On Friday, September 14, 2018 into Saturday, September 15, 2018, there will be an All Night Vigil of Adoration before the Most Blessed Sacrament Exposed.

Friday, September 14, 2018 – 7:30 PM – Sung Mass & Te Deum in Latin, 1962 MR-EF – Feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross

Saturday, September 15, 2018 – 5:00 AM – Sung Mass in Latin, 1962 MR-EF – Feast of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Preliminary Schedule

Friday, September 14, 2018

6:00 PM – Angelus
6:15 PM – Recitation of the Holy Rosary & Divine Mercy Chaplet
6:45 PM – Stations of the Cross and Confessions
7:30 PM – Sung Mass in Latin, 1962 MR-EF
8:30 PM – Chanting of the Te Deum
9:15 PM – Talk by Ricardo Saludo, Marian Speaker from the Archdiocese of Manila (see flyer below)
After the Talk, there will be moments of Silent Adoration and vocal prayers

Saturday, September 15, 2018

12 Midnight – Angelus and the Rosary of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary
12:45 AM – First Break, Silent Adoration
1:30 AM – Prayers to the Holy Black Nazarene and Our Lady of Caysaysay, followed by the Recitation of the Holy Rosary
2:00 AM – Silent Adoration
3:00 AM – Divine Mercy Chaplet
3:15 AM – Second Break, Silent Adoration
4:30 PM – Procession with and Benediction of the Most Blessed Sacrament
5:00 AM – Sung Mass in Latin, 1962 MR-EF

The Roman Forum
27th Annual New York City Church History Program
2017-2018

The Pontificate of Blessed Pio Nono (1846-1878):
Catholic Renewal and the Discovery of the Frauds of Modernity
Lecturer: John C. Rao, D. Phil. (Oxford University)
Associate Professor of History, St. John’s University

September 9: The Last Days of the Restoration Era & the Election of Pio Nono
September 16: 1848: A “Spring Time of the Peoples”?
September 30: The Revolutionary Reality & Catholic Retrenchment
October 7: France, the Party of Order, & the Catholic “Civil War”
October 21: Germania Docet!
November 11: A Second Spring in England & the Netherlands
November 18: La Civiltà Cattolica, L’Univers, Der Katholik & the Critique of Liberalism
December 2: The Risorgimento & the Assault on the Church & Italy
December 16: Quanta cura & the Syllabus of Errors
January 13: Vatican Council: The Theological Background
January 27: Vatican Council: Politics, the Debates & the Decrees
February 10: The Franco-Prussian War, the Breach of Porta Pia, & the Long-Term Effects of Vatican Council
February 24: Liberalism, Protestantism, & Catholicism in the New Europe
March 10: Kulturkampf & Catholic Response: Germany, Austria, Belgium, & the Netherlands
March 24: France: From “National Repentance” to “the Republic of the Republicans”
April 7: Anti-Liberalism & the Catholic Social Movement
April 14: Progress & Confrontation in the Americas
April 28: An Ever More Missionary Church
May 12: Russia and the Religious “Eastern Question”

All Sessions Meet on Sundays, at 2:30 P.M.
N.B. Participants will now have to be buzzed in at the Rectory entrance on Carmine Street, from 1:30 onwards. Access may still be available through the interior of the Church to the left of the main altar.
Wine & Cheese Reception. Entrance Fee at door of $15.00
Our Lady of Pompeii Church, Rectory Entrance, on Carmine Street
A, B, C, D, E, F, M trains to West 4th Street Station; 1 to Christopher Street

St. Mary Church, Norwalk, CT, will celebrate the Assumption of Mary this Saturday, August 18th at 4 pm with a solemn Mass, then a parish picnic immediately following Mass. The church will provide hamburgers and hot dogs. Please bring a dessert or side dish to share.

23rd Annual Pilgrimage for Restoration, 2018 A.D.

