About the Sanctus Ranch Retreat Center:
Very early in their marriage, Dan and Jennifer Sevigny began to feel a strong calling to the idea of building and running a retreat center. Both having a love and joy for event planning and hosting large community gatherings, they knew welcoming guests and providing great hospitality would be a perfect fit for them.
Dan has been a leader in corporate training and coaching in the arenas of sales development, entrepreneurship and business management since 2005. Dan has also been deeply involved in Catholic ministries. He has directed and lead numerous retreats for adults and youth groups, served as a youth minister. Dan also served as the chairman of Vita Nova, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization for three years. In that role, he created and facilitated retreats for the people of the diocese of Manchester, NH.
Sanctus Ranch is helping to fulfill their vision. Sanctus Ranch is a dual-purpose facility. It offers a venue for corporate training classes and retreats during the week through Igniter Strategies, Inc., which is a tenant of Sanctus ranch. Igniter Strategies hosts several events per year for sales training and professional coaching and mentoring.
Embracing this vision, Sanctus Ranch has committed to a full calendar of hosting guests in an atmosphere that provides an unparalleled experience for both the corporate professional and the religious retreatant.
Sanctus Ranch and Prohibition from the local Bishop:
The local Bishop, Archbishop Gustavo García-Siller, has banned priests from celebrating Mass at Sanctus Ranch, has stated that priests not in good standing have celebrated Mass there, that the chapel is not consecrated and that Sanctus Ranch is not Catholic.
Sanctus Ranch has replied: “Sanctus Ranch is a private retreat center in the state of Texas and has never claimed to represent the Catholic Church, act on its behalf, or operate as a part of the ecclesiastical structure of the Catholic Church, contrary to what is insinuated by the Archbishop’s statement. The owner and Executive Director, Dan Sevigny, is a faithful lay Catholic in good standing with the Church. Over the years, he has spent millions of dollars of his own money to create a private oasis within an otherwise desiccated ecclesiastical landscape. And he has had every right to do so under civil and canon law“.
Oh, how we hate Church politics! We don’t have a lot of direct knowledge of the situation, but looking at it from 10,000 feet, as the saying goes, about all we see to complain about is the fact that they favor the Traditional Latin Mass. We found no claim on the Ranch website or the school website that they are affiliated with the Catholic Church, which seems to be the Archbishop’s main complaint. Yes, the school principal and some of the teachers are Catholic priests, but neither the retreat center nor the school tries to state that they are a Catholic institution.
You can read the official prohibition here.
And you can read the response from Sanctus Ranch here.
Here is a video interview with a priest who has bee attacked by the Archdiocese of San Antonio
We would love to hear from a canon lawyer on this subject.
Finding the Sanctus Ranch Retreat Center in Pipe Creek, Texas:
Pipe Creek is located about 40 miles northeast of San Antonio.
Address: 2647 River Bluff Circle, Pipe Creek, TX 78063
Tel: +1 (830) 322-3050
email: dan@srfretreats.org
Click here for the official website of the Sanctus Ranch Retreat Center in Pipe Creek, Texas
