Fr. Richard Foster, OCD, died on December 25, 2020 at the age of 81.

By Fr. Richard Cipolla

Those who love the Latin language were saddened to hear of the death of Father Reginald Foster on Christmas Day. It was heartening to see the many laudatory obituaries in the press and letters from those who knew Reginaldus, as he was known to his students. 

Ever since I heard of his death, I knew that I had to write something myself about this remarkable man whose influence on me was greater than he knew. It is not an exaggeration to say that the two summers I studied with Reginaldus in Rome changed my life.  It was not only the Latin that I learned in those weeks under the hot Roman sun.  It was also being taught by this unique man, a mixture of ‘60’s rebelliousness, harshnes, a profane veneer- all this- but coming forth through this formidable exterior was a genuine love for his students  for his vocation as an Carmelite priest, and above all for his love of the Latin language, a love so powerful that one would have to be a stone not to become an amator Latinitatis under his influene.

I arrived for the first summer session in Rome as a Catholic priest who had taught science and math for many years at both the prep school and college levels, but I always harbored the hope that somehow and someday I would be able to teach  Latin. My love of Latin came from my days at Classical High School in Providence, Rhode Island. One day, a friend who knew my fondness for Latin, informed me of an opening to teach Latin at a prep school in Greenwich, Connecticut. I decided to take advantage of this opportunity

I signed up for the Reginaldus’ Rome summer course—which he called the Experience– to brush up on my Latin and to see if I could learn some teaching techniques from this man who had become a legend as a Latin scholar and teacher.  I remember meeting him for the first time in a group of some forty people, mostly young, but also including a good number of middle-aged people like me. He, a Carmelite priest, appeared in his version of glory:  a worker’s outfit– non-descript short sleeve shirt and pants, and worker’s boots, which was a contrast to my impeccable black suit, Roman collar, and tasseled black loafers. He was carrying a small bottle of what looked like wine and was in fact wine.  He explained the basic structure of the course and the division of the students into Juniores and Seniores.  He told us to choose what group we thought we would fit into based on our study of Latin.  Then he said: “If you are here to have a vacation in Rome, I am telling you right now: Go home! I can’t be bothered with kids from the best schools who think they know Latin and are here for the pizza and wine. Most of you here think you know Latin. Well—you don’t. I don’t care at all if you leave or stay. Up to you. I really don’t care.”

A few did leave that day, either put off by what he said or frightened by this man’s demeanor. More left after the first week.  Then those who stayed, like me, began a Latin course like no one of us had ever imagined could exist. It was not a course. It was literally an “experience”.

Before I encountered Reginaldus, I thought I knew Latin. I found out I knew very little. The first part of that summer he deconstructed me—which involved some pain—and then reconstructed me so that I not only significantly improved my Latin skills, but I for the first time truly fell in love with Latin.  

Let me give you an example of Reginaldus’ teaching method. We would be reading some obscure text that he had xeroxed (not always clear) and thrown at us to translate together in class.  When there was a pause in the translation, we knew what was coming.  The dreaded drill. We all kept our heads down pretending to be absorbed in the text, hoping that he would not call on us.  

“You”, he shouted, “the one who dresses up like a priest every day like an idiot in this summer heat, I forgot your name, what’s your name? “  “Ricardus”, I answered in dread. “OK, hot shot, look at that verb in the fourth line of the page we are reading:  tell me everything you know about it.” I answered: “Third person plural, imperfect subjunctive passive.” Next question: “Why is it in the subjunctive?” Pause, mind racing.  Couldn’t be sure why it was in the subjunctive, said to myself: I will choose something sort of obscure to impress him.  “Relative clause of characteristic” I boldly asserted.  “What the hell is a relative clause of characteristic?” he shot back.  “THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A RELATIVE CLAUSE OF CHARATERISTIC!  Stupid people who write Latin textbooks invent these things because THEY DON’T KNOW LATIN!” I swallowed hard and was thankful that my hot-seat experience was over for today. But I was wrong. I was still on his hook. He then proceeded to ask me how the form of the verb would change if it were in the context of an indirect statement. I somehow managed to answer that correctly.  But he was not satisfied.  On he went asking me questions—until I failed to answer correctly. Then he uttered what sounded like a grunt, and went back to translation.  

That process of deconstruction was not pleasant. But it was in the reconstruction under Reginaldus that followed that I began to understand Latin not as a puzzle to be solved but as a living language whose beauty was not always easy to unlock, but the act of unlocking was part of the beauty. It was the discovery of that difficult beauty that enabled me to teach Latin for many years to the most gifted students in my school and to enjoy the wonderful fruit of seeing my students understand and come to love the tough beauty that is the Latin language. They will never forget the lacrimae rerum, the tears of things, of Aeneas.

My second summer with Reginaldus was an experience of great happiness.  We developed a real relationship that transcended his 1960s post-Vatican II spirit and my own deeply traditional faith, a relationship that I believe was amicitia, friendship.  It was during that second summer that I became one of the members of Sub Arboribus. Reginaldus invited a small group of the Seniores to read Latin “under the trees” in the early evening after the last class. We would get something to eat and then meet him on the grounds of his monastery on the Janiculum Hill. He would bring a jug of wine, and we would bring our copies of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. There in the twilight we would take turns declaiming these fantastical mythical tales in glorious dactylic hexameter.   I remember my fluency surprised me and gave me great delight—and this was not mainly because of the wine.  

Reginaldus would organize field trips to sites that are important to Latinitas such as Horace’s farm and St. Thomas Aquinas’ birthplace. The buses that he hired for these excursions were old and beat up. Not much comfort. Reginaldus handed out texts on these trips, texts in Latin poetry meant to be sung.  And he led us in these songs.  Who else but Regnialdus would know enough about the various meters of Latin poetry, so that we could sing these poems with his direction.  The melodies were mostly from the Monastic Breviary, which chant melodies he had learned from singing the Office in his monastery. And so we sang one of Horace’s Odes to the melody of a Vespers hymn that was written in the Sapphic Strophe meter. Quite an—I must use the word again—experience.

