Tomorrow, Wednesday March 25, is the Feast of the Annunciation. The following churches have traditional Masses for the feast:

St. Mary Church, Norwalk, CT, 6 pm low Mass

Georgetown Oratory of the Sacred Heart, Redding, CT, 6 pm, Missa Cantata

Sts. Cyril and Methodius Oratory, Bridgeport, 7:45 am

St. Patrick Oratory, Waterbury, 12 noon

Transfiguration Church, 29 Mott Street, New York, NY, 7 pm Missa Cantata featuring Byrd’s Mass for Four Voices.

Holy Innocents, New York, NY 6 pm

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Harlem, 7 pm Solemn Mass

St. Josaphat Oratory, Bayside, Queens, 7 pm high Mass (Confessions 6:15 -6:45)

Notre Dame Church, New Hyde Park, NY, 7 pm Missa Cantata

St. Paul Church, Yonkers, NY, 12 noon

Annunciation Church, Crestwood, NY, 6:30 pm Solemn Mass in the upper church for patronal feast

St. Mary’s/ St. Andrew’s Church, Ellenville, NY 7 pm

Our Lady of Sorrows, Jersey City, Missa Cantata, 6 pm

Les Sept Sacrements : d’Hier à Aujourd’hui

(A brief critical examination of the New Rituals)

Fr. Claude Barthe

Preface by Bishop Athanasius Schneider

(Contretemps, Versailles, 2025)

98 pp. (in French)

Father Claude Barthe always can be relied on for outstanding contributions to the self-understanding of the traditionalist cause. The battle over Catholic tradition has up till now focused primarily on the celebration of the Traditional Mass (the Eucharist). Father Barthe points out, however,  that there are six other sacraments. In this short, succinct book,  Fr. Barthe examines each of the sacraments of the Church as it is administered in the Novus Ordo.

The traditional Roman liturgy, writes Fr. Barthe, is a coherent whole. The seven sacraments in the traditional rite mutually reinforce each other and embody the same theology.  But the sacraments of the Novus Ordo also represent a unified whole. Fr. Barthe’s thesis is that the flaws inherent in the Novus Ordo Mass – which traditionalists have described and endlessly discussed – are present in varying degrees in each of the other sacraments as well. Fr. Barthe examines how a different theology produces different liturgical forms. He then inquires how successful the sacramental forms of the Novus Ordo have been in preserving the meaning of the sacraments  and transmitting the Christian Faith. Indeed, have the post-Vatican II changes even affected these sacraments’ viability?`

To start with baptism, Fr. Barthe notes the new form is distinctly longer than the older. A great deal of the time is given to talk: the ceremony includes a liturgy of the word, readings and a virtual homily. The message that is delivered, however,  is weaker on at least one point – the struggle against the demon which characterizes so strongly the traditional form is blurred,  notably by the disappearance of the exorcisms, properly so-called, and other rites having the value of an exorcism.  Instead of a struggle against the devil the emphasis is on the joyful welcome of the new Christian to the community The entire ceremony is less sacred –  the new form of baptism is preceded by a formula of welcome which reminds one of a secular meeting. The numerous variations that are possible also have an a-ritualistic effect.

Regarding the sacrament of penance, the most noteworthy fact is its virtual disappearance in parts of the world, notably in Fr. Barthe’s France. A disappearance which contrasts with reception of communion by almost everyone attending a Novus Ordo Mass. Although the words of absolution are the same as in the old rite – or largely so – the surrounding prayers have been changed, with, as always, the addition of a variety of choices.  The emphasis is not on judgment, satisfaction for sin, and penance, but on  dialogue. Indeed, the suggested norms in France would seem to presuppose, by reason of their length,  a drastically reduced number of penitents.  

