Last week another successful Chant Camp took place at St. Mary’s Church, Norwalk, CT, led by Charles Weaver, Elizabeth Weaver and Nicholas Botkins. The children sang a Missa Cantata every day at 12:10. The picture here is courtesy of Mark Bertotti.

Some photos of the Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in East Harlem on July18, courtesy of Mr. Brendan Young. He reports that “the bishop was overjoyed and there were about 200-250 faithful.”

Due to travel we regettably could not be present at the Traditional pilgrimage to the shrine of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in East Harlem last Saturday. We have covered this pilgrimage since its inception in 2012. For the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel had become dear to CatholicTraditionalists. Did they somehow sense that Pope Francis would promulgate Traditionis Custodes – aiming at their destruction – on that feast in 2021?

I heard a favorable report from someone present, even though publicity for the pilgrimage (see the flyer resproduced above) had been limited. Let me add a few details. Members of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St. George helped to organize the event. And the Society of St Hugh of Cluny funded the excellent music, which included:

Byrd’s Mass for Three Voices.

Offertory Motet Quam pulchra es by John Dunstaple (Song of Songs 7).

Communion Motet Flos florum by Guillaume Dufay

Charles Weaver ( the music director of St. Mary’s, Norwalk) led the music.

(Above) An engraving of a censer by Martin Schongauer (15th century).

A most unusual exhibition can be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art until July 19th. It displays medieval and early renaissance designs for works of Gothic architecture and art. Many of these architectural drawings are actual working documents for the creators of the Gothic cathedrals.  Some of them are of considerable size. The condition of the drawings is astoundingly good, the penmanship incredibly precise. 

What is noteworthy is the unity in Gothic art of aesthetics, mathematics and engineering. In the age of the Gothic there was no separation of these elements. There was no contrast, as in modernity, between the “decorative” and the “structural,”  between the “symbolic” and the “functional.”  And of course, each Gothic cathedral also “preached” in a mystic, liturgical and symbolic language – sophisticated, but nevertheless accessible to those who shared the religion and culture of  that time .   

But the genius of the Gothic was not confined solely to ecclesiastical architecture. This exhibition displays drawings of secular buildings, outdoor shrines, tabernacles and liturgical vessels. And in addition to drawings, we see examples of early engravings produced by artists in collaboration with the artisans and cathedral builders. In all these cases the same design principles governed. 

The overwhelming majority of the exhibits comes from the German world, as it was then organized in the Holy Roman Empire. There are also major objects on display from France, England and the Low Countries. The relative  lack of examples for these regions has to do, I would guess, with losses due to centralized destructive campaigns  as in case of   the English reformation or the French Revolution. In the more diffuse political and religious environment of the Holy Roman Empire much more survived. 

(Above) Drawing of a crozier by Hans Holbem the Elder – perhaps in collaboration with a goldsmith..

For starting from Strasbourg, Cologne and Mainz in the West  to Freiburg, Ulm, Regensburg and on to Vienna the various lodges of masons within the Empire exchanged ideas and developed creative “solutions” (as we would say today)to the design challenges of their projects. For the construction of a Gothic cathedral proceeded for generations, even centuries. So, we can see in the exhibition early versions of such masterpieces as the facade of Strasbourg cathedral or the tower of the minster of Freiburg-im-Breisgau. Inevitably, much remained unrealized. 

(Above) Design for a since-destroyed outdoor shrine in Ulm.

I can only give this exhibition my highest recommendation!

(Description of the Exhibition – with many photographs)

CHANT CAMP
August 2026 • St. Mary’s, Norwalk

Monday, August 10–Friday, August 14
9:15 a.m.–1:15 p.m.

Learn to read and sing Gregorian chant and great sacred polyphony • Enjoy fun and fellowship • Lift your voice to the glory of God!

The Chant Camp scholars will sing a Missa cantata daily at 12:10 p.m., starting on Tuesday and ending with Mass for the Vigil of the Assumption on Friday.

