On February 1 a remarkable concert took place at St. Mary’s church in Norwalk CT. Performers from the Juilliard school presented 17th century music: first of Italy, then of Bohemia (at the time part of the Holy Roman Empire). Charles Weaver, the music director at St. Mary’s and a teacher at the Juilliard, led the concert and performed on the theorbo and guitar. The other performers were mainly his students:

Marisa Karchin and Elizabeth Weaver, sopranos

Lydia Becker and Ryan Cheng, baroque violins

Nathan Francisco, baroque cello

Amanda Beranek, triple harp

Highlight of the evening was a performance of the Loutna Česká (the Czech Lute) composed in 1653 by Adam Michna. It is an early song cycle of religious poetry – MIchna both wrote the text and composed the music. Only recently have all parts of the score been rediscovered. This is the second performance of the work in its restored form in the United States. It was performed in the Czech language.

Loutna Česká is an extraodinary work of baroque poetry, audacious in its bold images. The text was matched by the complexity of the music. Now Adam Michna was Catholic, and worked with the Jesuits in restoring Catholicism in Bohemia, Let us remember that in 1648, five years before the Loutna Česká appeared, the horrific Thirty Years’ War had ended. It had begun and ended in Bohemia, devastating much of the country. Prague was the capital of lands of the Bohemian crown (which included more than just Bohemia) and functioned as a kind of subordinate capital of the Habsburg domains, most of which were in turn a part of the Holy Roman Empire. Thanks to the efforts of Michna and others, the glorious age of the Bohemian Baroque -in art, architecture and music – began in those years of recovery from the trials of war. We can see its world-famous legacy even today in Prague and elsewhere in Czechia.

SAVE MOST HOLY REDEEMER invites you to a documentary screening with a talk by the director/producer, other speakers, and a panel discussion.

This event will take place at Maryhouse, 55 East 3rd Street, New York, NY on Saturday Feb. 21 from 6 to 8 pm.

Released in 2017, Foreclosing on Faith documents dramatic struggles that were then taking place in Cleveland, Boston, and New York which pitted faithful Catholics against bishops over church closures.

The event will include a screening of Foreclosing on Faith and a talk by the film’s co-producer and co-director, Viktoria Somogyi. Another speaker will be Brody Hale, a lawyer who has for more than a decade made it his personal mission to help Catholics fighting to keep their churches from being shuttered, sold, and demolished or put to profane use.

There will be a panel discussion and a question-answer opportunity.

Follow this link for more information about this event and to reserve a spot.

SAVE MOST HOLY REDEEMER is a group of parishioners and friends of Most Holy Redeemer Church on 3rd Street between Avenues A and B in the East Village of Manhattan. In August of 2025, we were told that our beautiful, 174-year old church was being closed. With the guidance of our lawyer, Brody Hale, we have petitioned Rome for redress. We are a small but dedicated group of people who are volunteering our time to save our church. For more information about Most Holy Redeemer Church and to sign our open letter to the cardinal, click here.

The funeral of Monsignor Joseph Pekar will be held at Saints Cyril and Methodius on Tuesday, February 10th at 11 a.m. This will be a Solemn Requiem Mass in the presence of Bishop Caggiano.

Burial will follow at Saint Michael’s Cemetery in Stratford. In keeping with Monsignor’s wishes, there will not be a visitation.

Following the burial, you are invited back to church for a reception in the church hall. If you will be attending please contact the church office by Friday (stscyrilandmethodius@institute-christ-king.org) so that we can get an accurate count. If you are able to help with the reception, volunteers are welcome!

A Solemn Mass was offered at Noon yesterday for the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin at St. Mary Church Norwalk, for the Regina Pacis Academy community.

(Above) Bernini’s grandiose tomb of Pope Alexander VII in St. Peter’s, Rome (1670-77). The image of the praying pontiff is surrounded by representations of the virtues and attributes that should characterize a pope: charity, truth, justice and prudence. Reaching up from below is death brandishing his hourglass – a stark reminder of reality.

1. Pope Leo XIV

After more than eight months, a degree of clarity has emerged regarding the personality and intentions of Pope Leo XIV.

In terms of style,  Pope Leo breaks with his predecessor in many respects. Instead of Pope Francis’s confrontational, vindictive personality, Pope Leo has striven to project an image of calm and serenity. Instead of dictatorial centralization of all authority in the pope, Leo has at least held out the possibility of a more consultative style of leadership. Leo’s discourse also frequently reverts to traditional Catholic concepts. Pope Leo has reached out to those who, under Francis,  had been marginalized or worse.  Selected elements of papal and liturgical tradition have been restored – for example, the announced return of the pope to the Vatican apartments. Some administrative measures of Pope Francis have been reversed and some of that pope’s lower-level enforcers have been reassigned.  

