The Dissolution of the Marian Franciscans: A Community That Was Not Allowed to Take Root
From Portsmouth foundation to Dundee expulsion, the facts establish their own conclusion
On 31 May 2026, the Marian Franciscans—a religious community of friars and sisters established in the Diocese of Portsmouth and later based in the Diocese of Dunkeld—will be formally dissolved.¹² This dissolution does not follow the familiar pattern of decline, scandal, or internal collapse. It concludes a sequence that can be stated plainly and in order: a community formed, grew, attracted vocations, was invited to expand, prepared to establish itself permanently, was removed from that trajectory, and has now ceased as a canonical entity. The force of this account lies not in interpretation imposed upon it, but in the coherence of the facts themselves, which resist reduction to accident or misfortune.
The origins of the Marian Franciscans lie in the Diocese of Portsmouth under Philip Egan, where the community was first established in 2015 and subsequently erected as a Public Association of the Faithful in 2018.¹³ This phase is decisive because it demonstrates that the community was not an untested initiative but a body that had already proved its viability within the ordinary structures of the Church. It was here that its charism took concrete form: Franciscan in discipline, Marian in consecration, and explicitly rooted in the spirituality of Maximilian Kolbe as developed through the theological and institutional work of Stefano Manelli. The community’s own testimony removes any ambiguity, stating that its members “were… part of [the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate] for many, many years,” thereby establishing continuity not merely of inspiration, but of formation and lived religious identity.⁴
Within Portsmouth, that charism demonstrated measurable strength. The community attracted vocations, established houses, and developed an apostolate that extended beyond parish ministry into preaching, retreats, and digital evangelisation.¹⁵ Their own description is unambiguous: “we are around 20… trying to grow,” and more decisively, “when we live in a traditional way… we flourish, we get vocations.”⁴ This is not aspirational language but observational, and it is borne out in subsequent figures. By the time of their presence in Dundee, the combined communities had grown from “seven friars and 20 sisters” to “20 friars and 30 sisters.”³ These are not the markers of fragility but the indicators of expansion.
The move to the Diocese of Dunkeld in 2022 marks the next stage in this progression. The Marian Franciscans were invited by Bishop Stephen Robson and given responsibility for the Lawside convent and pastoral centre, where they established both a friary and a convent.³ The terms of this invitation are explicit: they were recognised as “an Old and New Rite traditional Catholic community,” able to celebrate both forms of the Roman Rite, assist in parishes, and serve the Latin Mass faithful within the diocese.³ This is not marginal tolerance but functional integration. The Dunkeld press release reinforces the point, describing the property as “designed and built precisely for the religious life” and noting the community’s intention to establish a lasting presence through its acquisition.⁵
At this point, the trajectory is unmistakable. A community that has already proved its viability in Portsmouth is now moving toward permanence in Dundee. It possesses vocations, structure, and a defined spiritual identity; it has episcopal welcome and a property suited to long-term religious life; it is no longer merely growing but preparing to take root. In any ordinary ecclesial sequence, this is the moment at which provisional status gives way to stability.
That transition does not occur.
Following a change in episcopal leadership, a decision is taken that alters the trajectory entirely. The Marian Franciscans are instructed to leave the diocese. The statement is administrative; the effect is immediate. The community itself reports that it has been “told to leave the Diocese of Dunkeld,” and the consequences are expressed without qualification: “Very soon 50 people… will be homeless.”³ The scale of this displacement is itself significant. These are not isolated individuals but two functioning religious communities—friars and sisters—who had established a stable life and were in the process of securing its continuation. What failed here was not a community, but a transition. It had already proven that it could live. What it was not permitted to do was remain.
The internal testimony of the friars clarifies what is interrupted. Reflecting on their time in Dundee, one priest speaks of “many young vocations for the one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church,” a statement that directly contradicts any suggestion of decline or failure.³ The grief expressed is not the grief of collapse but of interruption; not the end of a life exhausted, but the cessation of a life still unfolding.
This context is sharpened by events immediately preceding the dissolution. In November of the previous year, a leading member of the community, Serafino Lanzetta, publicly criticised the Vatican’s Marian doctrinal note Mater Populi Fidelis, arguing that it represented “a significant downgrade” from the teaching of the Church’s saints, doctors, and papal magisterium, and even from the Second Vatican Council’s treatment of the Blessed Virgin Mary.⁹ He subsequently organised a filial appeal requesting that Pope Leo XIV re-examine the document.⁹ No direct causal link need be asserted for the relevance to stand. The presence of doctrinal tension forms part of the immediate ecclesial environment in which the community’s future was being decided.
