His Eminence, Raymond Cardinal Burke,  will celebrate at  Saint Mary in Greenwich a  Solemn Pontifical Mass at the Throne for the Feast of the Annunciation on Saturday, March 25th at 11 o’clock in the morning.

(courtesy of Fr. C. La Pastina)

(Above) The Coronation of Charles as Apostolic King of Hungary.(Image Source -Andrew Cusack)

Traditional Latin High Mass
95th Anniversary of the Death of
Blessed Karl of Austria
With Veneration of First Class Relic

Saturday, 1 April 2017, 1:00 PM
Fourth Saturday of Lent
(Holy Rosary & Confessions begin at 12:30 PM)

St. Titus Church
952 Franklin Avenue, Aliquippa PA 15001

Celebrant: A Priest of the
Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest

Featuring the Duquesne University
Schola Cantorum Gregorianum
Under the Direction of Maura Goodwin

Blessed Karl of Austria died on Saturday, 1 April 1922, the Fourth Saturday of Lent and the day before Passion Sunday. The 95th anniversary of his death, 1 April 2017, falls on the Fourth Saturday of Lent and the day before Passion Sunday. Join us to commemorate this special anniversary.

Luncheon & Conference Immediately after Mass
In the Church Hall
(Reservations required for luncheon & conference.)

Featured Speakers: Gabor and Terez Laszlo
Topic: The Legacy of Blessed Karl in Modern Hungary:
The Social Reign of Christ the King

Luncheon Cost: $30/Person
$20/Student
For Luncheon Reservation Make Check Payable and Mail to:
Knights of Columbus 2161
2335 Concord Street, Aliquippa PA 15001
Deadline for Paid Luncheon Reservations: 25 March 2017

Sponsored By:
Knights of Columbus Woodlawn Council 2161
Traditional Latin Mass Guild

Daniel McInerny is a playwright, novelist, screenwriter, and philosopher. After receiving his doctorate in philosophy from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., he spent some sixteen years in academia, teaching and working at various universities in the United States, including the University of St. Thomas (Houston), the University of Notre Dame, and Baylor University. He is the author of the play, The Actor, about the young Karol Wojtyla’s transformation from aspiring actor to seminarian during the crucible of the Nazi occupation of Poland; as well as the play, Switcheroo, a farcical “heist plot of ideas.” His one-act play, Big Crush, was a finalist in the Arts Club of Washington’s 2015 One-Act Play Competition.

National Conference: “Gregorian Chant in Pastoral Ministry and Religious Education”
Friday, March 10 – Saturday, March 11, 2017
St. Joseph’s Seminary (Dunwoodie), Yonkers, New York

What role does the Church’s treasury of sacred music play in contemporary pastoral ministry and religious education? How does one build a sacred music program of excellence which serves as an integral part of the sacred liturgy and is also effective both in drawing souls to Christ and forming people in the Catholic faith? This national conference will bring together clergy, seminarians, scholars, musicians, teachers, and Catholic school administrators to consider the place of Gregorian chant and excellent choral music in the life of the Catholic Church in America today. The conference seeks to inspire attendees with ideas for starting or continuing to develop sacred music programs of excellence in Catholic parishes and schools. The conference organizers also hope to encourage discussion about the vitality and necessity of beauty and sacred music in the catechesis and formation of Catholics, as well as in the evangelization of non-Catholics and non-practicing Catholics.

This two-day conference will feature:
Keynote addresses by Msgr. Robert Skeris, Fr. Christopher Smith, and Mark Langley
Presentations, workshops, and panel discussions on topics related to the conference theme
Masses and the sung Divine Office with distinguished children’s and parish choirs
Opportunities for informal discussions