 But there was one field trip that for me was in its way a life-changing experience that deepened my faith, my understanding of beauty and the power of Latin.  He brought us to Ostia, which was in ancient times the seaport for Rome at the mouth of the Tiber. It was there that St. Augustine and his mother, St. Monica, staying at a hostel in Ostia, had a mystical experience while standing at a window. The intensity and beauty of this experience Augustine describes in Book IX of his Confessions.  The area where the hostel was, near the sea, has long since been filled in by the silt of many centuries, so that the place where the hostel stood is now a grassy field with no water in sight. And there we sat and read together this passage from the Confessions. Reginaldus finished the passage himself.  When he finished, he stood up and pointed up and over some small buildings. And he said: “It was there—there! That’s where this happened when they heard the silence!” And then there was silence.  And we sat there for a few minutes in that silence, in that place, on that day.  

Some years after that I took a group of my own students to Ostia, and we sat in that field and read from the Confessions the passage telling of that mystical experience which the son and his mother experienced so many centuries ago.  I read the last part myself to my students. Then I stood up and pointed up and over, and I said to my students: “It was there—there!  That’s where this happened when they heard the silence.”  And there was silence.

Richard Gennaro Cipolla

I’ve spoken directly with others who treasure Reginald Foster as a friend, a teacher, a “character” and above all a Latinist. I have also read similar published appreciations. The Latin language is an integral, irreplaceable part of Western culture and Latin Christianity. Fr. Foster did much to revitalize its active use.

Nevertheless, a society devoted to the Traditional Latin Mass under Summorum Pontificum – like this one – in all candor must acknowledge that Fr. Foster publicly opposed this cause. Furthermore, while leaving a network of devoted students, Foster presided over a decades-long decline of Latinity at the Vatican itself. Thus, his official, institutional impact seems to have been decidedly more limited than his private influence.

Stuart Chessman

As this calamitous year approaches its end, we would like to recall briefly several of those who died in the last 12 months. Their lives illustrate the amazing possibilities of Traditional Christian life in the radically secular city that is New York. One of these people was Archdeacon John DeMeis.

One fine day in the early 1980’s, when I was attending NYU law school, I had wandered over to the northern reaches of Mulberry Street.  In those years that neighborhood was semi-deserted even in the middle of the day and featured mainly garages and “social clubs.” I passed by an open door on the ground floor of a small building next to old St. Patrick’s church and peered in. Someone inside noticed me and invited me inside – it turned out to be a Byzantine church: St. Michaels’ Russian Catholic chapel! And the man extending the invitation was John DeMeis. From that day on,  for many years, I regularly attended St. Michael’s. But for John’s welcome, I never would have thought of entering there. I owed to him my main experiences of the Eastern liturgy – at that time, in the pre-indult days, the only fully satisfactory alternative for those seeking Traditional Christian worship. Wasn’t  John’s welcoming gesture a real, if modest, example of that  “evangelizing” that is so endlessly discussed nowadays ?

John DeMeis, a retired transit cop,  had deep connections with both the Eastern rite and one of the most obscure and unusual Catholic parishes of Manhattan. Our Lady of Grace chapel, a storefront church on Stanton Street,  was the spiritual home in New York City of the Italo-Albanians.  This people had migrated to southern Italy and Sicily in the 15^th century, fleeing Turkish oppression. In their new home they preserved the Byzantine rite, celebrated in Greek, but stayed in communion with Rome. Quite a few of them after 1870 joined the mass emigration from Southern Italy to the New World. 

Our Lady of Grace chapel was founded in 1906 by Fr. Ciro Pinnola, an Italo-Albanian priest from near Palermo (another source says the foundation was in 1904). He was married, a practice that was beeing repressed in in the other Catholic Byzantine communities in the U.S. In 1909, the chapel’s congregation numbered 400.

Regrettably, when Fr. Pinnola died in 1946, the parish ended as well. But John DeMeis and others labored to keep its memory alive. Even today, the Our Lady of Grace Italo-Greek Catholic Mission and Society preserves the memory of this community.  John DeMeis was devoted to this society – he later became its archivist and historian. The society (“OLOGS”!)  publishes a newsletter for the Italo-Albanian community several times a year and sponsors events as well. 

After 1990 I moved out of New York and returned to St Michael’s only now and then, on special occasions. In fact, I don’t think I ever saw John DeMeis ever again in person after that year. Tragically,  St. Michael’s Russian Catholic chapel, once a significant initiative of the Archdiocese of New York,  was evicted in 2019 from the home they had occupied since 1936. The space is currently occupied by a souvenir shop. The community, however, has continued – for the last two years they have been hosted by the parish of St. Vincent Ferrer and St.  Catherine of Siena(at St. Catherine’s).

I had the impression that John had moved on as well – deepening more and more his commitment to Eastern or Greek Catholicism. He was ordained deacon in 1990 and archdeacon in 1997. For many years he served as a chaplain to the police department.

John DeMeis died on August 19^th of this year at the age of 90. He is survived by his beloved wife Rita and their children and grandchildren. May Archdeacon John’s memory be eternal!

(Photo courtesy of Kristina DeMeis)

Our Lady of Grace Society Facebook page.

Roman Catholic Sacred Architecture in New York County: Manifestations of Faith, Glory, Change and Decline in the Early 21st Century

By Paul R. Peters

2020

As our readers probably know,  we have long been following the history of the Catholic churches of New York City. Recently I was fortunate to receive and read the work of another researcher in the same area. Paul R. Peters has written and self-published Roman Catholic Sacred Architecture in New York County: Manifestations of Faith, Glory, Change and Decline in the Early 21st Century (2020). In it,  he covers the great majority of the Catholic parish churches of Manhattan island. (Non-New Yorkers need to know that New York County is synonymous with Manhattan plus Marble Hill in the Bronx.)