Extreme unction (the “Anointing of the Sick”) is another endangered sacrament.  The anointing of the sick in its new form has been “reinvented”  – Fr. Barthe says “devalued.” As in the new rite of baptism, the specific prayers against Satan and that the sick individual may avoid hell are gone.  On extreme unction,  Fr. Barthe quotes Guillaume Guchet as follows:

[Satan] is the one most repressed by the conciliar reform (he has also, along with the exorcisms, vanished from baptism).  It’s as if, at the same time that his kingdom (hell) has been discretely taken away from him,  the devil also has been the victim of an operation of rampant demythologization which doesn’t say its name.  (p.64)

These issues raised by the new rite of the anointing of the sick, Fr. Barthe continues, are in the context of changes made to the funeral rites,  which also weaken the witness of the lex orandi regarding the particular judgment, purgatory and the risk of damnation. This is accentuated by banning from the liturgy all signs of sorrow, speaking of the deceased as if he were already in heaven, the use of inappropriate music, etc.

These three sacraments may give the reader an idea of the approach of Fr. Barthe. He reviews the changes to the text and rubrics of the sacraments. As a rule, these eliminate or tone down dramatic references to evil and spiritual struggle. The texts are more verbose and provide numerous options. Fr. Barthe states makes this disturbing conclusion: “The entire problem of the new lex orandi [is that]: what is clear is replaced by the vague; what is true by the blurred. “

Then thereis is also the “pastoral” atmosphere in which the Novus Ordo sacraments are celebrated. If every sacrament is presented as a joyful event between a person and the community,  or, in matrimony, two people, the rituals are denatured. They resemble more and more purely secular social exercises. And, especially in Europe, the interest of the dechristianized populations for such rituals is rapidly decreasing. (See, for example,  the  2025 statistics for Germany.)

Fr. Barthe recommends that traditionalists, to the extent possible, should practice only the traditional forms of the sacraments. As a persecuted minority, it is extremely dangerous for them to enter into negotiations or compromises regarding their principles. (Under the new pope, such tactics are once again being advocated in certain circles). And the idea of celebrating the Novus Ordo sacraments in Latin is an illusion because it is the content, not the language,  of the New Rite that is the problem. 

Last year the Seven Sacraments stirred up a storm among certain groups in France that support the TLM but, in their reverence for ecclesiastical authority, correspond more to the Catholic conservatives here.  Why is this?  I don’t think Fr. Barthe makes any unusual or incendiary points beyond those raised in prior discussions on the TLM. Is it his forthright presentation of the Traditional liturgy and the Novus Ordo as two distinct, incompatible worlds?   Is it his implicit denial  of “validity” and “authority” as the exclusive interpretative keys to interpreting liturgy?   Is it his insistence on the unity of the seven sacraments and that the traditionalist should seek them all rather than just the “Latin Mass”? The Seven Sacraments is an important book that every traditionalist should read. I understand that Os Justi publishers will be issuing an English translation later this year.

The Facade of Notre Dame seen later in the morning, after our visit.

How has the restoration of the cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris fared? In February we made a visit to find out. By arriving at opening time, we mostly avoided standing in line. Just an hour or so later, a queue wound endlessly all around the square in front of the cathedral. Certainly, touristic interest is there!

Outside, the cathedral has been beautifully restored. The facades are in the best condition I have ever seen.  The famous spire has returned to its place. A substantial amount of work on the exterior still needs to be completed.  

Inside,  the restoration after the 2019 fire  has given the interior a bright, almost whitewashed look. I suppose this is intended to recreate the appearance of the cathedral in the 12^th and 13^th centuries  –  at the time of its construction. The problem is that many centuries have elapsed since then! And the effects are magnified by the bright lighting installed  now. (We have earlier discussed similar restoration initiatives  – or deformations – in New York at St. Patrick’s cathedral.

Masses of tourists proceed through the aisles; one is forced to move in one direction. The noise level is deafening. The cathedral tries ineffectually to combat this by broadcasting now and then a recording starting with ”shhhhh….”. This only seems to elevate the noise level. Of all these visitors, we could see no more than a handful who actually prayed.

 It is all quite disconcerting. By way of comparison, the much smaller basilica of Sacre Coeur on Montmartre is also attracting hordes of tourists nowadays, yet a substantial number of people  are at prayer, and that helps to restrain the noise level and preserves some sense of the sacred. 

The choir  of Nore Dame has been restored with new,  modernistic furnishings. By “modernistic” I mean a style  that could have been employed around 1970. From it one gets the sense that the Catholic Church is an institution that has run out of ideas, that it can only repeat the formulas of fifty or sixty years ago.  