Led by Charles Weaver and Elizabeth Weaver (St. Mary’s)
and Nicholas Botkins (St. John’s Basilica, Stamford)

Age range: 8–18 years 
(Both high and low voices welcome)
Camp fee: $50 per participant

Open to participants from any school or parish

Register at: stmarynorwalk.net/chantcamp

“The program will display the dizzying range of music that coexisted in one place a one time.”

Cifras nuevas presents music from the 16th and 17th centuries for the duo of harp and guitar or vihuela. Widely attested to in European iconography and Latin American folkloric traditions, this combination of instruments performed music ranging from ornamented canto llano to dances of African origin. The first half of our program will feature sacred works and instrumental fantasies from the 16th century, including Luis Venegas de Henestrosa’s setting of the “Ave maris stella.” The second half will explore the preludes and dances of the 17th century, spotlighting the dual influences of Italian harmonic innovations and the rhythms of Spain’s colonial possessions.

(Above) Raphael: The Ecstasy of St. Cecilia. From Bologna, Pinacoteca Nazionale (at the Exhibition Raphael: Sublime Poetry)

Raphael: Sublime Poetry

Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New  York

March 29–June 28, 2026

The Metropolitan Museum has just opened a new exhibition on Raphael. Now Raphael Sanzio has been, even in his own lifetime and up to the present day, one of the most famous artists who ever lived. This exhibition collects many paintings and drawings of the artist. It’s a unique opportunity to study the artist’s  development as well as the development of his individual works of art based on this unique juxtaposition of works from all over the world.

Now Raphael’s time (he died in 1520 at just 37 years of age) was of course a unique culmination of Renaissance and Western art. It was the age of Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Giorgione, Bellini, and Titian, among many others. Raphael at an early age showed a complete mastery of the technical handicraft of art. But early on he also showed a unique organizational talent and an ability to receive and understand contributions of others which he incorporated creatively into his style. 

Raphael’s career reached its apogee in the Rome of Popes Julius II and Leo X, where he found appropriate challenges for his artistic genius. As time went on the commissions grew ever larger and he was able to meet the situation by assembling and managing a well-trained workshop. A true universal genius of the Renaissance, Raphael later had a role in the planning of the new basilica of Saint Peter. Moreover,  he was able to work with  artists in other media, creating influential works that for centuries diffused his style all over Europe (the prints of Raimondi; the great tapestries for which Raphael prepared the cartoons).  All this can be seen in this exhibition. 

But Raphael was not merely an exemplar of a static, “canonized” art. In his interactions with the art of Leonardo or Michelangelo he was already laying the foundations for further developments. Especially his later frescoes introduce movement, drama and conflict. It was these principles that would dominate the next period of art –  mannerism – after Raphael’s death.

In this exhibition we see abundant evidence of the various aspects of his genius. Take the many  images of the Madonna, each one carefully differentiated from the others. The portraits are of unique quality. Then, there are the great religious paintings. The religious works  demonstrate the significance of Raphael’s and Renaissance Italy’s Catholicism for the art of the High Renaissance – this is no “art for art’s sake.” The Madonnas, as the exhibition points out, derive ultimately from a Byzantine icon of the 12th and 13th centuries. It was an image that was particularly relevant when the mortality of both mothers and children in childbirth was exceedingly high. The tapestries, depicting events from the Gospels or the acts of the apostles, are of epic grandeur. 

But of particular relevance to the spiritual vision of Raphael  is the painting of Saint Cecilia in ecstasy.  The saint turns her eyes to heaven, viewing a chorus of angels singing, while she holds, facing downward,  a small organ. At her feet, strewn  on the ground, are various worldly musical instruments, “broken and unstrung”. She is surrounded by four other saints involved in a mysterious dialogue with each other or with the viewer. The style is not didactic but displays great insight into the personages depicted.

The Metropolitan Museum was able to restrain its woke commentary more than it usually has done recently. Yes,  in this exhibition there are passages in the Museum’s texts about the dire position of women in Renaissance –  ignoring the role that extremely well-educated women played in the unfolding of the Renaissance as the exhibition itself points out. I also did not appreciate the use of the Alba Madonna as a logo on posters, scarves, refrigerator magnets and mugs. 

