"Survivals and New Arrivals" (Winter 2002)

From Issue No. 84: Easing Young Men into the Seminary (Winter 2002)

“Survivals & New Arrivals” (with Thaddeus Rogalla)

As the world’s moral avalanche crashes and crushes more day by day, so Traditional Catholics do their best simply to cling to their Faith and, at the same time, keep up hope when there is seemingly no relief in sight. While anticipating the “crash,” we rejoice to see small signs of God’s grace working in a world programmed to deny it. For seminarians, just being at the Seminary is one such sign!

We have recently had the joy, however, of thanking God for another evident work of His grace in the coming of Fathers Peter Otto and Vidko Podržaj (Poh-drah-ZHAI) to the Seminary. Both priests have fled the errors of the Novus Ordo to fight for Tradition and the Catholic Church. VERBUM wishes to present their stories in order to encourage readers and to strengthen their resolve to continue the fight.

Fr. Peter Otto

Fr. Peter Otto entered Sacred Heart minor seminary in Detroit, MI, in 1964, where he was quickly put on “personality probation” for reading the works of Adolphe Tanquerey, a long-respected author of many books on ascetical, moral and dogmatic theology. Following his graduation, he began studies at St. Lawrence in Mount Calvary, WI, under the Capuchins in 1968. He spent a second year with them at St. Mary’s Seminary in Crown Point, IN. He tried the novitiate the following year, but was thrown out for being too “conservative.” He relocated to another St. Mary’s in Orchard Lake, MI, from which he graduated summa cum laude four years later. After getting a Master’s degree at the University of Detroit in 1975, he set out for an apostolate in the diocese of Amarillo, TX, where he was ordained in 1977.

Father quickly encountered the moral and political turmoil, and personal ambition in the hierarchy, which have been part and parcel of the problems in the Conciliar Church. After eight years in Amarillo, he became a U.S. Air Force chaplain in 1983. This gave him the opportunity to travel around the world ministering to souls. Much of his time was spent in the Middle East. Fr. Otto opted for early retirement in 1999, being disgusted with the Conciliar hierarchy’s love of money and power at the expense of doctrine and the salvation of souls.

He then went back to Texas that year, experiencing more “harassment from the Bishop and the liberal clergy.” He wrote a letter to the Ordinary, in which he cited the problems in the diocese and asked to leave. The permission being granted, Father soon thereafter contacted the Society’s U.S. District Superior. At Fr. Scott’s suggestion, Fr. Otto came to St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary in September of this year. He now says the Traditional Latin Mass exclusively and has fully adjusted to the Seminary’s community life. As Father says, “It’s the whole Catholic Faith that’s involved here...”

Father sees the lack of Faith itself as the central problem in the post-Vatican II Church. Many Novus Ordo prelates suffer from “careerism, love of power, even humanism,” and for them Tradition is the enemy. Father says that the hierarchy “will steal you blind,” referring to the betrayal and fall of the Society of St. Peter. They are “as smooth as silk.” With Traditionalists, “It’s ‘Search and destroy’, not ‘Live and let live’,” a striking departure from the current attitude towards false religions.

Fr. Vidko Podržaj

Fr. Vidko Podržaj, a native of Slovenia, a small country east of the northeast border of Italy, decided to pursue his vocation by entering the Seminary in Ljubljana (Looblee-AH-nah), Slovenia’s capital, in 1980. He left in 1981, but returned nine years later. While at the Seminary in 1991, he read a conservative bulletin named “The Call of God’s Love,” where he found Traditional connections. After his ordination in 1994, he spent two years as a chaplain and then assumed the duties of a parish priest in Draga, Croatia. In 1999, a traditional priest invited him to Phoenix, AZ, for a 14-day series of conferences, which he attended in September of that year. He there began to learn how to celebrate the Latin Mass.

While there, Father also found a leaflet concerning the Society in a bookstore and contacted Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the Society. He met with Father Franz Schmidberger, the Society’s First Assistant, in Jaidhof, Austria, where he continued to learn the Traditional Roman Rite. Fr. Schmidberger then went to Fr. Podržaj’s parish and, while there, gave a conference and said two Masses. Fr. Schmidberger encouraged Fr. Podržaj to “heighten awareness” of Tradition amongst his flock in Slovenia. After two years, Fr. Podržaj decided to join the Society. He left his parish and went to the Seminary in America for one academic year, at the advice of Bishop Fellay. He plans to return to Slovenia soon to preach to his fellow countrymen the Gospel as handed down in the Church for 2,000 years.

Slovenia gained its independence in 1991 with the dissolution of Yugoslavia. Father says that Slovenia was a Catholic nation before World War II, and it was even consecrated to Our Lady. But in the troubled years following the War and then the Second Vatican Council, the evil of Communism changed Slovenia’s people, and they slowly drifted away from the Faith. Now under the guise of a liberal government, the Communists have, as Fr. Podržaj says, “changed their names and their colors,” but the same sort of minds still run the government.

Today, Slovenia is a pale, liberal shadow of its former Catholic self, as the bureaucrats continually suppress the Church at every opportunity. Nevertheless, Father believes that Slovenia has “very rich potential” for a Traditional harvest and thinks that Ljubljana will be a good place to start.

He will remain at the Seminary until June and will then attend Ecône’s 2002 Ordinations, visit the Seminary in Zaitzkofen, Germany, and finally spend some time in Jaidhof. From there, Father will return to Slovenia to establish roots of Tradition in his homeland.