The Franciscans of Primitive Observance is an association of the faithful founded in 1995 under the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston that observes the Rule of Saint Francis in the Capuchin tradition. Their community population lives at the Friary of St. Joseph on 10 Highgate Street [1] in Lawrence, MA and, until December 2020, lived at 3 Magazine St, Roxbury, MA.
A minimum of five years training is necessary to be a fully professed brother. The four FPO vows include: Chastity, Obedience, Poverty and Marian Consecration.
1994: Six members of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, Pio Mandato, Joe Nolan, David Engo, Francis Kelly, John Maria Sweeney, and Peter Giroux, sought to found a new community in order to pursue an authentic observance of the life and Rule of Saint Francis. They petitioned the bishop of Fall River, Massachusetts, Seán Patrick O'Malley, for support. O'Malley agreed to serve as Ordinary of the new group, which was named Capuchin Recollects, and he assisted them in composing their rule and constitutions.
1995: Fr. John Maria Sweeney and Fr. Peter Giroux were ordained.
1996: On April 21, 1996, the six founders professed perpetual vows before O'Malley [2] and established their friary in New Bedford, Massachusetts. [3] [4]
Permission for establishing the order was granted by then Archbishop of New York, Most Rev. John O’Connor. This permission was required for the original six brothers to leave the CFR community (Congregation of the Friars of the Renewal) and found a new community under Bishop O'Malley. The first FPO house called “Immaculate Conception Friary” was established in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
The community changed its name from Capuchin Recollects to Franciscans of Primitive Observance. [1]
1998 (December): Fr. Peter Giroux and Fr. John Maria Sweeney, two of the original six friars, were ordained as FPO priests by Bishop O’Malley in Fall River, MA.
1999: “Christ the King Hermitage,” a year-round novitiate, was opened in Stamford, VT. In August, Fr. Joseph Paul Medio was ordained in New Bedford, MA.
Subsequent houses of the community were opened in Stamford, Vermont, where novices were formed, [5] and Emmitsburg, Maryland.
2001: “Mother of the Good Shepherd” friary was opened in Emmitsburg, Maryland, near Mount St. Mary’s Seminary, where preparations for the priesthood were undertaken.
2002: Fr. Joseph Medio was ordained.
2003: O'Malley was appointed as the Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Boston. The Franciscans of Primitive Observance requested to be transferred from the Fall River, MA diocese and incardinated in the Boston Archdiocese. Upon approval, the friars relocated to Lawrence, Massachusetts, closing the friary in New Bedford, MA.
2004: The friars took the Marian Vow of Total Consecration to Our Lady (the fourth FPO vow) with Archbishop Sean O’Malley in Boston, MA. The decision was made to go to San Marcos, Nicaragua, as Ave Maria University Latin American Campus had been chosen as a place of study for Theology, Philosophy and Spanish for some of the brothers. While there was great caution in making this decision, Cardinal O’Malley encouraged the move. Six FPO brothers, traveling in pairs, hitch-hiked down to San Marcos, Nicaragua from Maryland. While residing initially in the Ave Maria faculty house, they built their new friary, “La Purisima,” on a nearby coffee plantation owned by Celina and Harvey Leach, a future business professor and Provost at Ave Maria University.
2005: The Franciscans of the Primitive Observance officially moved into the Archdiocese of Boston and were erected as a “public association of the faithful” (first step toward becoming a religious institute according to Church law). They opened a new friary in Lawrence, MA, called “Co- Redemptrix Friary.”
2007: In San Marcos, Nicaragua, Brothers Benedict and Andrew were ordained as deacons.
2008 (May): In San Marcos, Nicaragua, Brothers Benedict and Andrew were ordained as deacons as priests (May).
2008: By September 2008, there were a total of 16 FPO’s including five priests and eleven brothers in final vows. Fr. Joseph was the Guardian of the San Marcos Friary and there were three brothers: Seraphin, Felix, James and a postulant from Nicaragua named Nelson.
[6] 2010: FPO opened a second house in Roxbury, MA.
2023 (October): The San Marcos, Nicaragua order was shuttered by the government of Daniel Ortega along with many other Catholic evangelical organizations. This action was part of a larger campaign by the Ortega government to expulsion and cancellation of the legal status of more than 1,500 non-governmental organizations, including Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity.
Currently FPO has one friary in Lawrence. [7]
Peter Giroux [8] has served as the community's General Servant for the majority of the Franciscans of Primitive Observance's existence. Fr. Andrew Beauregard was superior from 2015 to 2018.
The catholic young adult group, Pure in Heart Lawrence, regards Andrew Beauregard as its spiritual director. [9]
In 2000, the Tifft family donated the use of their estate in Vermont to the Franciscans of Primitive Observance to conduct a retreat for their members, during which they conducted exorcisms. [10] The Tifft family alleged that John Sweeney, one of the founding figures, used these and similar occasions to serially sexually abuse and victimize teenage women, including the Tifft's 17-year-old daughter. [11] Sweeney was put on leave in 2004, and subsequently laicized in 2013. [11] [12] [13] [14]
Along with the founding of the friars' community out of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, six women left the corresponding women's community, the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal, in 1994, to form the Capuchin Recollect Sisters in New Bedford, Massachusetts. [15] [4] In 1998, they changed their community's name to Capuchin Sisters of Nazareth. After 2003 they moved to Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania in the Diocese of Scranton.