Austin Anthony Vetter
Austin Anthony Vetter was born September 13, 1967, in Linton, North Dakota, the youngest of twelve children raised on a farm. He studied at Cardinal Muench Seminary in Fargo and continued formation in Rome at the Pontifical North American College, earning a Bachelor of Sacred Theology from the Angelicum in 1992. He was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Bismarck on June 29, 1993.
As a Bismarck priest he served as pastor at several parishes, was Master of Ceremonies to the bishop, and directed continuing clergy education. From 2012 to 2018 he was Director of Spiritual Formation at the Pontifical North American College in Rome, and from 2018 he served as Rector of the Cathedral of the Holy Spirit in Bismarck.
Pope Francis appointed him the 11th Bishop of Helena, Montana, on October 8, 2019; he was ordained and installed at the Cathedral of St. Helena on November 20, 2019. He continues to sit as Bishop of Helena through mid-2026, and in June 2025 additionally took on a role as interim co-president of Carroll College in Helena for the 2025-26 academic year.
The deeds-based record in Helena is clear and durable. Following Pope Francis's Traditionis Custodes (July 2021), Bishop Vetter first told the Traditional Latin Mass community at St. Richard in Columbia Falls, the diocese's designated TLM parish, that nothing would change. Roughly four months later, in February 2022, he reversed that assurance and ordered every Mass celebrated according to the 1962 Missal in the entire diocese to cease as of Ash Wednesday. This was among the most complete diocesan suppressions of the traditional liturgy in the country.
In fairness to the full record, Vetter's earlier posture was not hostile to reverent worship, and his defenders stress that he framed the ban as compelled by the December 2021 Roman responsa ad dubia (especially the bination rule) rather than as his own initiative. Notably, he appears not to have issued a formal written decree of his own; the suppression was conveyed to the faithful through the local pastor. These are genuine mitigating details.
But the decisive deed stands and has stood for over four years: the total elimination of the TLM across the Diocese of Helena, achieved by breaking an explicit personal promise to the faithful, with no restoration, indult, or exemption on the public record through mid-2026. Judged on deeds rather than intentions, this is not the record of a friend of the traditional Roman rite. Should he restore access, this assessment should be revisited.