Presenters include: Dr. Mary Jane Ballou, Dr. Francis Brancaleone, Mary Ann Carr Wilson, Heitor Caballero, Colleen Crafton, Fr. Richard Cipolla, Dr. Jennifer Donelson, Fr. David M. Friel, Raymond Henderson, Dr. Aaron James, Fr. Robert Johansen, Lisa Knutson, Nathan Knutson, Alexis Kutarna, Frs. Robin Kwan and Kevin Mann, SJC, Dr. Ann Labounsky, Nicholas Lemme, Mary Catherine Levri, Dr. Crista Miller, Joel Morehouse, James Monti, Dr. Jared Ostermann, Kurt Poterack, Dr. Ronald Prowse, Laurence Rosania, Jonathan Ryan, Dr. Samuel A. Schmitt, Fr. Innocent Smith, OP, Students of the Atonement Academy, Dr. Jay Swain, Fr. Jon Tveit, Msgr. Andrew Wadsworth, The Ward Centre of Richmond, Virginia, Nicholas Will, Gustavo Zayas, and Amy Zuberbuler.

More information and registration

Traditional Latin Mass Lectures
Lecturer: Fr. Sean Connolly, archdiocese of NY
Sponsored by: Catholics Who Homeschool
St. Rose of Lima Church 130 Beach 84th St., Rockaway Beach, NY 11693-1885  Tel: (718) 634-7394
With the kind permission of Rev. James A. Kuroly, Administrator
All lectures will be conducted in the Chapel of Perpetual Adoration,  6:30pm – 8:30pm

 Tuesday, January17 th: “The History of the Mass and the Principal of Organic Development”
 Tuesday, January 24th : “The Ritual and Prayers of the Traditional Mass” 
Tuesday, January 31st: “Summorum Pontificum and the Traditional Mass Today”
The book, Treasure and Tradition, a guide to the Latin Mass, will be available for $20 and a good reference for the lectures
Thursday, Feb. 2nd Candlemas Mass (more information to follow) “Candlemas of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary”.
As a “Feast of Our Lord” of the 2nd class, the Feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary features the blessing of candles and a procession before Mass. The faithful hold lit candles during the Gospel and throughout the Canon of the Mass. 

50/50 Raffles: 3 Raffles for $10; Drawing taking place during the evening of the last class 
Coffee and light refreshments will be available after each lecture

For more information and to RSVP please contact: Catholics Who Homeschool, catholichsc@gmail.com; Dina Siano: dyappie@aol.com; Dan Marengo danmarengo@aol.com

In the last few days before Christmas an apparently minor internal conflict within the Order of Malta has exploded even in the international secular media. A senior officer – Albrecht von Boeselager – of the Knights of Malta has been suspended from the Order and removed from his positions by the Order’s Grand Master. And Pope Francis has installed a five-man commission to study the situation. It is reported that the members appointed to the panel are favorably predisposed to Albrecht von Boeselager – and that the Grand Master has rejected the panel as outside interference in the internal affairs of the Order.

The Knights of Malta here in the United States have been traditionally known for their charitable work and fundraising for the Church. In recent years, however, they have assumed a more active role in true liturgical renewal, taking a leadership role in several major Traditional events in and around New York. The same is true elsewhere in the world. We all know, moreover, who has been the Cardinal patron of the Order since 2014….

Now what exactly is going on? As always in such cases, the European media provide more details than one gets here. In fact, I first read of this situation in a curious anonymous article of December 15 in the website Kath.net. 1) Now this site is hardly traditionalist – it is “conservative Catholic,” fawns over Pope Francis (or did so until recently) and still makes unsuccessful efforts to ingratiate itself with at least some members of the German and Austrian hierarchies. According to this:

“A small circle from the German-speaking countries wishes to preserve the advantages of exclusivity and Sovereignty but to loosen somewhat the ties, in their opinion too constricting, with the doctrine of the Church and the Pope. … The Grand Hospitaller of the Order at that time, Baron Albrecht von Boeselager, took over the already almost finished recommendations (apparently, to intensify the lived spirituality of the order and to revitalize to the Order’s fundamental mission of defending the Catholic Faith – SC), rejected everything in favor of a watered-down recasting of the old statutes and rules, which thereupon disappeared into a filing cabinet. Also in his area of responsibility were humanitarian actions of the Order in Africa including the distribution of UNHCR aid packages, which also happened to include condoms. Similar activities were repeated in the following years. A commission, established by the Vatican, to examine these accusations, which identified violations against the teachings of the Church, was simply ignored by Boeselager and the German section of he order from which he came. Additional problems came up especially in and from Germany … nevertheless the influence of the German Association continued to increase.