The side chapels have lost their status as places for the celebration of the mass. The altars are bare. Along  the nave, the chapels have been renamed according to a new, specific program: one side has the names  of Old Testament prophets, Of course, like all ideological projects of the Conciliar Church, this revision of the chapels ignores the context. For nobody in the hordes pressing through can stop to absorb the new theological program. In some chapels baroque paintings  – historically associated with Notre Dame but not necessarily of the highest  quality – are on display  with museum-like lighting and settings.

At least for us, a visit to Notre Dame, because of the lighting, the effects of the cleaning, the noise, the turbulence and the exclusive focus on tourism –  is no longer a religious event. The contrast with the cathedral even in 2017 – about the time of my last visit to Notre Dame – is striking. For prayer and to reflect on the spirit of Gothic architecture, the visitor should consider other cathedrals in France.

(Above) The new arrangement of the choir;(below) the new altar. In the distance one perceives a red sanctuary light on top of the old high altar (now serving as a place for reserving the Blessed Sacrament?)

(Above) More tourists than faithful are here. The sculptural group is from the the time of Louis XIV.

In the ambulatory. (Above) The “space-age” reliquary of the Crown of Thorns, brought to Paris by St. Louis. (We could not see the relic.) (Below) A favorite habit of the “Conciliar Church”: a museum-like display of Eastern icons. Those praying in these chapels, however, were few and far between.

(Above) The cleaned walls and columns are now brightly illuminated.

(Above) The side chapels are no longer used as such. The former altars are bare. In some of them, baroque paintings are displayed which were gifts of Parisian guilds in the 17th and 18th centuries. All is brightly illuminated as if in a museum.

Tourism is big business here! (One sees similar machines inside St. Patrick’s, NY.)

Some things are unchanged or have been expertly restored. (Above) A mid-14th century Madonna. A sign reads “placed in front of this pillar in 1855 and since prayed as ‘Notre Dame de Paris’ “(sic). (Below) one of the great rose windows dating to the reign of St. Louis.

(Above and below) Significant work on the exterior is still going on.

Durch Habsburgs Lande

Ronald Friedrich Schwarzer

Second, expanded Edition

2025 Karolinger Verlag (Vienna, Leipzig)

155 pp.

(in German)

In the foreword to Through the Lands of Habsburg Lothar Höbelt describes the author, Ronald Friedrich Schwarzer, as a well-known “character”  in Vienna. Ronald Schwarzer, our author, was born in 1965 – just outside “Boomer land.” In his “day job,” he is involved in the management of an old, established Viennese jewelry firm. In that regard,  he resembles that leading Catholic traditionalist of New York, unfortunately deceased,  Alex Sepkus. 

Schwarzer’s book, combining history, travel, politics, art and religion,  reminds me too of the late Arkady Nebolsine of New York – like Schwarzer, also a “character.” The world views of the two men are strongly aligned – monarchist, proud of their heritage, and traditionalist in religion and culture – even if their specific interests differ. Arkady Nebolsine revered the great traditions of Russia in art, literature and music,  the Russian empire and people and especially the Orthodox church. Schwarzer is devoted to the House of Habsburg,  the Austrian people and culture and the (traditional) Catholic faith. In Through the Lands of Habsburg, moreover, he covers half of Europe in addition to territories within the pre–1918 Austrian Empire

For, starting out in the 12^th-13^th centuries from what is now Switzerland,  the Habsburg family eventually reigned over, at one time or another, almost all of Western and Central Europe except for France and Scandinavia. Starting in the 13^th Century until 1806 the Habsburgs provided (with some significant interruptions) the Holy Roman Emperors.  The Habsburgs reigned until 1700 over the vast Spanish domains in Europe, but also in the Americas, Asia and Africa.  Through this connection Schwarzer is able to include in his book Portugal, which was only Habsburg between 1580 and 1640. A further extraordinary fact –  although Schwarzer doesn’t mention it – is that Philip II of Spain was recognized as king of England between 1554 and 1558 by reason of his marriage to Mary I.

