Fr. Vili Lehtoranta

I was born in Turku, Finland in 1978, and like most of the Finns, was baptized into the Lutheran religion. After finishing college, I converted to the Catholic Faith and became a member of the local Catholic parish, and in 2001 I started my studies in the faculty of theology of the University of Helsinki.

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In 2006, I decided to leave my local parish, since I discovered that the local so-called Catholic hierarchy was not the true Catholic Church, as I had thought it was. I came to this conclusion mainly through the writings of Fr. Anthony Cekada (1951-2020), a former priest of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX). I made a trip to visit him at St. Gertrude the Great Roman Catholic Church in West Chester, Ohio, and shortly afterwards, visited Most Holy Trinity Seminary in Brooksville, Florida, where I made my abjuration of errors and received conditional Baptism. I graduated as a Master of Theology (Church History) from the University of Helsinki in summer of 2007, and the same September started my studies for the priesthood at Most Holy Trinity Seminary.

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I was ordained priest on November 16, 2011 by Bishop Daniel Dolan at St. Gertrude's. After finishing my studies in 2012, I moved to live at St. Gertrude's and started to teach in our parish school.

 

St. Gertrude the Great Roman Catholic Church is a Traditional Catholic church. Our pastor and the priests here are Traditional Catholics, which means that we reject the teachings of the so-called Vatican Council II (1962-1965), especially the heretical teachings of ecumenism and religious liberty. We also say only the Traditional Latin Mass and the Divine Office according to the liturgical books of Pope St. Pius V and Pope St. Pius X.

 

We also are Sedevacantists, meaning that we regard Jorge Bergoglio ("Pope" Francis) as a public apostate from the Catholic Faith. Therefore, since an apostate cannot be a member of the Catholic Church, still less Her head, we don't accept him as Pope but hold the Holy See as vacant - that's what sede vacante means. That's why we don't name him in the Canon of the Mass, and we regard any priestly order which does so - including the Society of St. Pius X - as part of the new (Novus Ordo) church of Bergoglio. We also don't allow our faithful to attend any Masses where the priest does insert Bergoglio's name into the Mass (Una Cum-Masses). We regard any priest or Bishop who is in union with him as a part of his church, and we also reject any marriage annulments made in these times, because without ordinary jurisdiction no one has the authority to declare the Sacrament of Matrimony as invalid.

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As an author

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I was always an avid reader as a child. My favorite book was L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. From other books I enjoyed for example the Famous Five adventure books of Enid Blyton, the Brothers Grimm and H.C Andersen fairy tales, the horror stories of Edgar Allan Poe, and the mystery novels of Agatha Christie and Rex Stout. From the Finnish authors I read Tove Jansson, Elina Karjalainen, and Anni Polva.

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In school my favorite subjects were Finnish and History. I always thought that I would end up writing academic studies. But after starting teaching children and young people in our St. Gertrude the Great School, I understood how important is to make the children of today's world to encourage them to read. This is especially important during the times when Internet, entertainment industry and computer games tend to take more and more time of our youth.