Yet, the elements of continuity with the prior pontificate are even stronger. Leo has retained in office almost all the main figures of the era of Pope Francis.  Men such as Fernandez, Roche and Parolin continue to assert their progressive theological, liturgical, and political ideas as before. The pope’s first encyclical was dominated by the thought of Francis. The pope’s first consistory was guided by leading associates of Pope Francis. The pope‘s own rhetoric at times can be distinctly Bergoglian in character.  The same can be said of the style of his media interactions. The pope’s appointments to episcopal and Vatican positions have been reliably center-left or left.

Thus,  two tendencies coexist in the early pontificate of Leo:  (a) a desire for unity within the Church, involving more or less subtle abandonment or adjustment of aspects of his predecessor’s leadership style; and (b) a commitment to the substantive elements of the papacy of Pope Francis. Yet Leo is not necessarily merely repackaging of the pontificate of Pope Francis – continuing the Bergoglian administration, but in a kinder, gentler way. Pope Francis was not just a “dictator pope,” but an almost fanatical ideologue as well. His leadership style reflected the substance of his beliefs. With Pope Leo, there is a disconnect between much of the outer form (which a friend of mine characterized as “Ratzingerian”) and the continuing Bergoglian content (and personnel). The result of this divergence will be ongoing uncertainty as to how Pope Leo  will decide any particular issue. 

Moreover, although we may have attained some clarity regarding Pope Leo’s personality, attitude to Church politics and “ideology,” there’s much more to being a pope than that.  In earlier ages,  men did not see the pope as a charismatic “religious genius”( put pejoratively, a guru or oracle). The Christian people hoped that each pope possessed the virtues necessary to govern the Church (and in those times the Church’s secular domains as well). Whether Pope Leo has these virtues is something we still do not know.

First, If Leo is to govern, he must be able to perceive reality. I would submit that a career in the higher administration of the Catholic Church, which is where Leo spent more than half his ecclesiastical career, is extremely ill suited to obtaining an objective view of the world. Leaders of the Church as a rule live in a bubble. They discourse among themselves in a stylized ecclesiastical cant. The advisors they do consult – the members of the religious orders, the Catholic “scholars” and “journalists,” the friendly secular and Catholic media – speak to them basically in  the same language.  For Leo to be effective as a governor of the Church, he will have to step outside the fantasy world of the Catholic hierarchy.  The fact that Leo has been speaking with various people who had been ostracized by Francis – among them, Cardinals Zen, Mueller, and Burke – indicates that there’s at least the possibility of his hearing other views.

Second,  knowledge, once gained, has to be transformed into deeds. To do this, a ruler must exercise the virtues associated with leading and governing. Does Pope Leo have good judgment? Can he make decisions, especially between overtly antagonistic forces? Does Leo have insight into human nature – can he judge the personalities and merits of those he works with –  and appoints? Does he have the ability to stand up to criticism, especially from the secular media and members of the Vatican clique? All of Leo’s predecessors since 1958 have been deficient in some or all of these characteristics.

Pope Leo seems to want to restore order and unity to the Church. But I fear that Leo’s current approach will lead not to the pacification of the Church, but to an unending series of clashes. Such was the fate of the so-called “restoration” of John Paul II’s papacy – in its actual practice, that is, as opposed to the image that the pope presented to the media.  For Pope John Paul II sought to conserve the substance of the Vatican II, while stabilizing the Church and reemphasizing compliance, at least on paper, with the requirements of Christian morality. But such an essentially political approach, which seeks primarily to establish a truce among competing interests, necessarily leaves underlying problems in place. Indeed, such a policy almost demands the concealment of real issues.

In contrast with John Paul II,  Pope Leo will not have much time before he has to face outright confrontations between the antagonistic forces within the Church. For progressive Catholicism, whose hegemony over the Church was consolidated by Pope Francis, under no circumstances will retreat into the background. These forces are aggressive and feel empowered to push their agenda forward. Although still somewhat unsure about the exact character of Leo, they seek to portray him as a sympathizer with their own cause.

We already have seen opening skirmishes in the emerging struggle. Cardinal Cupich, who is reported to have friendly relations with Leo, last year sought to give a “lifetime achievement” award to Senator Dick Durbin. Given Durbin’s record on abortion, that constituted a calculated slap in the face of the pro-life movement. It was reported that this act was going to be formally disavowed by the USCCB (according to The Pillar, with the knowledge  of the Vatican). At the end, the honoree withdrew himself from consideration for the award, obviously as a negotiated deal to avoid an embarrassing public clash. But afterwards,  Pope Leo spoke favorably of the policies of both Cupich and Durbin. That was followed by Leo bestowing on Cupich a mainly ceremonial honor. Thus, this confrontation ended in something like a draw. 

We might say the same of the outcome of the commission on the female diaconate. The commission voted against  the ordination of women as deacons  – but supported further study of the matter. This is at least the second Vatican panel on female deacons to reach a negative result – to say nothing of prior pronouncements by the Church . Yet the issue remains unresolved. And the strident advocacy for female deacons by senior representatives of the establishment Church has not at all diminished.  

Here are some other major controversies as to which action has been deferred up till now:

The German synodal path is just now reaching a preliminary conclusion, leading to a proposed “synodal conference.” Will Pope Leo acquiesce in these decisions? Some “conservative” German bishops already have withdrawn from the deliberations.