The last phase of Habsburg rule was the new “Austrian Empire” after 1804/06. It was, in a certain sense, as extraordinary as its predecessors: what of an empire that by 1847 ruled Vienna, Prague and Salzburg; Milan and Venice in Italy; Cracow and Lemberg (Lvov) from the former Polish kingdom; Budapest and Dubrovnik further south and east? It was a dazzling collection, under one ruler, of many of the great cultural centers of European history!  Schwarzer’s book is, however, most specific and detailed when the covers those areas in or adjacent to today’s Austria.

Schwarzer comes to grips with his almost unlimited subject matter by focusing one or more features of each city or landscape of which the writes.  It can be a church, a painting, a sculpture, the memory of a historical event or the entire current population of a locality. Or it can even be an individual. Schwarzer tells us of Polyxena von Lobkowicz of Prague. It was she who rescued the Catholic representatives of the emperor after they had been “defenestrated” by the Protestant rebels – an event which ignited the Thirty Years’  War. And it was she who gave the  statue of the Infant of Prague to the church of Our Lady of Victory, where it still resides.

Schwarzer covers large, famous cities like Prague, Milan or Venice but also isolated towns, country churches and (formerly) out-of-the-way valleys. He has a particular fondness for the former resort towns of the 19^th century Austrian empire. This is an opportunity for him to describe the lifestyles and tell us the gossip of that era. For, regrettably, as the 19th century progressed and especially as the fateful year 1914 approached the number of scandals in the imperial house increased. It was but one aspect of the decline of the Austrian state and the Habsburg monarchy. 

Schwarzer is a clear and forthright writer. He is not afraid to violate the taboos governing the current German- speaking  world. For the intellectual culture of Germany and Austria is stifled  by conformism, Denkverbote and thought crimes. So, Schwarzer describes the trashing of formerly German neighborhoods of Slovakia by their new gypsy inhabitants. He describes for us a major late Medieval fresco that includes a very uncomplimentary depiction of a (symbolic) synagogue. Schwarzer wonders  why this depiction of the “elder brothers in the faith” still is visible  – other such images have been covered up by now. 

The same could be said of his review of the tragedies of the 20th century. He describes how the German populations of Brunn (Brno)  and Slovakia were either expelled or massacred at the end of World War II. He recounts the heroic defense against the Red Army by a pickup mountain division in April of 1945. He depicts vividly the horrors of the Isonzo campaigns in the First World War on the Italian/Austrian border. The murderous struggle, in which Austria generally fought against overwhelming odds, did produce in 1917 a tremendous German-Austrian victory. A certain young officer from Württemberg named Erwin Rommel accomplished a particularly heroic exploit in that battle. A tragic reminder of those days is a church, still standing, that was built in 1916 by soldiers of the imperial army, In it the names of thousands of Austrian soldiers  – names from every nationality of the empire – are commemorated.

Schwarzer has a keen understanding of the symbolism ever present in works of art or buildings before the “modern age.” It was a world laden with meaning. Let me give you some examples of his writing on this subject. These sections – and there are others –  should be mandatory reading for those who are currently carrying out a witch hunt against Sebastian Morello for his laudable attempt to rediscover the symbolic meanings of the world.

(Above) The crown of Rudolf II.

Schwarzer describes the “house crown” created by order of the Emperor Rudolf II between 1598 and 1602; the “imperial crown” of the Holy Roman Empire was preserved separately.  After 1806 Rudolf’s crown served as the crown of the Austrian empire. 

Typical of these “house crowns” is the combination of  the royal circular band with the miter, set crosswise, of the high priest and the imperial arch which symbolically encompasses the world. With this crown,  the emperor raised his rank above that of the kings as a secular and spiritual lord of the world, as king and high priest in the succession of Christ. (p15)

( The diamonds in the royal band), as the hardest of all gemstones, were intended to symbolize the invincible Christ. The great red spinel on the central lily, which rests on the forehead, the seat of the monarch’s spirit,  symbolizes the fire of the Holy Ghost. At the top of the imperial arch, the great sapphire represents God the Father  – it is set  above the cross as a sign that only through the cross of Christ can one  come to the Father. (p.16)

In the baroque library of Vorau monastery,  every aspect of the architecture and decoration has symbolic meaning: 

In the east where the sun rises the image of Christ as Salvator Mundi dominates the space and shows who rules here. Then there follows on the ceiling a depiction of the judgment of Solomon (jurisprudence), at the West End of the library we recognize the queen of Sheba requesting knowledge from the wise Solomon (philosophy).