Peter’s book is one of select few on this subject. Thomas J. Shelley’s Bicentennial History of the Archdiocese of New York of course also covers all the parishes of Manhattan.  Then,  there is Rene S. James’ The Roman Catholic Churches of Manhattan (2007, also self-published). Finally, the grandfather of all such studies – and still the best –  is John Gilmary Shea’s 1878 book on New York City Catholic churches. In Sacred Architecture Peters gives us several photographs and a brief description of each of the churches in New York. Many of the photographs are his own, taken from 2003 onwards, but he has supplemented these with well-chosen examples from local archives or from other sources. See, for example, this book’s  beautiful cover photograph of the interior of the now-closed All Saints parish in Harlem, taken when that church was relatively new. Another example is the striking image of the interior of Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Our author has put together this book with a specific purpose in mind. Peters documents through photographs the status, before and after the Council,  of each of these churches.  This focuses, in particular, on the chancel or sanctuary of each church and a melancholy review of the damage that was done after the Council. In most cases this involved moving the altar forward, eliminating or reducing the communion rail, and placing a new altar at the center of the church on a platform projecting into the nave (what Peters calls a “build-out.”)  It also usually was accompanied by the gross simplification or outright destruction of the former decorative program of the church which so often had featured gothic altars, stencils, paintings and statuary.  Peters is rightfully indignant at this desecration, carried out supposedly to “break down barriers” between the celebration of the Mass and the people. They of course largely departed, which is why parish after parish after parish is closing. This book is a visual chronicle  of the devastation.

Those churches were indeed fortunate where the post-Conciliar updating was limited to placing a table between the grand high altar and the communion rail, leaving all else intact. New York, however, has the good luck to have more than handful of these, in which the Conciliar wave of destruction of art was halted by the parish’s poverty or the resistance of the donors’ families.

Peters’ book obviously has great appeal for the connoisseur of New York churches. He has here pictures of the interiors of churches with which I was familiar but never got around to photographing before their destruction –  such as St. Ann’s or the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. I should especially emphasize his discussion of the once glorious Church of Saint Thomas in Harlem – an equally colorful and wildly decorated counterpart to Our Lady of Good Counsel.   It was shut down and destroyed by Cardinal Egan. Our author also has located intriguing photographs of the original 19^th century churches of the parishes like St. Andrew and Immaculate Conception which later acquired grand new buildings. 

To describe some 100 churches and their constantly changing appearance is a formidable task – I appreciate  the magnitude of the effort and don’t want to seem critical. For a second edition,  however, I would suggest more systematically providing, where possible,  dates for the photographs and for the narrative. For as the author himself tells us, it is not so simple as “before the Council” and “after the Council.” In some parishes, ( e.g. St. Stephen’s, St. Agnes) major changes  – and in some cases major damage – was done prior to the Council. In other cases, post-Conciliar ravages have been partially repaired (Our Lady of Pompeii, Our Lady of Sorrows). 

Despite the vast terrain Peters covers,  I have only been able to identify a very few instances where he is outright wrong – such as his description of the combination of the parishes of St. Emeric and St. Bridget (Brigid). But even there we are grateful to him for pointing out the dedication (in fact at St. Emeric, not St. Brigid) of a chapel to Cardinal Egan (while he was still alive)! This book’s list of churches may be comprehensive but it is not exhaustive –  one prominent church missing is the shrine of St. Frances Cabrini in Washington Heights. I would also dissent from the author’s aesthetic judgment in certain cases (like the renovation of St. Francis Xavier church). 

All in all this is a great book for enthusiasts of ecclesiastical architecture or New York City history. And also a sobering work for those Traditionalists who want to experience the bitter feeling of seeing the details of so much that has been senselessly destroyed. Highly recommended!

I feel that I owe you a status report on the Society of St Hugh of Cluny. What have we been doing over the last nine months? As you have probably realized, our Society had been in semi-hibernation since February. The coronavirus panic has shut down the events in which the St. Hugh of Cluny Society specializes: splendid liturgies and lectures by great speakers – often traveling to the New York area from outside the United States. The Covid-19 crisis has stopped all this. For example, a presentation on the new phenomenon of Catholic “integralism,” which we had scheduled for October, had to be cancelled. The same was true for our annual Mass at the San Gennaro festival in Little Italy. (The festival, of course, had been cancelled as well!) Thus we have been reduced to the role of  commentators on developments in the Church – locally and in the world.

The picture we see is a sorrowful one.

The Covid-19 wave of hysteria, stoked by the media, has shut down or drastically restricted access to the Mass and the other sacraments. Until the very recent past, the pope and the hierarchy have abjectly yielded the secular powers in all their demands. We have no idea how much of the Catholic church will in fact reopen after the current restrictions are lifted. We do not know to what extent the finances of the church have suffered irreparable damage.

Next, this summer a wave of street violence on a level unseen for decades, again instigated by the media and condoned by local governments, swept the United States and even Europe. Statues of Catholic saints and heroes were toppled as  prominent targets of a semi-official campaign to eradicate an anathematized “Western civilization.” For,  as Catholic apologists of the past were so eager to point out, the very concept of the West (or “Europe”) is inseparable from the Church. Again, the clergy largely abdicated their role.

Within the Church, a self-proclaimed Catholic, on track to become the next President of the United States,  advocates virtually unrestricted abortion privileges, rejecting the pro-life witness of so many over the years. The bishop of Rome and most of the hierarchy seem comfortable with his position. The decades-long agitation for the “seamless garment” sham has brought forth its inevitable result: the abandonment of Christian principled opposition to abortion.

In Rome, the Pope makes ever more radical utterances in every conceivable forum and functions more and more as an establishment political figure. At the same time, he seems to be trying to damp down a furious schismatic/ heretical wildfire in Germany-which he himself had unleashed. The Vatican’s restrictive rulings on this front (and on a few others) have, up till now, been largely ignored, while in contrast the pope’s radical declarations (for example, on homosexuality) are eagerly endorsed by the media. Meanwhile, by any objective criteria, the Church is in structural and demographic collapse, rocked by a never-ending series of scandals. Pope Francis very recently tried to extricate himself from one of the latter (the McCarrick affair) primarily by indicting Pope John Paul II (whom, after all, he himself had canonized).

