Movimiento Sacerdotal mariano

On the 8th of May, 1972, Father Stefano Gobbi, a priest from Milan, Italy, was taking part in a pilgrimage to Fatima. While praying in the Chapel of the Apparitions for some priests who, besides having given up their own vocations, were attempting to form an association in rebellion against the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, an interior force urged Fr. Gobbi to have confidence in the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

What Fr. Gobbi had just experienced was an interior locution. It is not an apparition or other communication perceived by the human senses, but a spiritual phenomenon present in the life of the Church and described in manuals of Catholic theology. The messages (interior locutions) are the gift by which God wishes to make something known to humanity, in Fr. Gobbi’s particular case by means of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Starting in July 1973, Fr. Gobbi began to write down these interior locutions he was receiving. The messages now number over 600 and are published in the book entitled, "To the Priests, Our Lady’s Beloved Sons."

By means of these messages, Mary began to make use of Fr. Gobbi as a humble instrument to gather all priests who would accept her invitation to consecrate themselves to her Immaculate Heart, to be strongly united to the Pope and to the Church in union with him, and to bring the faithful into the secure refuge of her motherly heart. Thus a powerful cohort would be formed and spread throughout every part of the world, created not with human means of propaganda, but with the supernatural power that emanates from silence, prayer, suffering and constant faithfulness to one’s duties.

In 1972, Fr. Gobbi asked Our Lady interiorly for a sign of confirmation, and she gave it to him promptly at the Shrine of the Annunciation in Nazareth. In October of the same year, a timid attempt was made to initiate the Marian Movement of Priests; three priests gathered for prayer and fraternal sharing in the parish of Gera Lario (Como, Italy). By March 1973, the number of priests inscribed was about forty. In September of the same year the first national gathering took place, with twenty-five priests taking part out of the eighty already enrolled.

The M.M.P. has succeeded in expanding in a powerful and extraordinary way. In practically all the countries of Europe, America, Asia, Africa and Oceania, National Headquarters have been established and entrusted with the task of gathering the membership and assisting in the formation of prayer cenacles.

Beginning in 1974, the first cenacles of prayer among priests and faithful took place. These gradually spread and by the end of 1996, Fr. Gobbi had many times visited the five continents. The membership of the M.M.P. now numbers at least 400 cardinals and bishops, more than 100,000 priests, and millions of religious and faithful around the world.

(De la página web oficial del MSM en EEUU.)