Friday – Sunday
28-30 September
A traditional walking pilgrimage from the Lake of the Blessed Sacrament at Lake George Village, NY to the Shrine of Our Lady’s Martyrs of New France at Auriesville, NY

Come to restore. The rest will come.

contact:
Reuben DeMaster
Chief of Brigadiers
——————–
New Tripoli, Pennsylvania
484-201-8249 mobile
610-298-2197 tel-home

r.demaster.pilgrimage@gmail.com

As in past years, there will be discounted days to register during the summer. However, this early registration (until July 1) is the lowest price that you will see.

Pilgrimage for Restoration| 610/435-2634 Website

National Coalition of Clergy & Laity | 610/435-2634 Website

The high point of the exhibition is this early original work by Bernini – a portrait bust of St Robert Bellarmine.

The Holy Name: Art of the Gesu: Bernini and his Age. (At Fairfield University Art Museum)

Taking refuge from the overblown, paganistic megashows of Gotham City, we turn to a smaller, more focused but more artistically significant exhibition that illustrates a time when the “Catholic Imagination” did indeed set the standard for European taste. The 16th century church of the Gesu (the main church of the Jesuit order) was one of a number of great Roman churches of the late renaissance that created the model for church construction all over Europe. Much later, in the second half of the 17th century, the original sober appearance of this structure was transformed by a late Baroque decoration of unsurpassed splendor. The main contributor here was the painter Giovanni Battista Gaulli, a pupil of the dominant master of the Roman baroque, Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Gaulli’s ecstatic works, which seem to open up the ceiling of the church to the heavens, likewise helped to stimulate similar ceiling paintings all over Europe – but especially in Germany and Austria. For the central Roman church of the Jesuits was bound to have extraordinary influence all over Europe and even beyond.

This exhibition includes valuable original works by Bernini, Gaulli and many others. Paintings, altar cards, statues and vestments are on display. The narrative of the building and decoration of the Gesu is filled out by engravings and original documents. Yes, we encounter in this exhibition the energy and creativity of the counter-reforamntion – which received its complement and completion in the splendid decorative art of the late baroque. We are not informed, however, why the Church and specificailly the Jesuit order has for fifty years now rejected such “triumphalistic” tendencies and themes – except, of course, for exhibitions hoping to attract visitors by visions of past glories.

(Above) Lavishly decorated altar cards created for the Gesu. The artist was a German working in Italy.

(Above and below) Models for the paintings of the apse of the Gesu by Gaulli. Inspired by such examples, this type of “perspectivist” painting reached its fullest flowering north of the Alps in Germany and the rest of Central Europe.

(Below) The model of Gaulli’s vast painting in the nave of the Gesu “The Triumph of the Name of Jesus.”

You will have to move fast if you want to catch this exhibition, for it is only open for one more week – Tuesday through Saturday, May 19, 11 to 4 PM. For further information see HERE.

Heavenly Bodies! Part II

(We conclude our coverage of the new Met exhibition. Part I can be found HERE. No photography was permitted in the Vatican exhibition space – your reporter was one of the minority adhering to the rules.)

Now what of the “Vatican” part of the exhibition?

Actually, it’s “much ado about nothing.” In two smallish rooms apart and downstairs from the rest of the show are displayed items connected to the papacy mainly from the 19th and 20th centuries. In one room are precious tiaras, clasps, a monstrance and other metalwork. In the other room is a variety of chasubles, dalmatics, copes and other liturgical vestments. Most of the exhibits are gifts from religious orders, nobles and rulers, both Catholic and non-Catholic. May we surmise that, in contrast to the Renaissance papacy, more recent supreme pontiffs lacked the financial resources to commission such things themselves? It’s not an exhibition of great art but more like a collection of papal knick-knacks.