Indeed, an overarching theme of the entire year is the complete irrelevance of the Catholic Faith to the controlling powers in Western society and even the majority of the population. The Church truly is “nonessential”- as is frankly acknowledged by most of the Church’s leadership. In fact, the Catholic religion, as such, started attracting major media attention again only when the Democratic candidate for the presidency started wearing rosaries and appearing “devout” as a transparent political tactic. This seems to be the foreseeable end of “ mainstream” Catholicism: inoffensive folklore combined with blind obedience to a conformist Church leadership entirely immersed in secular affairs – both amid the unstoppable decline and fall of the institutional Church.

Yet despite all the disappointments, ominous trends, and tragedies in Church and state, locally and world-wide, Traditionalist Catholics have so much to be grateful for as this year ends. Just in our Society’s restricted field of operations Catholic Traditionalism is flourishing as never before. A glance at the schedule of Traditional Masses for any recent holyday, as reported on our website, is the best evidence of that. Every fresh outrage of the Vatican or the American hierarchy generates a new wave of converts to the old rite. For more and more people realize the truth of what has always been the  Traditionalist understanding:  that liturgy, morality and theology form an inseparable whole. Consequently, Catholic Traditionalism, which can never be reduced to some kind of  “Anglo-Catholic” or “ ritualist” liturgical sect, grows in attraction as the only real alternative to a disintegrating establishment. For example,  in the current crisis, most (regrettably, not all) Traditionalist parishes have put first the spiritual needs of the faithful over compliance with ever-changing rules and restrictions of dioceses and governments. In so doing they demonstrate once again that it is the Traditionalists, not the establishment conformists, who are the truly “pastoral” churchmen!

We are so grateful to our loyal contributors who have continued to support us even though our main mission may have been temporarily  suspended. In the meantime,  we have of course continued our website. In view of a campaign currently being waged by a well-known traditionalist site against certain online celebrities, I feel obliged to state that the Society of St. Hugh of Cluny itself only pays for the comparatively minor costs of hosting and maintaining the site and nothing further. The overwhelming bulk of our expenditures relates to the financing of the events we sponsor.

Speaking of our online presence, I am always surprised and gratified by our site’s popularity with the friends of Catholic Tradition – and also with our enemies. Indeed, the latter are extraordinarily diligent readers, delving months into the past for the evidence that they seek. (St. Hugh of Cluny is not unique in this regard; Rorate Caeli also serves as a gold mine for these prospectors). As always,  “Conservative Catholic” clergy are particularly prominent in such activity. Both friends and enemies will be happy to hear that we intend to ramp up our online activity.

We are confident that over the course of the next year the Society of St.  Hugh of Cluny will be able to resume its usual activities with even greater success.

I wish all of our members and readers a blessed and holy Advent and a Merry Christmas!
^

The “Italian Cathedral” – thus does the church of St Lucy in Newark, New Jersey, assert its claim to preeminence among Italian churches of the New York area. And with some justification! St Lucy’s may not quite attain the size and splendor of the “Polish cathedrals” of Chicago and elsewhere in the Midwest. Yet its architecture is impressive – unconstrained by the narrow lots of New York. And, in my view, its decoration exceeds in its extravagance and quality that of its Italian competitors – most notably, Our Lady of Pompeii in Greenwich Village, built and decorated about the same time. We had a chance to visit St. Lucy’s today on the weekend of the celebration of the festa of St. Gerard Majella – whose national shrine is found here.

(Above)The sober exterior of St Lucy’s, executed in a kind of Romanesque – Renaissance idiom. Construction started in 1925. The church presides today over a combination of plaza, parking lot and outdoor shrine offering the opportunity for all kinds of devotions. (Below) Peering over St Lucy’s parish complex are the towers of Newark’s grand Sacred Heart Cathedral (presumably the “Irish” Cathedral).

But it is the architecture and decoration of the interior that is the glory of this church. For here the local Italian community was able to achieve an amazing recreation of the 18th century Southern Italian Baroque. The parish is dedicated to St Lucy of Syracuse; the paintings and inscriptions emphasize strongly this Sicilian connection. But in fact people from many other Southern Italian villges, towns and regions participated in the life of this parish and in the construction of the church. (Below) The high altar.

The real heart of this decorative program, however, are the murals of Gonippo Raggi (1875-1959) who worked on the decoration of many other important Catholic churches – especially in New Jersey. Above all the paintings of the cupola and of the huge ceiling of the nave recall to the visitor not only Italy but, in their wild exuberance, even the visionary ceiling paintings of the German baroque.

(Above) The cupola.(Below) The apse mural, complete with the Syracuse cathedral on the left and Mount Etna on the right.

(Above) Detail of the apse.

(Above and below) Details of the martyrdom of St Lucy on the celing of the nave.

(Below) From the same mural.

Today, perhaps, St Lucy’s is best known as the shrine of St Gerard Majella. In contrast to the deserted shrines of most Manhattan churches, devotion to St Gerard is very much alive and well. I hear many come from all over the country to participate in the festa. This year was, obviously and unfortunately, a great exception.

St. Gerard Majella is most often invoked as an intercessor for a safe childbirth. At one time St Lucy’s had 20,000 parishioners, and in one year there were over 1,000 baptisms. So his assistance was very much in demand!

The statue of St. Gerard is adorned by the faithful not merely with strips with dollar bills attached – that happens in every other Italian church festival – but with whole coats covered with greenbacks. At least on this weekend, the stream of visitors never let up. The quantity of (real) candles to be found everywhere in the church is amazing. A notice is provided, however, that candles will be extinguished in the evening but relit in the morning.

(Below) The miraculous safe delivery of a child, depicted here, started the devotion to St. Gerard as a patron saint of expectant mothers.

After the murals, what catches the vistor’s attention are the innumerable, mostly large-scale statues around the church. It seems like every saint and every Marian devotion of Southern Italy is represented here. And the Hispanic peoples subsequently have added their own devotional images to this collection.