In the meantime Boeselager had risen to the number three position in the Order, that of Grand Chancellor. But his problems from the past and the resulting tensions with other members of the Order’s government got in his way. That led the head of state and Order, Grand Master Fra (Brother) Matthew Festing to request his resignation several times. Every time, however, Boeselager refused…. This serious breach of the rules of the Order led immediately to a disciplinary procedure and thus to the suspension of (Boeselager’s) membership in the Order. Since Boeselager was no longer a member of the Order, the Grand Master had to remove him from all his offices.”

This article reads like a response to the article “A Combat Group against the Pope?” by Jörg Bremen, which had appeared on December 13 in perhaps the leading German newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (“FAZ”). Now in recent years the FAZ has become a authoritative mouthpiece for the German hierarchy. For example, it published a hit piece against Bishop Tebartz-van Elst, so hated by the German clerical Establishment. Martin Mosebach wrote an impassioned protest against that article (without naming its title or author) which contributed to the bishop’s removal. Then, while this September rumors were flying about an imminent regularization of the FSSPX by Bergoglio, I myself remained skeptical. For hadn’t the same FAZ a few months earlier published (one more) article viciously attacking the FSSPX? Given how beholden to the German church Bergoglio seems to be, I very much doubted that, whatever his own views might be, he would cross them on this issue!

Now according to this inflammatory article on the Order of Malta:

(Boeselager) will not yield. He even views the work of the order as endangered: service to the sick and needy of every kind. We hear in the Vatican that Boeselager has … some powerful supporters who know of his work from Asia to Lebanon.

Fra Matthew Festing, rather, appears to have fallen under the pressure of groups in the Order, which are trying with Cardinal Burke to transform the Fraternity into a battle group against the Pope. In so doing Festing is probably allowing himself to be utilized by Burke. The Pope had dismissed him as the head of the congregation of bishops and in 2014 had made him, much to the annoyance of many on the Order, the head cleric of the order. (sic – this account is factually inaccurate – SC) Burke wants, for example, to preserve as solely valid the “old” Tridentine mass and appears in the vestments of the 19th century.

While the Pope has received on Friday the leadership of the protestant Order of St. John … to discuss the unconditional service in the name of Christ to the refugees and needy, Burke and Festing apparently want to return the Order to the age of (separate) confessions. Burke also belongs to the four cardinals who put the Pope under pressure with their demand that he should give clear directions in the pastoral guidance of families, while Francis makes central the fate of the individual and the mercy of God to the penitent.

In the case of Boeselager many now hope for clarification by the pope, for Festing’s ability to lead is in question. … According to reliable sources in the Vatican on Tuesday, the dismissal of Boeselager from his offices was not at all desired by the Holy See – rather, his work was appreciated there.

So the internal dispute between Boeselager and Grand Master Festing is “ideologized” as a massive clash between enemies: Burke – described as a reactionary manipulator seeking to take over the Order – and Bergoglio, the supposed champion of ecumenism, service to the poor and the mercy of God. Our German reporter depicts love for the Traditional liturgy and a commitment to a stronger Catholic identity as opposed to Christian charity and the mission of the Order. And what is at stake are the jobs of Burke and Festing, not that of Boeselager. (While “clarification” of Amoris Laetitia by the bishop of Rome is not forthcoming, the reporter’s sources evidently expect it in the case of Boeselager.)

Bremen’s FAZ “news” piece undoubtedly accurately reflects the views of the German Church – and probably that of the Vatican as well. Unsurprisingly, it is also entirely in accord with a series of recent articles on the subject in The Tablet. It’s sad evidence both of the journalistic decline of the once-reputable FAZ ( pointed out by Martin Mosebach) and the radical coarsening of language and thinking  introduced into the Catholic Church by Bergoglio and his team.

