Most Holy Family Monastery

Most Holy Family Monastery is a non-profit sedevacantist organization run by Michael Dimond. The diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, condemns them as anti-Catholic,^[1] although it is supported by Roman Catholic laymen.^[2] They have been described as a "a dissident organization that challenges the papal authority of Pope John Paul II."^[3]

History

It was founded in 1967, in Berlin, New Jersey, by a self-proclaimed Benedictine monk named Joseph Natale (born 1933), originally as a community for handicapped men. Natale entered the Benedictine Archabbey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, in 1960 as a lay postulant, but left less than a year later to start his own Holy Family Monastery. According to an archivist of the Saint Vincent Archabbey in Latrobe, Natale left before taking vows; he never actually became a Benedictine monk.^[4]

Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, Natale denounced the Second Vatican Council and the New Mass, and by the mid-1970s the community had become separate from the Catholic Church. By mid-1980s, there were ten monks in it, but by 1994 the number declined to three. Shortly after a conference in 1994, John Vennari left to work for Fr. Nicholas Gruner.

Natale died in 1995, whereupon Michael Dimond (born Frederick Dimond^[5]), who joined in 1992 at the age of 19 after converting to Catholism four years earlier,^[6] was elected the Superior. Soon after, he relocated to Granger, New York (close to Fillmore, New York), where Natale owned more than 90 acres (36 ha) of donated land.^[7]

Natale himself was never a sedevacantist, although his successor Michael Dimond turned to that belief in 1998 or 1999 after he expelled one of the members of MHFM, Richard Ibranyi, in 1997, for being a sedevacantist. Shortly after, Frederick's biological brother Peter Dimond (born Robert Dimond^[8]) joined the monastery.^[9]

Dimond supported Gerry Matatics when he held similar beliefs.^[10]

Religious practices

Because none of them were ever ordained, and they believe that the New Mass is invalid and a false worship, they receive the sacraments from a Byzantine rite Catholic Church that is in communion with Benedict XVI, in Rochester, New York, in layman's clothes in lieu of their Benedictine habits for this occasion. Peter Dimond wrote: "In receiving the sacraments from certain Byzantine priests for over the last decade – i.e. from priests who are not notorious or imposing about their heresies – I've received what I consider to be tremendous spiritual graces." ^[11][12]

Claims of miraculous experience

• According to Michael Cuneo, who researched the various traditional movements in the USA, Natale claimed that he had the gift of prophecy in these words:

Even before Vatican II was finished, I knew, and knew absolutely, that it was part of a Communist conspiracy to destroy the Church. The bishops at the council wanted to democratize Catholicism, they wanted an egalitarian theology, and most of them were secret communists and Masons. They knew exactly what they were doing. My community here was the first one in the United States to see the council for what it really was, and we rejected it completely.

Regardless of what you have been told, John Paul I did not die of natural causes. He was murdered. Shortly after his election "I went into a kind of trance" and was told that John Paul I would be murdered because he wanted to return the Church to its traditions. He was murdered by his own. The Communist infiltrators in the Vatican and the College of Cardinals, working together with the Masons, killed John Paul I. At the same time I also had a vision of John Paul II, and I was told that he would be the next pope and also that he would be an authentic pope, even though most of his actions would be controlled by Communist advisers and manipulators in the Vatican.

Five years [from 1994] is about all the time the world has left.

—^[4]

• A former member claimed that he heard angels singing when he joined the monastery.^[13]

Criticisms

• Ibranyi criticized the MHFM for not holding Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus to its full extent. MHFM holds that people who were raised in Protestantism are Catholics erring in good faith until they are acquainted with Catholic dogmas, contrary to what Orestes Brownson and Michael Müller taught: that Protestant children become Protestants (and hence are outside of the Church) as soon as they reach the age of reason. ^[14]
• Ruby (a traditionalist) wrote against Peter Dimond regarding baptism of desire: http://www.dailycatholic.org/issue/08Jul/jul7str.htm
• He claims that a prophecy made by Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa is made by St. Nicholas of Flue
• He claims a prophecy purportedly made by Pope Leo XIII

Members

Current Members

• Michael Dimond
• Peter Dimond

Former Members

• John Vennari
• Richard Ibranyi

External links

• Most Holy Family Monastery website

References

1. ^ "Anti-Catholicism". Catholic Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska. http://www.dioceseoflincoln.org/purple/anti/index.htm. Retrieved 2009-02-19. ^{[dead link]}
2. ^ Walsh, Patrick. "Most "Holy" Family Monastery…A doctrine of Ambiguity, Condemnations and Haste". In Today's Catholic World (Aran Islands, Ireland). http://www.todayscatholicworld.com/dims-refuted.htm. Retrieved 2009-02-19. 
3. ^ "Miscellaneous". Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. 1999. http://www.catholicleague.org/annualreport.php?year=1999&id=54. Retrieved 2009-02-19.  New York, NY.
4. ^ ^{a b} Cuneo, Michael. The Smoke of Satan. p.88
5. ^ Hoyle vs. Dimond
6. ^ Our Benedictine Community
7. ^ Municipality of Town of Granger
8. ^ Hoyle vs. Dimond
9. ^ Richard Ibranyi: Why I Left Most Holy Family Monastery "On August 29, 1997, Michael expelled me from the monastery ...A year or more after my departure, Michael changed his belief and held the sedevacante position ...Simply put, Michael was wrong and I was right, as even now I am right for denouncing the Dimonds as apostates and heretics."
10. ^ Gerry Matatics. "When Gerry held the true positions, we generously promoted his speaking engagements with a prominent link, even when he didn't link to us. We wanted to help him out; we thought people could benefit from his talks. But we were sadly betrayed by his lack of integrity and compromising ways again and again."
11. ^ http://www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com/receiving_sacraments_in_these_difficult_times.html
12. ^ http://www.TheCatholicFaith.us/Council_Of_Basel_Dogmatic_Decree_Against_Notorious_Non-Catholics.htm
13. ^ From wayback machine, radio programs page "Audio interview with Joseph Myers.... After receiving our material recently, Joseph converted to the traditional Catholic faith and joined Most Holy Family Monastery.... Among other things, Joseph talks about the change in his life, coming out of a spiritual fog, the power of the Rosary, hearing angels sing the first day he arrived here, etc."
14. ^ Dimonds deny EENS