St Lucy’s is still kept in beautiful condition. Almost all the Italian population of what once was Newark’s “Little Italy, ” however, had left the immediate neighborhood long ago. The final straw was a series of disastrous urban renewal projects, which had the same results here as everywhere else – Chicago, St Louis, Bridgeport etc.. Most of the old Catholic ethnic neighborhoods of these cities, like those of Newark, were destroyed long ago . But St Lucy’s old parishioners and their descendants have been more dedicated than most in maintaining their old parish, its devotions and its church.

Reclaiming Our Roman Catholic Birthright: The Genius and Timeliness of the Traditional Latin Mass

by Peter Kwasniewski

Angelico Press, Brooklyn, NY, 2020

It’s amazing for a traditionalist “old-timer”  – which I guess I now am – to experience the breadth and maturity of American Traditionalism today. The best evidence of that, in addition to the ever growing number of Traditional Masses, parishes, monasteries, and internet apostolates of all kinds, is the extraordinary new literature on the old rite. Earlier this year the English translation of Fiedrowicz’s authoritative The Traditional Mass appeared. Now Peter Kwasniewski gives us Reclaiming Our Roman Catholic Birthright. It is an open, unabashed and unashamed  apology ( in the early Christian sense) for the Traditional Roman Catholic liturgical life.

The first noteworthy thing about Reclaiming our Roman Catholic Birthright is that we have this book in the first place. With the conspicuous exception of Martin Mosebach’s landmark 2002 Heresy of Formlessness  – and perhaps  Fr. Claude Barthes’s more specialized 2011 La messe : Une Forêt de Symboles  – I do not recall previously encountering such books on the liturgy itself from the Traditionalist perspective.  Moreover, I am not sure such works were published even before the Vatican Council. For the pre-conciliar works I have seen tended to be either picture books or descriptive manuals – sometimes with an apologetic (in the contemporary sense!) flavor. The vision that the Traditional Mass  – as it then existed – was the central point of  Christian life and could be even a “selling point” for the Church to evangelize its own flock and the rest of the world seemed to have been obscured. 

Now Kwasniewski eloquently and passionately advocates the celebration of the Traditional Mass. He concentrates more on the advantages of the old rite, not the deficiencies of the new.  Furthermore, Kwasniewski does not shrink from the conclusion that the old rite is intrinsically  superior to its successor; that it should be once again the norm for all Roman Catholics. What is implicit in Mosebach’s and Fiedrowicz’s works is here boldly proclaimed:

From this vantage we can see, more clearly than ever. the vital spiritual, psychological and sociological need in our time for the usus antiquior. The reintroduction of the traditional Mass is not merely a matter of superior aesthetics, rather it concerns all of the crises we face us a society, as a race, as a planet.

In many ways Reclaiming our Roman Catholic Birthright  complements Fiedrowicz’s work. The latter is primarily a description of the Mass and a historical account of its formation, while Kwasniewski systematically presents the arguments why we should frequent and love this Mass – and how to defend it from its enemies. It is remarkable that Kwasniewski draws overwhelmingly on the insights and experience of the last few years under the reign of Pope Francis; indeed, much of the book reflects articles of the author and others from just 2018 to 2020! Could there be any better evidence of the vitality of today’s Traditionalism? Most of this material appeared first on the internet, once again demonstrating the decisive role it plays in the Traditionalist movement.

The solid grounding of this book in experience of the current liturgical practice of the old rite is everywhere evident, such as where Kwasniewski  points out that young children can be better behaved at a lengthy Solemn High Mass than at less elaborate liturgies, because there are so many more things to see and hear. This observation exactly agrees with my own experience in the now distant pre-Vatican II days. Back then he usual Sunday mass I had to attend was a low Mass organized for the pupils of the parochial school. The music was limited to four English hymns. How dazzled I was by the parish Solemn Mass the few times I had the good fortune to be taken to it by my parents.

Kwasniewski reminds us of the continuing  hostility of large parts of the Catholic clergy and laity to the Traditional Mass. Much of Reclaiming our Roman Catholic Birthright is therefore devoted to discussing and refuting the arguments against the Traditional mass. Kwasniewski, in my view correctly, attributes this opposition less to the strength of rationally formulated arguments but to the perception that the celebration of the Traditional Mass is a repudiation of the “Vatican II event”  to which, voluntarily or not, the members of the Church Establishment have irrevocably committed themselves. One more reversal of their liturgcial principles would be an incalculable mental blow. 

As an illustration, Kwasniewski presents a kind of  dialogue with a representative “Conservative Catholic”, Msgr. M. Francis Mannion. (who elsewhere has described the Traditional Mass movement as “idolatry”!) Msgr. Mannion is of the view that the Traditionalist movement will “fade away” if  young people can’t “understand the language” (even if they are doing exactly the opposite of that right now).

Let me digress a bit.  Msgr. Mannion cites in support of this assertion a “study” by Professor George Demacopoulos of Fordham University (naturally!) that supposedly concluded that Greek Orthodox parishes in the United States are losing members (especially the young)because of the use of Byzantine or liturgical Greek, instead of modern Greek or English. How similar to what was being touted in the Roman Catholic Church circa 1963! But, on closer examination, the support for Msgr. Mannion from the Orthodox quarter is not all that strong.  At least in his online post on this topic, Prof. Demacopoulos qualifies his view on the subject: the use of Byzantine Greek is just one contributing factor in the alleged attrition of the younger Greek Orthodox population in America, and in fact a number of other factors are more important.  I believe that significant Orthodox jurisdictions such as the Russian Orthodox Patriarchy and the parent Orthodox Church of Greece have emphatically rejected changing the liturgical language,  explicitly condemning the abandonment of Church Slavonic/Byzantine Greek, among other liturgical innovations. My conclusion is that those hostile to Catholic Traditionalism are grasping at straws to find reasons to support a position based not on facts or theology but upon ideological conviction reinforced by the fear of the consequences of being proven wrong.