In my own view, I would be surprised if Boeselager had undertaken his course of direct disobedience to the leader of the Order without previously assuring himself of cover from the Vatican. The (publicly disclosed) story is all very reminiscent of the Friars of the Immaculate – but the Order of Malta is made of sterner stuff than an Italian group of clerics.

Now in the last few weeks have seen developments in another “ chivalric order” – the Knights of Columbus. Several councils of the Knights have very active in the cause of the Traditional liturgy. For example, this year just in the New York area they organized the visit of Bishop Athanasius Schneider and the recent mass at St Patrick’s Cathedral. Yet conspicuously absent from the splendid mass in St. Patrick’s was the sponsor, the fraternal order of the Knights of Columbus themselves– as evidenced by several empty pews in the front of the cathedral. I was told that time had been too short to organize an honor guard….

In the last few weeks startling articles by Austen Ivereigh have attracted considerable attention. In the first, Ivereigh (a veteran spokesman of the English clerical establishment) denounced critics of Amoris Laetitia as reprehensible “dissenters.” He followed it up with comments supporting the Enneagram – and claiming approval by Bergoglio of its use. These articles appeared in Crux, an online alleged “news” site. But the interesting thing is that since  March 2016 the patron of Crux has been the Knights of Columbus. It’s a surprising turn of events indeed for an organization that up till recently has had a rather stodgy, even conservative reputation. And, given its origin and history, the notion of Crux publishing an article attacking “dissent” is even more surprising.

Now Crux started in the activities of John Allen as a reporter of the – allegedly “dissenting” but actually establishment – National Catholic Reporter. Like several others (e.g. Rocco Palmo), Allen took the line of advocating the progressive Catholic agenda while flattering liberal hierarchs like Mahoney or Martini. In 2014, when the leading progressive hierarch was no longer a German, American or Italian Cardinal but the bishop of Rome, Allen moved his expanded operation to the Boston Globe. Crux was established – obviously intended to be a source of sycophantic coverage of Bergoglio’s papacy, a role very much like that of the Italian Vatican Insider, created about the same time and also under secular media patronage (La Stampa). Apparently Crux was anything but a financial success. The Boston Globe dropped the operation in March of this year. The Knights of Columbus, however, immediately picked it up as a”partner.”

At no time in this progression of owners from “dissenting” Catholic newspaper to mainstream liberal secular publication to Catholic fraternal order has the party line of Allen and company actually changed. A glance at Crux verifies that: amid bland “softball” reporting on the Church in general such as you would expect to find in your diocesan paper, we find a separate rubric “Pope Francis.” An even if he is more restrained than Ivereigh, John Allen can’t conceal his enthusiasm for the “Boston- Washington – Chicago” axis – soon to be joined by Newark – representing the spearhead of Bergoglio’s remaking of the American hierarchy. 2)

The Knights of Columbus play a direct, sometimes controversial, role in the finances of the Vatican. I don’t think that their leadership was at all unaware that stepping in to preserve a Bergoglio-friendly “news” source would be viewed favorably in the current climate of the Vatican.

What can we make of all this? On the one hand, the bishop of Rome and his partisans are pursuing a hardline progressive course in morality, theology and politics, rooted in the clerical establishment and couched in ever more incendiary language. On the other hand, we have a contrary reform movement, bubbling up from below, for a more intense Catholic life and a return to Traditional liturgical practice and piety. These conflicting trends will place the institutions of the Church under increasingly great stress. It will no longer suffice for organizations like the Knights of Malta and the Knights of Columbus to muddle through as under Pope John Paul II, concentrating on charity, fundraising and socializing. They must now choose.