The emblematic depictions on the North and South sides of the library play exactly with that tension between the spiritual and the profane. The theological books are displayed on the South side of the room where the sun’s rays rest. The profane works are on the cold north wall. One sees as the very first image in the west a medical bleeding  under which are the words “vulnerat ut sanet”   – it wounds in order to heal. This represents preaching, that with severe words brings the sinner to repentance and so heals his soul. As the counterpart on the opposite wall,  we recognize a trumpet and the words “clangit et tangit”  – it resounds and touches –  this leads to the practical methods of preaching, in other words, the art of rhetoric.  Like a trumpet it sends out well-crafted words into the world. (pp. 77-78)

Then Schwarzer takes us through the secular palace of Eggenberg, built after 1620. 

In the chaos of the 30 Years War there arose a model of a world in order. A moat that was never filled with water separates the palace like an island from the crazy world of madness. 365 external windows represent the days of the year, 31 rooms on each floor the days of the month. In the piano nobile, 12 state rooms stand for the hours of the day and night;  together they have 52 windows for the weeks of the year.  if you count the 52 windows of the state rooms with the eight of the “ planetary room” we arrive at 60 minutes/ seconds of time. The four facades show the four seasons, the four directions of the wind, and the four elements. Enclosed in the innermost part of  central tower is the chapel where rests the Most Holy,  God himself, as the center of everything. (p.85)

As is the case with any book,  I can’t agree with everything the author states  – this is particularly true for such a dense, highly factual work as this. I don’t think that the Vorau bible is the first German language translation of the bible. Schwarzer seems to have a dislike for the Duomo of Milan that I don’t share and don’t understand. He tells us a legend of the derivation of Wiener Schnitzel from Cotoletta alla Milanese in the 19^th century.  I’m not totally sure that scholars of culinary history agree with his story.

Schwarzer concludes on a somewhat apocalyptic note with a visit to Fatima. For the visions of Fatima in 1917 occurred the year of the Russian revolution and one year before the end of the Austrian monarchy. In 2007 arose the “new” basilica, ”an orgy of steel, stone and glass,” with space for 9,000 people, and, before it, the largest paved church square in the world. Dominating everything is a distorted cross of structural steel, 34 meters high, which Schwarzer calls an “optical blasphemy.”  He points out that all this is worthy of the liturgies that are celebrated there today (describing an ecumenical celebration).(Schwarzer doesn’t mention the huge mosaic of Fr. Rupnik which still presides over the interior of the basilica –  the management  is defiant on this point.) Schwarzer concludes with the thoughts about what the content of the Third Secret of Fatima might be (mentioning Cardinals Kaspar and McCarrick) ….

Schwarzer has given us a comprehensive tour of those parts of Europe where monarchs of the Habsburg house ruled at one time or another. I think he has demonstrated the validity and continued relevance of the political form of monarchy by showing that in all these countries amazing things were achieved in art and culture –  things that the current generation cannot understand, let alone match. I would love to see this book translated into English. But I think it might be necessary to have a set of footnotes equal in length to the present text of the volume in order to explain it to English-speaking readers!

Towards Dawn: Essays in Hopefulness

2025 Word on Fire, Elk Grove Village, IL

141 pages

I have been hearing all kinds of good things about Bishop Eric Varden in recent years. A Trappist monk who became the Bishop of Trondheim in his native Norway, he has appeared as an advocate of orthodoxy and sensibility in the Roman Catholic Church of Francis. In Towards Dawn, Bishop Varden offers his readers spiritual advice in the context of the issues, controversies and even the “buzzwords” of the present day. This slim volume gives us a selection of his thought and style.