One of the best parts of this book is Kwasniewski’s discussion of the view, explicit in the views of Msgr. Mannion, that direct communication of understandable texts is the most effective mode of liturgy. Rather, the transparency of the new mass, the absence of challenging symbolism, tends to decrease, rather than increase, participation by the congregation(much in the way we mentally “turn off” repetitive political harangues on television.) The Traditional Mass, in contrast.  affords many different ways to “actively participate” in the liturgy. I also liked Kwasniewski’s opinionated (the author’s word), argumentative and at times humorous glossary of liturgical terms appended to this book.

I can personally testify to the discomfort aroused among the ranks of the so-called conservative clergy and their lay hangers-on by  Peter Kwasniewski’s fearless and eloquent championship of the Traditional Mass. For he is just as convincing in person as on the written page! If you, however, are seeking a great one-volume exposition of the value and even the necessity of the Traditional Mass, you have found it with this book.

(Above and below) The somewhat arid appearance today of the late Gothic Frauenkirche in Munich, Germany. Reformers took the opportunity of repairing severe wartime damage to carry out a wholesale housecleaning. “They got rid of all the junk!” an otherwise esteemed professor told me gleefully once in my student days at Georgetown. It now turns out that not only was the 19th century art thereby lost of great value, but that real medieval works (such as in the choir) were mistakenly destroyed as well.

A most interesting article in Katholisch.de: “When the decoration disappeared – why so many old churches are so ‘empty.’ ”1) It tells the sad story of the so many churches in Germany after the Second World War. Innumerable churches had indeed suffered severe wartime damage from bombing and then from ground fighting. Yet the implementation of modernistic doctrines in art and architecture after the war completed the process – both in the damaged and undamaged churches. The champions of modern art thought that the church should be a  “bridge to God” and that churches overflowing with the art of many centuries didn’t serve this role. According to Professor Thomas Erne:

“They wanted to be modern, to go with the times. Churches had to be functional, everything else was superfluous.”…It seems to [Professor Erne] almost if the Church had been intimidated by the greatness of her own centuries-old cultural achievement.

The consequences were all too real: 

Magnificently carved altars were demolished, pulpits torn down, sandstone ornaments broken off, murals whitewashed. Images and statues disappeared and a great part of the often so richly ornamented “historicizing” furnishings went with them – final resting place unknown. So many an altar rail may have ended up as a garden gate for a vacation home.

I can personally testify to the presence of gilt baroque images of saints installed in upscale bars.

We should note that this iconoclasm and “purification” began well before the Vatican Council. It sprang from ideology. “Artistically, modernity wanted to exist only on its own: older approaches and traditions didn’t have a role to play anymore.”  Examples of such an architecture had been created as early as 1930 in Germany. “The walls are ostentatiously white and empty, not even a crucifix hangs on the end wall. The space, without images or decoration, very consciously celebrates the void.”

A particular target of the modernizers was the lavish ornamentation of the “historicizing” art of the 19^th and early 20^th century, which had sought to imitate – and often creatively combine – styles of diverse artistic eras.

In Germany today feelings are mixed. New ultramodern churches continue to be built. On the other hand, there is a growing recognition of the incalculable losses inflicted by modernity. And restoration attempts are being made in many churches to recover some of the decoration and furnishings that had been so heedlessly cast aside in the past.

But isn’t the postwar wave of destruction in church design and decoration the perfect equivalent of, and even prelude to,  the liturgical reforms of the 1950’s onward? Based on questionable theological and liturgical ideas, the liturgical reformers also strove to cast out the accumulated contributions of the past and free up the view to some “inner core “ of meaning. That’s not how things work – as we have belatedly realized! Baroque decorations are returning  to some German churches, in the very heartland  of Catholic modernity.  But how many more churches throughout the world have celebrated  the return of the Traditional liturgy – which had made all this art possible!

1. Hartmann, Christoph Paul, Als die Verzierung verschwand: Warum viele alte Kirchen so “leer” sind. Katholisch.de 7/31/2020

A Response to George Weigel

By Father Richard G. Cipolla

Recently George Weigel offered an Op-Ed titled  “A Paradox for the Next Pope” as part of the Wall Street Journal’s Houses of Worship series.  He quite rightly calls attention to several issues that will confront the successor of Pope Francis:  confronting and ending the terrible scandal of sexual abuse by clergy; reform of the financial structure and administration of the Church; and the challenge of supporting the vitality of the Catholic faith in those disparate places in which it found and at the same time embark on a program of renewal in those parts of the world, mostly Europe, where the Catholic faith is less than robust.

Weigel says:  “The past fifty years should have taught the Catholic Church that the only Catholicism with a future is Catholicism in full.”  And what Catholic with faith could disagree with that?  But Weigel, while correctly seeing that “aggressive secularism” is antithetical to the Catholic faith and is part of the reason for the parlous state of Catholicism in the West does not see that the root problems of the Catholic Church today lie in the deliberate ambiguities of the documents of the Second Vatican Council and the post-Conciliar radical assault, in the name of aggiornamento, on the heart of the Catholic worship that is the Mass.  The Catholic Church decided in the 1960s to become “modern” at the same time that Western culture turned its back on Modernism and embraced, with all of its ambiguities, Post-modernism.  The obvious increasingly irrelevant state of the Catholic Church in the West is not due mainly to secularism but rather to the failure of the Church to be true to herself and her founder, Jesus Christ, and instead trying to become relevant to a society that was already then and is even more now post-Christian.  

It is no accident that the horrific sexual corruption of the clergy during the 1960s and beyond occurred at that particular time.  The moral rot was there before that time, but the romanticism of the post-Conciliar Church that adopted the worst of the sentimental understandings of what it means to be human and a secular understanding of freedom opened up the gates that led to the mass of sludge the symbol of which is Uncle Ted McCarrick.  Even today we read with terrible pain the pain and suffering inflicted on young boys and men by this prince of the Church and by so many other priests of the Church.  

Pace George Weigel, the moral rot in the Church cannot be addressed merely by “creating safe environments for its young people.” The problem is much deeper.  The heart of the problematic situation in which the Catholic Church finds herself today is the failure of the Church hierarchy to stand up to that which is not Christian in our society.  But this “standing up” does not consist of vacuous and pietistical pronouncements from the United States Conference of Bishops, a group that models itself on already outdated modes of expression and communication.  