Except for certain items from the 18th and early 19th centuries, most of the works shown here were executed in historical revival styles, particularly a kind of neo-baroque. We have to admit that, even if originality is lacking, a distinct continuity of splendor and dignity is maintained. Especially three beautiful white copes from different eras testify to a persisting sense of beauty, balance and yes, of style utterly absent among the creations of the champions of the “Catholic Imagination” upstairs. Only as the 20th century progressed do we note here and there lapses in judgement: a lavish chasuble given to Pius XI is marred by a small panel copying what is obviously a photograph of the Pope. At the entrance to the exhibit is displayed about the only representative of a modern style that can be found: an original vestment by Matisse from around 1950. I believe it actually belongs to the Modern Art museum here, for this much-ballyhooed creation was almost immediately traded away by the chapel for which it had been created- allegedly because it was too heavy.

But undoubtedly not the art critic but the historian will be most interested in these Vatican rooms. For so many of the items were specifically commissioned for a pope on an important occasion: a significant anniversary or a major event of state(like the signing of the Lateran treaty). There’s a real fascination in viewing items closely associated with each individual pope from 1800 to the present.

As in the rest of Heavenly Bodies, howlers are to be found among the descriptions of the items displayed. I learn that the city of Regensburg is in Switzerland. Saint Pius XII is mentioned; John Paul II is not so styled (Is there a Traditionalist mole at work?) But I think the issues with the Vatican rooms are more fundamental that this.

First, the Vatican exhibit establishes no direct link to the fashions that are the main subject of the overall exhibition. For their inane parodies and travesties the show’s featured designers looked not in the first instance to Papal regalia, but to the images and signs of popular Catholic devotion (or least those which existed in the now dimly remembered pre-conciliar past): rosaries, nuns’ habits, soutanes, images of pilgrim statues, of the Mater Dolorosa, of the Sacred Heart , etc.

Second, there is no attempt to explain the contrasts between the exhibits and the practices in the Church today. Vestments of the baroque style have been mostly retired or even destroyed. We see a series of splendid tiaras and are then told Pope Paul VI abolished their use – why? John Paul II’s red shoes are on display. But wasn’t Pope Benedict XVI vilified for wearing such shoes – falsely described as Pradas? And in one of his first ostentatious media events the current Pope ditched them for black shoes. If this show is about the “”Catholic imagination,” isn’t the viewer entitled to an explanation why the current Catholic imagination has departed so radically from what is on display here?

A word should be said about the merchandizing connected with the exhibition. Now a primary goal of Heavenly Bodies is to motivate the eagerly anticipated hordes of female tourists to buy products of the industry. The sponsors obviously hope these visitors will head further south on Fifth Avenue to shop in Saks and Versace (in the display windows there: black leather, sequined crosses and Byzantine icons). But for the more impecunious, the Met offers on its own premises a dedicated Heavenly Bodies store. In addition to the usual scarves and jewelry, it features racks of clothing (like denim jackets with images of St Michael). And in a new first (and a new low) for both the Met and the Catholic Church, a line of cosmetics is available for purchase as well:

The makeup offerings will comprise of her latest launch, Lust: Gloss, in a hue she’s named “Aliengelic.” The gloss, which retails for $28, will be making its exclusive debut at the Met, and is described by Pat as “an extravagantly ethereal gloss inspired by celestial beings and opulent textures I saw woven throughout ‘Heavenly Bodies.'” Additionally, a special edition version of her Mothership IV: Decadence Eyeshadow Palette, which retails for $125, will feature unique packaging, inspired by paintings of the Renaissance and Baroque periods that figure heavily in the exhibit. All products will be launching tomorrow, May 8, at the exhibition store at The Met Fifth Avenue, with select items stocked at The Met Cloisters as well as online. (SOURCE)

The “Catholic Imagination” unleashed – especially where big bucks are to be made. (Above)Versace on Fifth Avenue – with your photographer. (Below) At Saks, a vestment-based creation by Dior – with images from Tarot cards?

(Below) Also at Saks, from Dolce & Gabbana. By the way, I read that these Saks windows will only be on display until May 14.

