The Roman Forum

31^st Annual New York City Church History Program(2022-2023) 

The Center Cannot Hold:A “Hermeneutic of Continuity”? Or “the Opiate of the Church”? (1978-2013) 

Lecturer: John C. Rao, D. Phil. (Oxford University)Chairman, The Roman Forum

 September 11:  A Deeply Troubled Church in a Collapsing Postwar Order

September 25:  Here Today—Gone Tomorrow

October 9:        A Call for Help From “the Christ Among Nations”

October 16:      Affirming the Faith—While Dismantling the Temple

November 13:  Sailing to Byzantium on “the Opiate of the Popes”

November 20:  The End of Soviet Communism and the New Liberation Theologies:     Marxist, Neo-Liberal, and Neo-Conservative

December 11:   The New World Order on Steroids

December 18:   Our Future Lies in Our Past: Traditionalism—1978-1990s

January 8:         The Year 2000—Ecumenism and Millenarianism

January 22:       The Hermeneutici and the Conservative Dilemma

February 5:       The New World Order’s Culture of Death

February 12:     How Goes the Internal Mission?

February 26:     How Goes the External Mission?

March 5:           Habemus Papam!!

March 26:         Did You Ever See a Dream Walking?

April 2:             The Horror!! The Horror!!

April 16:           The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

May 7:              My End is My Beginning                             

Sundays at 2:30 P.M, Most Holy Redeemer Church, East 3^rd Street Between Avenues A & B

Wine & Cheese Reception: $15.00 

N.B.— Audiotapes of all lectures will be posted on the Roman Forum Church History Lecture stream on SoundCloud.

As the summer comes to an end, we look forward to Fr. John Perricone’s Baltimore Catechism Classes that will be presented in three different venues:.

• Our Lady of Victories Church Hall in Harrington Park, NJ
• Corpus Christi Church in South River, NJ
• St. Josaphat Parish Hall in Bayside Queens.

Join us on Saturday September 17, 2022 at 9 AM for the National Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage.

We will mark the 15th anniversary of Benedict XVI’s liberation of the Traditional Latin Mass, and make a public act of sorrow/support of what we will be losing as the Diocese of Arlington and Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. impose devastating new restrictions on the celebration of the TLM.

The Arlington Diocese restrictions go into effect on September 8, while the Washington Archdiocese’s draconian implementation of the papal decree starts 13 days later on the 21st.

We will walk from the Cathedral of St. Thomas More in Arlington to the Cathedral of St. Matthew in DC (about a two hour walk). Feel free to bring appropriate signs and banners. 

The pilgrimage will begin at 9 AM on Saturday, September 17 at the Cathedral of Saint Thomas More in Arlington, will end when we reach St. Matthew’s Cathedral in DC, and should take about two hours. For updates, we now have an instagram, twitter, and Facebook page (all of which can be found @tlmpilgrimage on the respective apps), and we now have a website being tlmpilgrimage.com. Please share, as we want this to be as large as possible for such an occasion.

Beginning this Friday, August 5, the First Friday of the month, a group will be meeting at St. Mary’s Church, Norwalk, CT, to attend  the 8 am Traditional Mass and  pray the Rosary for the continuation of the Traditional Mass in the Diocese of Bridgeport,  in our nation, and in the Church worldwide.    

We will be praying in particular for Bishop Caggiano, who has so far recognized and appreciated the vitality of Latin Mass communities in the Diocese. But many bishops are now prohibiting Traditional Masses, either drastically cutting down or eliminating them completely.

It is urgent right now to pray that God will protect our access to the Traditional Mass and  bless our priests who celebrate the Traditional Mass.  

Please join us by attending the 8 am Traditional Mass at St. Mary’s Norwalk every Friday in August, starting this Friday, and stay for recitation of the Holy Rosary.  If you cannot be there,  consider uniting yourself in prayer.

Please invite your friends and family.