(Above) The “Alba Madonna.” Currently in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. – previously in the Hermitage, St. Petersburg.(From the exhibition Raphael: Sublime Poetry)

Now such an exhibition, involving consideration and comparison of many drawings and paintings,  summons the visitor to contemplation. That is difficult to achieve in the crowded exhibition halls of the Metropolitan Museum. With a few exceptions the crowd was definitely older or to put it more frankly,  old. Some visitors  were in wheelchairs or using walkers. Is this because the art of Raphael –  that once  had been almost a cliché –  now is known only to those who attended  high school or college art courses in the distant past? I don’t know! 

And what is a Catholic to think about the light this exhibition may shed upon the current situation in the Catholic Church?  Because Raphael, in contrast to the artists of modernity was not an individual creator but was embedded in a society that shared his ideals and offered him the patronage to realize  them. These was especially true of Raphael’s two principal patrons, Julius II and Leo X. If we move forward to our own day there’s quite a different situation. Even though it may be an invidious comparison to set the current regime of  the Vatican against that which produced perhaps the highest development of Western art, we have to admit that the current artistic patronage of the Roman Catholic Church is a sick joke. We have the cartoon-like images of Marco Rupnik. We have the obsequious courting of contemporary artists by clerics like Cardinal Ravasi and Bishop Fisichella. By introducing the “Luce” mascot of the 2025 jubilee year, the Catholic Church abased itself before what their semi-senile leadership  thinks is popular “youth” culture. Then we have,  with the direct involvement of the late Pope Francis, agitprop-like art: statues of migrants,  art created in women’s prison etc.

Raphael, with his precocious ability, seemingly unlimited facility,   organizational skill,  authentically classical harmony -as well as his  evident religious faith – may  seem alien to our day’s notion of the artist. The Metropolitan Museum itself offers  a strangely contrasting exhibition, now in its final days, of Finnish painter Helene Schjerfbeck (1862–1946). We see, in her works, the final stages of the Western figurative tradition: isolated individuals, dreamy symbolist landscapes, self-portraits revealing a person seemingly in dissolution or even on the brink of madness. 

We ourselves cannot recreate the art or the specific circumstances of the High Renaissance. Much of 19th century Catholic ecclesiastical art was a commendable but not totally successful attempt to do so (e.g., the “Nazarenes”). But what we can do is study the masterpieces of an artist like Raphael, and attempt to  understand the great skill,  discipline and intellectual effort that were necessary to create them. And perhaps from this study, God willing,  a new Christian art may arise in some way and at some time not yet known to us.  For it is by engaging with the masters of the past that a rebirth  ( that is, a “renaissance “) of culture will come. 

New Jersey: You are invited to a documentary screening of Foreclosing on Faith with director/producer Viktoria Somogyi and attorney Brody Hale.

3pm Sunday Feb 22

Knights of Columbus Hall

130 Main Street

Woodbridge, NJ 07095

Registration is free but required.

Register at Eventbrite.

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 Newark Archdiocese is presently undertaking a program of downsizing known as “We Are His Witnesses.” It will likely result in a considerable decrease in the number of Catholic parishes and churches in Bergen, Essex, Hudson, and Union counties. The aim of this presentation is to discuss the root causes of parish and church closures and to educate Catholics about the options and rights they have if they find their parish on the list when the Archdiocese of Newark releases it in the late spring or early summer of this year.

Speakers:

Co-producer and -director of Foreclosing on Faith, Viktoria Somogyi is a Hungarian journalist and economist based in Rome, Italy.

A native of Massachusetts, Brody Hale has a private law practice with a focus on nonprofit organizations, social entrepreneurship, and conservation. An expert in Canon Law, Brody has for over a decade provided assistance to groups of Catholics fighting to prevent their churches from being closed by dioceses.

Admission is free but registration is required. 

Please spread the word!

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.