The question of the Traditional Mass remains completely up in the air. Indeed, we hear today (2/2/2026) that the FSSPX has decided to ordain additional bishops, after an unsatisfactory “dialogue” with Rome over the last months. That move clearly shows their assessment of Pope Leo.  He seems to have been unwilling or unable to negotiate regarding this step, which could well return the FSSPX to the situation after 1988.

Conflicts involving Opus Dei continue concerning the ownership of their main shrine in Spain, and the implementation of Pope Francis’s drastic restructuring of the “Work.” The same holds true of measures Pope Francis took against the Communion and Liberation movement in Italy or the visitation that was ordered for the Fraternity of Saint Peter.

The problem of sexual abuse continues to fester; in particular,  the case of one of the most notorious examples, Fr. Marko Rupnik, remains unresolved.

The situation of the Church in China is gravely unsatisfactory.

A problem at the highest level is the budgetary crisis at the Vatican itself, a crisis Pope Leo doesn’t want to acknowledge.  

Finally, we have the endless, ongoing  “garden variety” problems of the Church: the decrease in the practice and knowledge of the faith; the decrease in ordinations and commitments to religious life;  the decrease of Catholic parishes, schools, monasteries and institutions of higher learning.

All of this is putting the institutional Church under extreme stress. I believe Leo does wish to restore peace and unity to the Church. Yet on all of the above matters, his decisions – or failure to decide –  will leave an important party dissatisfied. And if that important party is on the left or in the clerical establishment, in or outside of the Vatican, it will be able in short order to bring the secular media into action on its side. Pope Benedict experienced the consequences of such media campaigns – both during and after his papacy.  Leo’s reign may well be fraught with risk, tension and turmoil. 

On Friday, January 30, Msgr. Joseph Pekar departed this world. He had served as the pastor of Saints Cyril and Methodius parish  in Bridgeport CT between 1971 and 2017. This parish was founded in 1905 for Slovak immigrants.  By the time of Msgr. Pekar’s pastorate, the original congregation was leaving the neighborhood. For decades Msgr. Pekar soldiered on in the midst of surroundings of fearful, almost surrealistic urban decline. Yet the parish survived. Thanks to Msgr. Pekar, the beautiful decoration and furnishings of this church were preserved intact. In the 1990s the Traditional Latin Mass returned. What had been thought to be a dying parish revived!  As the story of Saints Cyril and Methodius demonstrates, when a parish is losing its original parishioners,  the immediate response should never be consolidation and closing. 

When the time came for Msgr. Pekar to retire in 2017,  he was able to hand his parish over to the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest.  Since then, Saints Cyril and Methodius has flourished as a center for the beautiful celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass in the Bridgeport diocese. Its young congregation continues to grow. 

We have seen it again and again –  the seemingly quixotic actions of individual priests and laity,  in very dark times and often in obscure or endangered chapels or parishes, preserved the forms of Catholic tradition in art and music – and even the Traditional Mass itself. Later these early initiatives often blossomed into flourishing institutions. The parish of Saints Cyril and Methodius and all Traditionalist Catholics of Connecticut are grateful to Msgr. Pekar for leading and preserving this parish through so many challenging decades to its current success.

Canon Francis X. Altiere, current pastor of Saints Cyril and Methodius had this to say about the circumstances of Msgr. Pekar’s death in email to parishioners, dated January 30th:

“Having just now returned from Stamford Hospital with our parish trustee T.R. Rowe for the purpose of visiting Monsignor Pekar, I am writing with sadness to share with you the news that Monsignor has now been called into eternity. He had been anointed within the last few days and received visits from several longstanding parishioners; he had passed away not long before we arrived today, and so I recited the prayers for the commendation of a soul and blessed the body.

Better than anything I could say, Bishop’s Caggiano’s words upon learning of Monsignor Pekar’s death are the perfect summation of his legacy: “Monsignor was a wonderful priest who was committed to serve his people during times of great challenge for Bridgeport. He remained with his people with little regard for his own safety. It was heroic service.””

Beginning Sunday, February 8th, Father John Perricone will begin celebrating the Traditional Latin Mass at Holy Trinity, 34 Maple Avenue in Hackensack on Sundays at 12:30 PM. He will also celebrate a Latin Mass at Holy Trinity for the Feast of the Presentation, February 2, 2026,  at 7:00 PM.

The last regularly scheduled Mass that Fr. Perricone will be celebrating at Our Lady of Sorrows in Jersey City will be on Sunday, February 1, 2026 at 9 am. There will be a festive convivium honoring Fr. Perricone after the Mass. 

After this Mass,  the Latin Mass Community of Jersey City will continue at the same place and the same time–Our Lady of Sorrows at 9 am. There will be  with a rotation of priests as had been the case before Fr. Perricone became the principal priest. Music will continue to be provided by Cantantes in Cordibus under the direction of Simone Ferraresi.