima mentioned above, that really isn't very "professional" coming from a Bishop. He had replied to that request from that blogger commenter within a week. He then must have gotten the entirety of the PR and given much study w/ all that went on for these many years w/ Fr. Michel to make such a quick public statement....all within that very short time. Hmmm. Meanwhile it would appear that the endeavors by Fr. Michel that came about only due to what was given to him in his messages/requests from heaven haven't been halted unless some have heard otherwise. So one could "assume" then that perhaps it's only this part of the messages that have the Bishop's support and not that part that he doesn't personally find palatable.

So the Bishop isn't aware of any talks given by Fr. Michel except for the more recent talks in the U.S. when as far back as 2004 there is a YouTube of Fr. Michel's talk at the "Montmartre of Canada" about the protection from the chastisement of fire.....similar to his more recent talk/retreat in the U.S. Confusion, due to actions taken vs. words, still to be cleared up.

 

What I don't understand about this is why would the priest not speak with his Bishop before speaking out in such a way publicly? It makes no sense that he should just assume that he has the authority to do so and say that his bishop is aware of it.

Thank you for taking the time to post this email response, I think that tells me all I need to know personally.

 

I do appreciate your reply and the time you took to make your point. I am not arguing the very real and obvious fact of his bishop's support of the Lay Association and Father’s position of authority over it. That was all in plain sight, as you noted. My focus is solely the messages. It seems from all I’ve read his bishop was, indeed, unaware of the things Father has been preaching. If I’m wrong, I’ll accept that through clear evidence to the contrary.

 

But that formation of an entire Apostolate, ordination of priests ... for the purpose of training them for these times.....as well as two large monasteries WERE part of the messages. When Fr. Michel was told he had to get the 2nd one built in 2020 he needed to have the Bishop relieve him from his other responsibilities to do so he claimed the Bishop asked why the rush and Fr. M told him that God the Father asked him to do so.....after he had to take so long building the first one while he also had those other responsibilities and then the Bishop gave him permission to start building it. One would have to also include Fr. Michel's members of his apostolate to also being in on some intentional failure to inform the Bishop about the source of these messages. Again, still a lot of answers needed....w/actions not exactly agreeing with claimed ignorance. It doesn't add up for me.....and now it's Fr. Michel getting all the criticism w/o mention of all his own suffering, sacrifice, intellect, positions of trust like teaching theology at the Grand Seminary of Montreal, exorcist w/ witnessed successes and also his obedience to refrain from one requested that fell outside his own diocese, and miracles of healing.

 

Praying as always that the truth will come out and people will be helped.

 

It is a great sign that Fr. Michel is obedient to his bishop and has followed his instruction. I am sure it will all work out if he continues.

 

Me too Don. The obedience is huge in these matters.

 

Yes, it is the one thing that the enemy can not imitate.