Bishop Varden has a laudable awareness of reality and willingness to confront unpleasant facts, yet at the same time he remains within the limits of clerical discourse. Therefore, he has attracted favorable attention from the establishment. Consider, for example. the publisher of this book,  Bishop Barron’s Word on Fire,  or that Pope Leo invited Bishop Varden to give the meditations for this year’s Lenten retreat at the Vatican.

His writing is clear, careful, and erudite. The essays in this book often have the flavor of a sermon. At times one senses the author is not a native English speaker; indeed, some of the essays have been translated by the author from the originals he himself wrote in several other languages! Like many Roman Catholic ecclesiastics, he feels compelled to adorn his writing with Greek words: kath’holon, evangelion, topos, eschaton, synodos, and, of course, kerygma. A more serious stylistic barrier is his German-like inclination to approach issues by discussing in detail relevant words and their etymologies.

Bishop Varden wants to give Christians a message of hope –  he begins his book by denying that we are in post-Christian times.  For a Chrisitan, such a statement makes no sense – for Christ is always with us, He is the perennial Dawn.  Rather,  the Bishop thinks we are entering a “post-secular” era.(p. ix) 

Such a time of “epochal change” is admittedly stressful. Yet, Bishop Varden asks, isn’t this focus on the uniqueness of the transformations of the present age, in essence, narcissistic? For the Christian, there is only one decisive paradigm which:

inheres in the fullness of the Church’s faith in Christ, defined by the councils and transmitted through a patrimony of theology, liturgy, culture, and charitable action.(p.15)

Here Bishop Varden is implicitly critiquing utterances of Pope Francis and his circle.

Bishop Varden is unafraid to mention some of the failings of the Church today. For example, although very cautiously, he suggests the “post-conciliar bringing-up-to-date” exhibited “considerable shortsightedness.”  

In many instances, it has not borne the fruit it was intended to bear. After decades of self-affirmation, it is time to admit this.(p. 13)

Then he considers the topic of abuse, and of the catastrophic results connected with it, specifically, the  referendum of May 2018 in once-Catholic Ireland which legalized abortion: 

How has such fearful fury been stirred up? Alas, the answer is at hand. The collapse of the Church’s credibility not just in Ireland but worldwide has been massive. Revelations of abuse – abuse of power, abuse of status, sexual and violent abuse – have driven large segments of the Irish nation, and of many other nations, to look on the Church with revulsion…. (p. 80) 

What can be done to address the situation?  Bishop Varden cites, interestingly, the example of the construction in France of the Basilica of Montmartre, dedicated to the Sacred Heart, after the disasters of the Franco-Prussian war and the Paris Commune.

The Basilica was built as a penitential pledge, a space dedicated to uninterrupted prayer before the Blessed Sacrament to call Christ’s Eucharistic grace down upon a broken nation. (p. 82)

(Above) Inside the Basilica of Sacre Coeur with perpetual exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, offered by “Gallia Poenitens.”

Bishop Varden draws on his own Cistercian (Trappist) experience when he rejects nebulous subjective “spiritualities.”  “I sometimes think ‘spirituality’ has become a designation for subjectivized religion freed from dogmas and commandments  – and to a  large extent from revelation.”  (p.116) Instead, we have to return to the concrete, objective encounter with God  in nature, in scripture and in the liturgy.

Bishop Varden is particularly insightful in this collection’s key essay “The Body at Prayer” in which the author contrasts pre-Conciliar liturgical usages with the practices of today. Today both Catholics and Protestants are seeking in the Far East “a spirituality grounded in ritualized physical discipline,” coinciding “with a thoroughgoing deritualization of inherited forms of worship at home.”