There is a real movement among young priests and among young men and women in the Catholic Church, especially, mirabile dictu, in our own country, whose basis is the rediscovery of the glorious Tradition of the Catholic Church: of the intellect, of the arts, of liturgy and above all depth of faith. These young Catholics have come back to the Church not because they are now married and have to have their children baptized. They are coming back because they have seen an alternative to the banal post-Vatican II way of worshipping God, modeled on a Brady Bunch culture that has no relevance today.  These young men and women have found meaning in what Pope Benedict called the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, a convoluted phrase  (that fools no one) for the Traditional Roman Mass.  These young people, both laity and priests, are rediscovering the Tradition of the Church, not in some merely aesthetic sense but at the level of faith, a faith that is relevant to the world in which they now live.  And the Church for the most part ignores this real flowering, for it goes against the mantra of “whatever happens in the Church is the will of God.” For the Catholic Church to admit a serious mistake by those who are “in charge” of the Church is very difficult, perhaps impossible.  But it is not impossible to let go of wrong turns in the road and to embrace once again that which is at the heart of Catholicism, worship of God in Spirit and in Truth in the Cross of Jesus Christ. 

This turn to the Tradition of the Church is not at all conservative in a normal understanding of that term.  It is rather a rediscovery of that which is at the heart of the Catholic faith, that is, in George Weigel’s words, “Catholicism in full”. 

Father Richard Gennaro Cipolla

Pity the poor parish! Msgr. George A. Kelly devoted an entire book to the development of this institution, focusing on the church of St. John the Evangelist in New York City. 1) By 1973 Msgr. Kelly (who, appropriately enough for our age, is already listed as “Professor in Contemporary Catholic Problems”) had to record a decades-long decline of this parish’s membership. Those numbers of course now look good by 2020 standards. And the irony is that Msgr. Kelly himself, as pastor of St. John’s, was instrumental in completing the process of disrupting the parish community, by razing the old parish church and substituting a glorified hotel lobby in an undistinguished high rise. Since that time in New York City and throughout the United States an almost endless series of parishes have followed St. John the Evangelist into restructuring or oblivion.

In Germany things have reached an even more extreme state. In much of that country religious practice and new vocations verge on the nonexistent. The response of at least two dioceses – Trier and Freiburg – has been, in essence, to abolish the parish: substituting a few dozen larger groupings for hundreds of historical parishes in these traditionally Catholic regions (in Freiburg’s case, 1,000 old parishes). And in Trier it was further planned that each of these new units would be jointly led by a priest and a layman (woman).

After a recent Vatican attempt to rein in these developments was met with defiance, the Congregation of the Clergy issued last Monday the Instruction The pastoral conversion of the Parish community in the service of the evangelising mission of the Church. 2) Although prefaced by long paragraphs of Vatican II – speak ( “creativity,” “the Parish is called upon to read the signs of the times”) the actual operative provisions and the factual assumptions they reflect are sobering: the dearth of vocations, the need to close parishes, the search for alternatives to maintain ministries once exercised by priests etc. The Instuction’s basic message is to reconfirm the role of the parish and of the pastor in canon law and also, in theology, of the unique status of the priest. Further, the closing of a parish must be in accord with canon law and be determined individually with reference to the facts of the specific parish (no summary, diocese-wide restructuring is permitted). And please bear in mind these provisions are a reaction not to a crisis of some missionary territory (like the infamous “Amazonia“) but to catastrophic developments in the heart of formerly Catholic Europe.

The reaction of German Church has been apoplectic. German Church’s internet site has swarmed since Monday with articles by priests, scholars, laymen and bishops denouncing the new Instruction.3) Only a handful of bishops have (publicly) swum against the tide. It’s quite a change from their recent adulation of Pope Francis’s Vatican – and demonstrates that the fear that the “Amazonian” concepts would promptly be implemented in Germany was all too well founded.

The new Instruction, strangely enough, has not yet received much attention in the United States. I think, however, everyone working to save traditional parish life – or even his parish’s very existence – should give it a close read. For the concepts actually on the point of implementation in Germany have been at least toyed with here. For example, Cardinal Dolan has written how he could envisage a reform whereby the property of all Archdiocesan parishes would be transferred to the Archdiocese itself. Combined with the current strict enforcement of term limits for pastors, such a centralization of assets would in effect reduce all New York parishes to chaplaincies. The Instruction would seem to put at least a brake on the realization of such ideas.

Regarding the Instructions’s rejection of laymen exercising contol, jointly with a priest or otherwise, of parishes, since 2018 in the Bridgeport diocese one parish (St. Anthony’s in Fairfield) has been entrusted to the “decision-making authority” of a laywoman, while the clergy involved (Jesuits, not surprisingly) act as providers of “religious services.”

Eleanor Sauers has been involved with St. Anthony of Padua Church since 2002 as the director of religious education and as a pastoral minister. As of Jan. 1, she will become the parish leader, the first woman in the Diocese of Bridgeport to serve as such…. Officially, Sauers will be the parish life coordinator at St. Anthony of Padua, meaning she will oversee the daily administration of the parish while a team of priests will fulfill its sacramental needs, such as celebrating Mass. 4)

Eleanor Sauers’s role, however, would seem to directly conflict with the spirit and the letter of the recent Instruction, e.g.:

96. In that vein, it is the responsibility, first of all, of the diocesan Bishop and, as far as it pertains to him, the Parish Priest, to see that the appointments of deacons, religious and laity that have roles of responsibility in the Parish, are not designated as “pastor”, “co-pastor”, “chaplain”, “moderator”, “coordinator”, “Parish manager”, or other similar terms^[141] reserved by law to priests,^[142] inasmuch as they have a direct correlation to the ministerial profile of priests

In referring to the aforementioned faithful and deacons, it is likewise illegitimate, and not in conformity with their vocational identity, to use expressions such as “entrust the pastoral care of a parish”, “preside over the parish community”, and other similar phrases, that pertain to the distinct sacerdotal ministry of a Parish Priest.