Certain commentators (like Ross Douthat) claim to dislike Heavenly Bodies but nevertheless enter into dialectical gymnastics as to how it could conceivably benefit the Catholic faith. The reader of our review should be able to form his own judgment of the feasibility of that. But to make a long story short, I’d just add that given this show’s sponsors, it never would have seen the light of day if there had been even the remotest chance of advancing Christianity. The Met does not make all its medieval galleries (and the Cloisters too!) available to stir up Catholic religious belief!

Indeed there is a long history of similar events in Europe, where the hierarchy ( as exemplified by Cardinal Ravasi) collaborates with the moneyed (and often state-supported)art establishment in exhibitions – often with churches and cathedrals as venues. Of course, the cooperation is entirely one-sided in favor of an art scene striving for the blasphemous, the disorienting and the shocking. A succession of well-informed (secular)French authors have written extensively on this subject. In a sense, Heavenly Bodies is just a bigger, bolder, cruder version of the same. What is implicit in the European precedents is in the USA explicit: the direct integration of the Church establishment into the world of money, media and entertainment on that world’s terms, with Catholic doctrine and morality jettisoned. With the point hammered home by a thousand images transmitted all over the world.

Yes, it is a great show for the hierarchy, in the tradition of analogous spectacles like the Assisi meetings or the Papal tours. Heavenly Bodies, as a show, is intended to convey an image of harmony between the hierarchy and the powers of the secular world – a harmony that does not in fact exist. But by agreeing to participate in a show – an inherently mendacious, areligious form of entertainment – the Vatican also puts on display to anyone who can see the collapse of its own moral authority.

I approached this “show” with trepidation given the tasteless title. Catholicism and the commercial fashion industry – what points of contact could there be today? If we are to judge by what is sold next to supermarket checkout counters, American women indeed are obsessed with their bodies. And a stroll up Fifth Avenue, such as I take every day, only confirms the vanity and vulgarity of the legions of the female shoppers and gawkers. Yet the Vatican, the Archdiocese of New York and the Metropolitan Museum of Art have helped put together a testimonial to the alleged “Catholic Imagination” active in the fashion industry.

For this is a really big thing. The Vatican has made supposedly important artwork available. Cardinals Ravasi and Dolan (along with the ubiquitous James Martin SJ) have graced the opening with their presence. That opening was accompanied by a Met Gala of unsurpassable vulgarity uniting representatives of fashion, the entertainment industry and high finance. The exhibition is referenced in store windows up and down Fifth Avenue. We spoke to someone at a very well known New York antique store who said they have made valuable pieces of antique jewelry  – of an “ecclesiastical” appearance” no doubt – available to certain of the elite for the Gala.

(Above) a “Byzantine” dress.

The bulk of the exhibition consists of designer dresses – some old, some crafted for this show. Those on the “outskirts” of the exhibition are more “normal.” Their Catholic influence is limited to the application of mosaic images or crosses – or to the use of gold or blue fabrics ( the color blue is linked to the Virgin Mary, according to the exhibition).

As one advances into the center gallery the dresses get more and more fantastic. It’s the type of haute couture of which I always wondered: does anyone actually wear these “creations?”

(Above) A gown with a “brassiere” of ex-voto images. (Below) An evening gown inspired – so they say – by the “cappa magna” which has resurfaced in recent years in Traditional pontifical masses.

In a corner a video apparatus displays the “ecclesiastical fashion show” from Fellini’s Roma. Apparently what was intended in the movie as satire is taken seriously here. Life does indeed imitate art, as Oscar Wilde said, bu I doubt Fellini in his wildest dreams could have imagined “Heavenly Bodies” taking place less than 50 years after his movie. (The fashions in Roma were much more impressive, by the way).

Frankly, I didn’t see much “imagination” at work. It seems all exceedingly simplistic: copies of habits, cassocks, vestments and ornate dresses from images of the Virgin. And of course a number of figures with wings. (For some reason, by far the the best known examples of the latter in recent years – the Victoria’s  Secret “Angels” – didn’t make the cut.)