This topic is a hot potato now, at any rate in Roman Catholic circles, where young people are keen to rediscover aspects of liturgical and ascetic practices abandoned the wake of the Second Vatican Council… Today’s young seekers find themselves reprimanded  by a predominantly elderly establishment formed by the thrills and anxieties of that revolutionary time, which, to state the obvious, is chronologically further removed from them than the Treaty of Versailles was from youth waving banners on Parisian barricades in 1968… (pp.45-46)

Bishop Varden emphasizes the prior importance of fasting and confession prior to receiving communion. A communicant who experienced the pre-Conciliar discipline of fasting knew that the state of one’s body is not indifferent to the state of one’s soul.  As for the priest, rubrics required him to recite Vigils and Lauds and spend time in silent prayer before celebrating Mass. Bishop Varden describes the rituals of vesting and the rules prescribing the appropriate demeanor of the celebrant when he approached the altar.  Our author, also citing the examples of musicians and ballet dancers, states:

The most venerable of human functions, the confection of Christ’s Body and Blood in an act of rational worship, surely calls for no less a degree of deliberation and concentration. It is this intuition, I believe, that stirs the hearts of young women and men today. I cannot see that it is false. No, in a time weighed down by artificiality, leaden rhetoric, dud personality cults, and frantic “innovations” of terrifying banality in stagecraft, political campaigning, and liturgical practice, a quest for objective, oblative expression in sacred functions appears to me sound and forward-looking.(p.51)

Bishop Varden links the explosion of priestly abuse in the 1960’s with abandonment of  “physical, ritual and moral discipline in life and worship.” What followed the revolt of the priests at the time of the Vatican Council against the old liturgical forms was “the often tedious, sometimes destructive emergence of the priest as personality.” This was a “megalomaniac illusion.” (p.52)

All of us are susceptible to such megalomaniac illusion. The more closely we are associated with a sacred office, the more potentially lethal and Luciferian, this tendency becomes inflating our perception of self. (p.52)

Certain of the bishop’s efforts are decidedly less successful – for example, his essay “The Monastery as Schola DEI.” To the best of my knowledge only one particularly dumb American bishop has seen fit (repeatedly) to canonize DEI by linking it to “Dei” (of God). I’m surprised to see a man of such obvious education as Bishop Varden employing the same analogy. Of course, Bishop Vardon’s purpose is quite different from that of his American colleague: he wishes to show that Benedictine monasticism achieves, in a much truer sense of these words,  “diversity, equity and inclusion.”  I admit I find this form of apologetics singularly ineffective. For a political concept like DEI has a very specific significance in the current society.  Diversity, equity and inclusion are not mere words to which we can arbitrarily assign meanings. Among its many shortcomings, DEI, insofar as it mandates “gender equality,” excludes fundamental principles of Christian morality. A Benedictine monastery (all Catholic, all male (or female), all celibate)seems to me to be the exact opposite of an institution organized on DEI principles. For the Church to claim the slogans of today’s society as its own seems like pandering to the controlling secular world.

I have the same observations, in the ecclesiastical realm, on Bishop Varden’s “Synodality and Holiness.”  Our author traces an “authentic” synodality from the Old Testament to the New and to the present day.  Thus, synodality becomes just a nebulous cliché. Yet, synodality in today’s Church has a very specific meaning: the adoption of democratic and bureaucratic forms of governance, the recognition of homosexuality (including homosexual marriage), women priests, married priests etc. It leads inevitably to the adoption of the full panoply of rights mandated by the modern world (like abortion and euthanasia).  

I do have a more fundamental issue with this book. As we have seen, Bishop Varden explicitly recognizes the continuing  importance of the traditional forms of worship and that a return to them should not be discouraged. He acknowledges “wounds of the Church,” the existence of which are still denied by the papacy and the hierarchy. Yet he seems to think that through personal spiritual conversion a new dawn for the Church can arise. I get the impression Bishop Varden assumes we have, in today’s Church, all the tools; we have the structures in place for a recovery. I think, though,  that the Church’s problems are such that a radical institutional and spiritual reform will be necessary in order to restore her to health.  Consider the Gregorian reform of the 11th century, of the Counter-reformation of the 16th,and lastly the unfortunately incomplete recovery of the 19th century. Bishop Varden speaks of the Benedictines and Cistercians as potential anchors and models in these times. But where do these communities stand today? Bishop Varden writes: 

I am indebted to Dame Gertrude Brown, a nun of Stanbrook, for a brilliant insight. In the early 1980s she was sent to the United States to assist a community reconciled to the church after embroilment in what came to be called the Boston heresy case. Dame Gertrude was glad to accompany a broadening of outlook among the sisters and brothers. (p.5)