On a related note, this Novena to Blessed Michael McGivney is circulating:

Today the 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade which established unlimited abortion as the rule in the United States – was overturned. It is the remarkable fruit of decades of selfless action by people of all faiths. Is it not remarkable that the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was released on the Feast of the Sacred Heart? Msgr. Ignacio Barreiro gave the following sermon in 2015 on this Feast:

 In 1674, Jesus appeared to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and He promised to her:

“In the excess of the mercy of my Heart, I promise you that my all powerful love will grant to all those who will receive Communion on the First Fridays, for nine consecutive months, the grace of final repentance: they will not die in my displeasure, nor without receiving the sacraments; and my Heart will be their secure refuge in that last hour.”

Our Lord also promised to give priests the power to touch the most hardened hearts. But this promise when can say that also applies to all you who work faithfully in the apostolate of the Church, in particular in many apostolates that certainly are close to His Heart like the pro-life apostolate, or in the educational apostolate and last but not least, in the Liturgical Apostolate to make the Liturgy of the Church worthy of the Lord to whom were are offering our adoration. The worship of the Sacred Heart will help us speak the truth with love to sinners who feel far from God, and from his Church and will help us to gently lead them back to the Good Shepherd, who is meek and humble of heart. (Matthew 11, 29)

In his own life, Msgr. Barreiro exemplified the initmate connection of pro-life winess with traditional Catholic devotion: he served for many years in leadership roles in Human Life International while exercising the duties of a tradionalist priest. Indeed he ended his life as curate of a Connecticut parish (St. Mary’s, Norwalk) that celebrated the traditionalist Mass. Reviewing our archives, I encountered again so many others who in the past were committed to both the pro-life cause and Catholic Traditionalism. This union of liturgy, faith and action demonstrates why the Catholic traditionalist movement can never be a merely aesthetic, “High Church” sect.

The pro-life cause contiuned on its path for years on an entirely voluntary basis. It involved organizations, marches, campus groups, publications and even new religious orders. This is a further parallel with the decentralized, spontaneous culture of the traditionalist movement.

It goes without saying that the secular “power elite” – the universities, the corporations, the law firms, the professional organizations, etc. – have utter disdain and hatred for the pro-life movement. You can see this today in the one-sided hysterical reactions to the Dobbs decision being propagated by our media.

More distressing and tragic, however, is the abuse to which pro-lifers have been subjected even by their supposed allies. One thinks of the great pro-life crusader Joe Sobran, who was vilified by “conservatives” and made a “non-person” even by the very pro-life organization he had put on the map. One recalls the disdain displayed towards American pro-lifers by Pope Francis and his entourage, such as the Jesuit Fr. Spadaro’s characterization of the (mainly pro-life) collaboration of Catholics and evangelical Christians as an “unholy alliance.” One remembers the “seamless garment” ideology and the never-ending search of establishment Catholics for a mythical pro-life Democratic Party.

This leads to a further point of reflection. The pro-life movement is above all a triumph of the political. The movement demonstrated that it was capable of acting politically: inspiring spontaneous individual action, forging alliances, making decisions, confronting enemies, and concentrating efforts on one great goal. These characteristics form the greatest possible contrast with the culture of the institutional Catholic Church. And in this regard let us remember that Dobbs is the fruit of the efforts over the years of the Republican Party and above all of President Donald Trump.

Dobbs is not the end of the pro-life journey – it is hardly the beginning. Yet just from what I am reading today it is a great inspiration to the pro-life movement throughout the world. And it should always serve as a model and guide for all those struggling for justice yet discouraged in the face of seemingly insurmountable official opposition.

The American delegation of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St. George and the Royal Order of Francis I is hosting a gala cocktail reception in true southern Italian style on Friday, July 22, 2022 at 7 pm.

Honoring us, along with the presence of other prelate-members, bishops, ecclesiastical dignitaries and friends of the Order, will be His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke, the titular priest of St. Agatha’s, who will be the keynote speaker at the reception, to discuss the great work that needs to be done for the ancient church’s restoration.

Prepaid tickets of $150 each are available for the reception, which will take place at Macaluso’s, 55 4th Avenue, Hawthorne, NJ, 07506. Prepaid tickets must be reserved no later than Monday, July 18. Cocktail attire. For more information regarding tickets and sponsorship opportunities, please contact the Delegation office at 1-833-514-3040 or email info@smocsg.org.