For example, the terms “Deacon Cooperator” or “Coordinator of (a particular sector of pastoral care)”, “Pastoral Cooperator” or “Pastoral Associate or Assistant” seem to be more appropriate. 5)

The contrast of the Instruction with recent “Amazonian” synod is striking – at a very minimum it shows growing confusion and conflict within the Vatican. Will it stand up to the growing German resistance? I do not know – but clearly here, as in several other areas, Pope Francis’s progressive steamroller seems to have encountered unanticipated diffculties.

1. Kelly, Msgr George A. Kelly, The Parish: As seen from the Church of St. John the Evangelist New York City 1840-1973 (1973 St. John’s University, New York). Msgr. Kelly was the author of The Battle for the American Church, a foundational text of conservative Catholicism.
2. SOURCE
3. Katholisch.de
4. “Woman appointed to lead Fairfield Church“, Fairfield Citizen, 12/13/2018. See also “Connecticut bishop appoints laywoman to lead parish”, Crux 12/10/2018
5. See footnote 2 above.

The Lamp: A Catholic Journal of Literature, Science, the Fine Arts, Etc.

Website.

Over the transom comes the latest attempt to establish a serious “Catholic journal.” We have covered here and there in this blog the previous ventures from the early 1970’s onward, after the demise of Triumph magazine.1) The most recent iteration was the US edition of the Catholic Herald, launched with great fanfare in late 2018. The aim was obviously to create a Catholic “big tent” publication – “orthodox” yet “inclusive” – but also offering incisive reporting and commentary on the state of the Church. Things fell apart from the very start as one “Catholic” would-be contributor first denounced the magazine’s management for alleged contacts with Steve Bannon and then indicted one of the magazine’s own writers for “antisemitism” – other contributors of course felt compelled to join the latter attack ( Taki, the gentleman in question, has contributed more good writing over the years than all of them put together). Next, Damian Thompson, the UK editor largely responsible for the recent rise in visibility of the Herald, was out the door, followed by the US editors (I gather Thompson’s caustic commentary on the current state of the Church did not endear him to the ecclesiastical establishment). The US edition folded (replaced by an online presence) and even the UK parent underwent a drastic crisis. What survives in hardcopy is a UK publication featuring admonitions to piety, harmless articles on the past glories of “Catholic culture'” and otherwise nothing that would give offense to the Catholic powers that be.

Into the resulting gap comes The Lamp. Its focus is cultural commentary – in particular, consideration of literary topics – rather than reporting on current events. We applaud the attempt to avoid polemics and to explore the “Catholic” aspects of life in all their many manifestations. The editor – at least as a matter of intellectual conviction – is laboring under no illusions regarding either the dire situation of the United States and of the Church today, or of his magazine’s capacity to singlehandedly save the day. That’s refreshingly realistic. We note further in places a curious Germanophile flavor of this publication. A poem of Goethe introduces the first issue; there is a “Feuilleton” section and a final piece, “Pestsäulen,”on a visit to Vienna. Most intriguingly of all, William Marshner – presumably he of the original Triumph team – is listed as “Kapellmeister“!

I regret to report, however, that the first issue falls short of the editors’ ambitions and would-be Catholic radicalism. I frankly didn’t find most of the contributions provocative, compelling or stimulating reading. They generally rambled over assorted uninteresting topics – for example, a lengthy review of a new translation of Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea(s) which gives the reader no idea why John Senior included it among his “Thousand Good Books.” More modest yet more sucessful is P.J. Smith’s informative story of the beginnings of one Midwestern parish. Michael Hamill expounds to us how popes (at least more recent ones) are never wrong and when problems crop up it’s because the hierarchy, the clergy and the elites failed to support them. Amoris Laetitia? “If the pope wants me to take [that civilly remarried divorcees should receive holy communion] seriously, though, he is going to have to say it.” J.D. Vance tells us how, as a “conservative Catholic” writer defended his criticism of the pope, said gentleman was abruptly silenced when “a wine glass seemed to leap from a stable place behind the bar and crashed on the floor in front of us.” Thus Pope Francis is triumphantly vindicated.

I was also struck by a certain artificiality of style. “We were drinking white wine spritzers at a restaurant run by Jesuits” writes Susannah Black of a recent visit to Vienna. In view of the current state of the Church – especially in that city – it’s like enjoying sherry with the vicar in the rectory while the parish church burns down. For its hard to read of such things when in our country Catholic churches are (literally) burning, statues of Catholic saints are being smashed and the most violent anti-Christian rhetoric is endorsed by the secular media and educational powers. Here and abroad, governments freely order churches closed and regulate and even prohibit the administration of the sacraments. Unresolved sexual and financial scandals continue to percolate. Both the Vatican and the local hierarchies seem incapable of exercising leadership. And while all this is going on, the number of practicing Catholics, of priests and religious, of schools and parishes, continues to plummet. Yes, there is much to write about today – but a Catholic can hardly comment on these things dispassionately.

In the online introduction to the new journal the editor claims kinship with the above-mentioned Triumph magazine. But Triumph was virtually the polar opposite of The Lamp both in style and substance. At a time of upheaval much like our own, Triumph was forceful in its language and confronted directly the major issues of state and Church, regardless of the popularity of the views it expressed. The contributors to Triumph displayed passionate intensity and a willingness to take clear and even radical political positions. Not that everything they said was right or that all of their practical policy initiatives were sound. Yet their analysis of our age has stood the test of time far better than that of the establishment Catholic journals – or of their secular equivalents.

I hope these comments don’t discourage the reader from giving The Lamp a try. A good Catholc journal is so desperately needed! And the editors’ vision and statement of principles are admirable. But in this case more focus, more passion and more engagement with the reality exploding about us will do the publication good.

1. Of course all through these decades there have been Commonweal, America and the National Catholic Reporter. For decades these have been the most ‘Catholic” magazines in terms of the support of the ecclesiastical establishment , while their substance has been the least “Catholic” – derived as it is almost exclusively from the secular “liberal” media. In the distant past that was not always the case: Commonweal published Thomas Molnar.