A footnote indicates this information came from a private communication with a nun of the Stanbrook community (with which Bishop Varden has had contacts) Now, once upon a time, Stanbrook had been perhaps the largest and best-known monastery of women in England,  with wide resonance in the secular world(In this House of Brede!) But to what has the “broadening of outlook” led there? The community, which numbered some seventy as recently as 1970, by 2024 had been reduced to 15 active members and one postulant. 1) And these figures understate the decrease, since two other Benedictine monasteries had been closed and liquidated into Stanbrook. The grand Stanbrook monastery complex was sold years ago and is now a luxury hotel. The nuns built for themselves a horrendously ugly modern monastery in a remote location. The same “progress” is true of Bishop Varden’s own Trappist order. Just last week I read that the original house of the order in France (la Trappe) is to be closed in 2028. 

Yet there are exceptions to the sad story of decline. One of the Benedictine monasteries liquidated into Stanbrook, Colwich Abbey, has been sold to the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, from Missouri. 2) And the grand Trappist monastery of Mount Melleray in Ireland, which closed in January 2025, has been acquired by Ave Maria University. 3) Thus, healthy American institutions – conservative or traditionalist – on the fringes of the Roman Catholic establishment are picking up the torch from the dying, mainstream religious communities of Europe. For a true spiritual recovery to occur, the liturgical tradition and asceticism of Catholicism must be not just the subject of learned observations or a reluctant concession to the enthusiasts of a younger generation but must become the law of the Church once again.

1.  Stanbrook 400  (“a commemorative Issue of the Stanbrook Benedictines”)  at 127 (2025). An alternative count presented in the same document adds seven more nuns in nursing homes or otherwise not part of the active community)
2.  Id. at 9
3. Elhabbal, Madaleine, “Ave Maria University To Send First Student Group To New Ireland Campus At Former Abbey,” ewtn.co.uk  (3/15/2026)

Here are some churches in the area that are offering special Masses for the Feast of St. Joseph this Thursday, March 19.

St. Mary Church, Norwalk, CT; 9:15 am Missa Cantata (organized by Regina Pacis Academy); 12:10 pm low Mass; and 7 pm Missa Cantata

Georgetown Oratory, Redding, CT 6 pm

Sts. Cyril and Methodius Oratory, Bridgeport, CT, 7:45 am low Mass; 6 pm high Mass

St. Patrick Oratory, Waterbury, CT, 8 am low Mass

Holy Innocents, New York, NY, 6 pm high Mass

Shrine of Our Lady of Mt Carmel, New York, NY, 7 pm high Mass

St. Margaret of Cortona, Bronx, 6 pm Solemn Mass followed by St. Joseph’s Altar dinner in the school gym; please RSVP to rectory to attend dinner: 718-549-8053

St. Josaphat Oratory, Bayside, Queens, 7 pm High Mass (confessions from 6:15 to 6:45)

St. Patrick’s Church, Huntington, NY, 7:30 pm Missa Cantata, Vox Aquarum vocal quartet singing Victoria’s “Missa O Quam Gloriosam”

Sacred Heart Church, Esopus, NY, 11:30 am

St. John Vianney Church, Colonia, NJ, 7 pm Missa Cantata, veneration of a relic of St. Joseph’s cloak, blessing with St. Joseph’s oil.

Corpus Christi Church, South River, NJ, 7 pm Solemn Mass with Byrd’s Mass for Four Voices.

Shrine of the Blessed Sacrament, Raritan, NJ, 7 pm Missa Cantata

The Georgetown Oratory in Redding, CT will offer traditional Masses at 8:30 am and 6 pm tomorrow, March 17 for the Feast of St. Patrick.

The Catholic Sacred Music Project is excited to have its 2nd Choral Institute this June.  The CSMP Choral Institute offers emerging and established choral singers a singular environment that balances instruction, study, prayer, and conviviality in an atmosphere of collegial support and encouragement.  This unique and exceptional training opportunity will be hosted on the campus of Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey. 

For more information about the application process for this program and the other summer programs, go to the Catholic Sacred Music Project website.