Marian Movement of Priests

12 A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.

New International Version (NIV)

The Marian Movement of Priests (MMP) is a private association of Catholic clergy and lay associate members founded by Italian priest Fr. Stefano Gobbi in 1972. According to the MMP, its members now include over 400 Catholic cardinals and bishops, more than 100,000 Catholic priests, and several million lay Catholics worldwide.

On May 8, 1972, Father Gobbi, an Italian priest from Milan, was on a pilgrimage to Fátima, Portugal and was praying in the Shrine of Our Lady of Fátima for some priests who had given up their vocations and were reportedly planning to rebel against the Roman Catholic Church. On that day, he reported his first alleged interior locution from the Virgin Mary. Father Gobbi reported that the inner voice urged him to have confidence in the Immaculate Heart of Mary and to gather those priests who would be willing to consecrate themselves to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, thereby being firmly united with the Pope and the Catholic Church. According to Father Gobbi, he prayed to Saint Mary for a confirmation of the inner voice, which he reported as receiving later in May 1972 while praying in the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth.

After consulting with his spiritual advisor, in October 1972, he and two other priests met in a church in Gera Lario, Como, Italy. They published a notice of the movement in some Catholic and local newspapers. In September 1973, twenty-five of the eighty Catholic priests who had by then joined the movement held the first national gathering of the MMP in San Vittorino near Rome. Beginning in 1974, Father Gobbi began holding prayer cenacles for priests and Catholics in general.

The MMP is now based in Milan, Italy, with branches worldwide. The Marian Movement of Priests in the United States was established in 1975 and is based in St. Francis, Maine.

The fundamental concept of the MMP today remains the same as the basic concept expressed in the initial interior locution that Father Gobi reported on May 8, 1972, in Fátima, Portugal. The concept is to encourage priests and laity to unite with the Pope through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, thereby strengthening the Catholic Church.

The three fundamental spiritual values of the MMP are formally expressed in Father Gobi’s Circulars 21, 23, and 24 as follows: personal consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, unity and devotion to the Pope, and leading the faithful to trust in the Virgin Mary.

The MMP does not have its own distinct doctrine for consecration to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, but instead relies on the general doctrine of consecration provided by the Holy See. The concept of unity and devotion to the Pope also embeds the concept of a return to the original divine teachings of Jesus, which the MMP views as being diluted through modern human interpretations and multiple rationalizations. The concept of leading the faithful to the Virgin Mary is essentially expressed in Message Number 25, dated November 1, 1973, in which priests are asked to gather the faithful around them as an “invincible cohort” to follow the path of Jesus.

The MMP places special emphasis on the power of praying the Holy Rosary and Eucharistic Adoration as effective means of strengthening the Church.

In the tradition of the MMP, Saint Mary calls the members of the MMP to meet in “Cenacles” as the Apostles met in prayer and the celebration of the Holy Eucharist in the upper room (cenacle) when the Holy Spirit descended upon them. They are called to pray to Jesus through Saint Mary. They are also called to include after each rosary decade two prayers: the Act of Love (“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! We love you! Save souls! We offer up every heartbeat and every breath as a thousand Acts of Love”) and the Prayer for the Holy Spirit (“Come Holy Spirit, by the most powerful intercession of your dearly beloved spouse, the Immaculate Heart of Mary”). Furthermore, during Cenacles, they are to make personal consecrations to Mary.

Father Gobbi has held cenacles of varying sizes on every continent. The cenacle he held in Ōita, Japan, on June 2, 1978, was for a few priests and nuns while the cenacle he held in Mexico City on November 27, 1994, was attended by 20,000 people in the city stadium.