(Above) An ornate dress for a statue of the Virgin. “She was worshipped as the Bride of Christ” the exhibition helpfully explains. (Below) A wedding gown based on such dresses.

(Above and below) Dresses based on “Dominican” habits.

(Above) angels!

Now a Traditionalist can’t help but but point out that those aspects of Catholicism that seem to inspire these designers – traditional habits, soutanes, papal tiaras, ex-votos, lavish embroidered vestments, the “cappa magna,” images of the Virgin adorned in rich garments – are precisely those that were abolished or sidelined in the aftermath of Vatican II. But for this exhibit they are resurrected – is it the equivalent of using baroque vestments and polyphonic music in the Novus Ordo mass? It does seem these designers are taking various elements of Catholic tradition out of their context and applying them as mere decoration. I have to add that an undue interest in ecclesiastical paraphernalia for its own sake – such as can be seen here – is not at all necessarily healthy. It recalls the unholy stories we have heard concerning certain other ritualistic traditions…

Indeed there is a perceptible transvestite flavor to much of the show – not surprising given the industry. Women attired as bishops, as cardinals, as priests in soutane or alb – it’s all very odd from the perspective of Catholic morality. And gets even stranger when on its fringes the show veers off into the realms of the goths, leather or S&M.

(Above) An alb. (Below) A cardinal’s hat.

(Above) An episcopal evening dress. (Below) Based on two reviews in the press, undisputed critics’ choice for this exhibition: a leather bondage mask festooned with crosses.

(Above) Characteristic of this exhibit is the juxtaposition of fashion and real works of art. The mixing occurs – as here – even in display cases. “Heavenly Bodies” sprawls over most of the medieval galleries. We may criticize the role of the Catholic Church in this exhibition, but the modus operandi of the Metropolitan Museum of Art is no less meretricious.

That summarizes the “fashion” part of one of the most bizarre exhibitions I have ever seen. We have to wonder how this fosters respect for Catholicism or some “Catholic inspiration” – the snickering accounts in the press incline us to pessimism on that account. Rather, “Heavenly Bodies” would seem to document the offensive, hedonistic and libertine culture of our age. But as far as the Vatican and the hierarchy are concerned, such reflections are beside the point. For them, the great success is that they have been personally invited to participate in a “big show” with the elites of media, high finance, entertainment and (here) fashion. The real significance of “Heavenly Bodies” is that it is yet another milestone in the complete absorption of the post-Conciliar church into the ruling establishment of the West.

Saturday was a perfect day for the Lepanto conference. It was the feast of St Pius V, with whose support the famous battle was fought. It was the same St Pius V who codified the traditional Roman rite, which was so beautifully celebrated at this conference. And to have all this take place amid the grandeur of  the basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Waterbury, CT – the next best thing to a Roman basilica in America!

The vicar general of the archdiocese of Hartford in his 1930 history of the Catholic church in Connecticut described Immaculate Conception church as the “unquestionably the finest parish church in New England.” Apparently it was planned and built entirely on the local, parish level.

The conference downstairs was well attended. But for the solemn Mass at 1:10 many more people showed up.

The music was performed by Viri Galilei – a mens’ amateur schola – under the direction of David Hughes. it’s just one of the musical groups at St Mary’s parish, Norwalk.

A procession with a relic of St Pius followed the liturgy. Waterbury, like most Connecticut mill towns whose industries fled decades ago, is quiet on weekends. But this Saturday afternoon, the stillness surrounding the town’s old green was unexpectedly interrupted by the harmonious tones of plainchant.

(Above) It was heartening to see the banner of the Holy Roman Empire flying once more – this time in procession through an old New England mill town. (it was also used by the Holy League at Lepanto). We have covered the increasing number of concerts in New York City in recent years in which music of the empire has been performed – and identified as such. we hope to further this recovery of interest in the history and culture of this ancient Christian commonwealth.

It was a great honor for the Society of St Hugh of Cluny to sponsor this event. Our congratulations to the organizers of the conference, and we look forward to the second annual Lepanto conference next year!