Maryvale Institute

[BobHayes]

Last weekend I started the two-year distance-learning Certificate in Studies in the Catechism course through Maryvale Institute. The weekend was the inaugural residential: it was superb! Just wondering if anyone else on here is a current or past Maryvale student.

[Southern Comfort]

You are lucky. There was a rumour going around for quite some time that Maryvale was going to be closed, but that seems to have receded in the light of two persons associated with the Institute being mentioned recently on the Vatican website.

There had been disquiet recently on the part of some distance-learning students that some Maryvale tutors had been insisting on "backward-looking" work — e.g. that an essay on liturgy in the Ordinary Form would be failed unless it also included reference to the Extraordinary Form, and other similar occurrences.

The director of the Institute, Fr Paul Watson, seems to have vanished. No one knows what has happened to him, and the grapevine (usually vocal) is silent.

I hope you are able to complete your course; and if you are able to dispel or explain these rumours I am sure some people would be very grateful.

[Peter Jones]

The director of the Institute, Fr Paul Watson, seems to have vanished.

He is unwell. He has also, as it were, "done his time" - 12 years.

[BobHayes]

I hope you are able to complete your course; and if you are able to dispel or explain these rumours I am sure some people would be very grateful.

Dr Petroc Willey was appointed a Consultor to the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelisation, and Dr Caroline Farey accompanied him to Rome for the Synod of Bishops. Maryvale is orthodox and highly regarded by the Holy See, so it is no surprise that reference to the EF (a licit form of the Mass) would be expected. It has its critics, but I think they are mainly those who view the Church through secular-tinted spectacles, regarding the Holy See as the 'occupying power' and the bishops as 'governors-general'!