The consequences of the decision to remove the community from Dundee extend beyond relocation into the structural viability of the institute itself. Following the announcement of dissolution, it was confirmed that, while friar-priests incardinated in Portsmouth may continue limited apostolates within the diocese, the Marian Franciscans as such “will cease to exist as a canonical community” on 31 May, and their “apostolates and activities as a community will therefore come to an end.”¹⁰ The implication is total: the friars and sisters will not remain Marian Franciscans. Transitional arrangements are being made, but the institutional reality is clear—the community itself is extinguished.
The official explanation for dissolution states that the Marian Franciscans were unable to secure “the practical and canonical support needed for formation… and future priestly ordinations.”² Read in isolation, this appears technical. Read in sequence, it is decisive. The issue is not the absence of vocations but the absence of a stable framework within which those vocations could be formed and ordained. The community had men; it did not have continuity.
The wider ecclesial context does not need to be overstated to be recognised. The Marian Franciscans’ life is explicitly tied to the traditional liturgy, which they describe as “something very much alive… a request made by young people.”⁴ Yet this same liturgical life exists within the conditions established by Traditionis Custodes, a regime widely interpreted as treating the older liturgy as a concession subject to restriction rather than a stable inheritance.⁶⁷ A liturgy treated as a concession cannot sustain a community that depends upon it as a foundation.
The final stage of the sequence confirms its internal logic. The friars intend to join another association with a similar charism.¹ ⁵ The charism itself therefore persists. What disappears is its institutional embodiment. This is not extinction but displacement. The same Marian–Franciscan charism, shaped through Kolbe and given institutional form by Manelli, has now twice demonstrated its capacity to attract vocations and to grow, and twice encountered the limits of its ability to secure permanence.
The facts, taken together and in order, do not merely describe an unfortunate outcome; they compel a conclusion. A community that demonstrably attracted vocations, that was canonically recognised, that was episcopally welcomed, that expanded in numbers and apostolate, and that was positioned for institutional permanence was removed at the decisive moment of establishment, thereby rendering it incapable of forming clergy and ultimately leading to its dissolution. This is not conjecture. It is the documented sequence.
Nor can this be dismissed as an isolated failure of circumstance. The Marian Franciscans stand within a clear Marian–Franciscan lineage shaped through Stefano Manelli and rooted in the spirituality of Maximilian Kolbe, a lineage that has already demonstrated both its vitality and its vulnerability. What occurred once within the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate has now occurred again in a second institutional form.
The conclusion follows directly. Under present ecclesial conditions, this form of traditional religious life does not merely encounter difficulty; it cannot reliably establish itself. It is able to emerge, to grow, and even to approach institutional stability, but at the point where permanence should be secured, that pathway closes. The issue is not failure in the communities themselves. The issue is the absence—or withdrawal—of the conditions necessary for their endurance.
It is precisely here that the wider implications must be stated without evasion. This is why bodies such as the Society of St Pius X and the Old Roman Apostolate resist as they do. They are not resisting growth—they are resisting the loss of what growth requires in order to endure. Their position is not abstract, nor merely ideological; it arises from the observable reality that reliance upon diocesan structures has, in cases such as this, proven insufficient to sustain traditional Catholic life even where it flourishes. The regime established by Traditionis Custodes, together with the documented statements of curial authorities regarding the status of the traditional liturgy, confirms a disposition that is at best conditional and at times restrictive.⁶ ⁸ In such an environment, continuity cannot be presumed.
The present impasse surrounding episcopal consecrations within the Society of St Pius X sharpens the point further. Where the formation of clergy depends upon structures that cannot be relied upon to endure, recourse to alternative means is not simply defiance but a response to necessity. Whether one accepts that judgement or not, the rationale stands illuminated by the facts before us.
The dissolution of the Marian Franciscans therefore stands as more than the end of a single community. It is a concrete demonstration that a flourishing traditional apostolate may grow, may attract vocations, may be welcomed and entrusted with the means of establishment, and yet still fail to secure a stable future within the present ecclesial framework. The question is no longer whether such communities can exist. They can, and they do. The question is whether they are sustained when they succeed. In the case of the Marian Franciscans, the answer is now a matter of record.
- Marian Franciscans Press Release, 27 May 2026.
- Q&A Document, Dissolution of the Marian Franciscans, 2026.
- Luke Coppen, The Pillar, Feb. 26, 2025.
- Marian Franciscans Interview, “Tea with Mary.”
- Diocese of Dunkeld Press Release, 18 Nov 2022.
- Tradition as Concession: Cardinal Roche, Traditionis Custodes, and the Crisis of Liturgical Continuity
- Why Continuous Reform is Not Organic Development
- Pope Leo interview with Crux (liturgy and pastoral adaptation)
- Statement of Fr. Serafino Lanzetta on Mater Populi Fidelis, Nov 2025.
- Marian Franciscans Dissolution Statement (post-announcement clarification), 2026.
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- Today’s Mass: August 04 S. Dominic
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