The Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Profess Our Filial Submission to His Holiness, Pope Francis

On the occasion of his elevation to the Supreme Pontificate of the Catholic Church, we, the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, profess our filial submission to Pope Francis.

In this man, who hails from our New World, now rests the fullness of the Apostolic power. Respecting his express wishes, our religious family will ever pray for him to teach, govern, and sanctify God’s Church according to the Will of Its divine Founder, for the Glory of the Holy Trinity, the exaltation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the salvation of the souls entrusted to his universal jurisdiction.

In the words of our Founder, Father Leonard Feeney, also a member of the Society of Jesus,

[The] flesh and blood Vicar of Jesus Christ is none other than the Pope, our Holy Father, a visible head for Christ’s visible Church. He is a man whom we can point to as the visible Vicar on earth of the visible Christ in eternity. He is as pointable-at now in time as Jesus once was when He walked the streets of Jerusalem, followed by Peter and His Apostles.

It is a defined dogma of the Catholic Church that no one can be saved who is not subject to that flesh and blood Vicar of Jesus, the Roman Pontiff.