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The founder of the Servants of the Holy Family, Bishop Anthony Ward, has revealed that he was secretly consecrated in a ceremony, which while valid was illicit, in 2024 by Archbishop Telesphore George Mpundu, the retired Archbishop of Lusaka.
The admission came publicly on 16 November – the 23rd Sunday after Pentecost – when Bishop Ward stated that both he and Archbishop Mpundu had “received notice” from Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández informing them that they had incurred latae sententiae excommunication. The primary problem is that when Bishop Ward was consecrated, the ceremony was conducted in the Traditional Rite but without papal approval.
Bishop Ward also confirmed that Archbishop Mpundu had conferred episcopal orders upon him last year, despite the community’s lack of canonical status and the automatic penalties attached to consecrating a bishop without papal mandate.
Archbishop Mpundu, who previously served at least two consecutive terms as president of the Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops, has made no public comment.
The Servants of the Holy Family (S.S.F. – from the Latin: Servi Sanctae Familiae), established in 1977 and based in Colorado Springs, is a traditionalist community dedicated to the exclusive celebration of the traditional Latin Mass.
The community’s website describes the order as “faithful to the traditional Latin Mass and Catholic doctrine and morals” and claims worldwide episcopal support for its mission.
Ward’s community positions itself as faithful to Catholic doctrine but operates without canonical recognition from the Holy See. By interfering in episcopal ordination without papal mandate, Mpundu and Ward incurred the canonical penalty of automatic excommunication under Canon 1382 and its associated norms.
The Servants of the Holy Family previously met at the Vatican with Cardinal Mayer, first president of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei. Subsequently, Cardinal Mayer appointed then-Archbishop Cardinal Stafford of Denver as his representative to visit SHF.
In 2008, Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, then president of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, appointed Bishop James D. Conley as the Commission's Special Delegate to SHF from the Vatican.
Yet despite such interactions, S.S.F's relationship with Church authorities has remained strained; in 2013, the local diocesan bishop declared the group “not in good standing with the diocesan or universal Catholic Church”.
The S.S.F., however, and despite lacking canonical status for much of their existence, have long pointed to sustained, if discreet, support from bishops across the world – a line of assistance they claim to be reflected in the Annuario Pontificio, which lists all cardinals and bishops recognised by the Holy See.
Though the community stresses that “unless publicised elsewhere and so named below, we respect the confidentiality and privacy of the bishops who assist us”, adding that all those involved were Latin-rite prelates who “administered the sacraments using the traditional Latin rites – not the new ones”.
From its foundation in 1977, the community has reportedly received Holy Oils supplied by various bishops annually, and as recently as 2020, oils were reportedly obtained from a North American bishop.
In 1987, a South American ordinary’s episcopal vicar authorised tonsure and later administered the full minor orders and subdiaconate, while also issuing dimissorial letters for further ordinations.
Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, a succession of confirmations, ordinations and authorisations came from a range of religious-order bishops and ordinaries in North America and Asia, including a bi-ritual Eastern-rite metropolitan in 1995 and a retired Asian Bishop in 2000.
Subsequent years saw the establishment by an auxiliary bishop of an Asian archdiocese in 2013, tonsure and full minor orders conferred by a retired North American ordinary in 2018, and further confirmations and priestly ordination by another retired bishop in 2020.
Photo: Archbishop Telesphore George Mpundu and Bishop Anthony Ward (image from Cathinfo)
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