1. Konflikt im ältesten Ritterorden der Kirche, http://kath.net/news/57849 (December 15, 2016)
2. Bremen, Jörg,  Eine Kampfgruppe gegen den Papst?  (FAZ December 13, 2016).
3. https://cruxnow.com

The Roman Forum
11 Carmine St., Apt. 2C
New York, New York 10014
www.romanforum.org
drjcrao@aol.com

December 22, 2016

Dear Friends,

The Roman Forum is once again seeking $50,000 in tax-deductible donations in support of its Twenty-Fifth Annual Summer Symposium. This program will be held from July 3rd through July 14th, 2017 (11 nights) on the topic: Setting Right a World Turned Upside Down—Transformation in Christ Versus a Sickness Unto Death. We need this sum to provide travel, room, and board for our international faculty of sixteen speakers and our musical director. The funds are also used to aid the many priests, seminarians, college students, and others from across the globe who, without at least some help, would be unable to attend.
You may remember that the Twenty-Fourth Annual Summer Symposium, Half a Millennium of Total Depravity (1517-2017): A Critique of Luther’s Impact in the Year of His ‘Catholic’ Apotheosis”, was dedicated to the consequences of the first “reformer’s” thought and action. This was done so as to prepare a “truth serum” to work against the distorted adulation of the founder of Protestantism that will most certainly characterize the entire commemorative year of 2017. The working title for the book that this “truth serum” takes is Luther and His Progeny: 500 Years of Protestantism and Its Tragic Consequences for Church, State, and Society. Angelico Press will be releasing the text sometime in the next few months, and I am attaching a brief description of its contents. Very importantly, however, this book, and the program on which it is based, could not have become a reality without your generous donations.
Two commemorations will provide an extremely joyful framework for the Roman Forum’s next Summer Symposium in Gardone Riviera. 2017 will mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of this annual spiritual, academic, fraternal, and strategy-planning program of indispensable importance to the traditionalist world internationally. It will also be the tenth anniversary of Summorum pontificum, with all that that motu proprio has contributed to the advance of the cause of the “Mass of the Ages”.
Unfortunately and in all too many respects, 2017 threatens to be a much more troubled moment in Catholic time than twenty-five or even ten years ago. The erratic character of the current pontificate—and fears for what may follow it—are proving to be extraordinarily disturbing not just to the cause of the Faith but to that of human Reason as well. One has the sense of a “free fall”, with the “salt” having lost its savor. Too many Catholics, clerical and lay, happily support a global political and social order suffering from a “sickness unto death”; smiling as that order commits suicide and works to bring the Church down with it. Gardone, 2017 will address this problem thoroughly—with another book to follow from its labors.
The ethos for that second book will, as always, be the one laid out for us by Professor Dietrich von Hildebrand through his concern for rooting all of our work in an ever-deeper study of the theology of the Mystical Body and the exalted understanding of “transformation in Christ” that this probing of the full significance of the Incarnation yields. It is that Christological approach, closely connected with devotion to the Sacred Heart, that has made the Roman Forum so eager to work to cure our world’s “sickness unto death” by insisting upon the need to infuse all aspects of natural life—philosophical, political, economic, familial, fraternal, artistic, sportive, culinary; the serious and the festive together—with that Catholic teaching and grace that correct their flaws and raise them up in a hymn of praise to God. It is this approach that caused von Hildebrand already in 1970 to insist that the Roman Forum fight for the full restoration of “a liturgy that does not turn its back against God”. And Gardone 2017 will insist upon the validity of this Christological path, in all realms of human activity, as the sole, infallible guide to choosing the fullness of life instead of naturalist, secularist death. A second attachment describes the program and application process in detail. Come choose life with us if you can do so!
Please do give a tax-deductible donation to support the attendance of a speaker, a member of the clergy, a seminarian, or a student and make this twenty-fifth anniversary session possible. Send all donations, made out to the “Roman Forum”, either through PayPal (on our website) or directly to me at the address indicated above.

Sincerely yours in Christ,
John C. Rao (D.Phil., Oxford)
Chairman, Roman Forum
Associate Professor of History, St. John’s University

“Even if the wounds of this shattered world enmesh you, and the sea in turmoil bears you along in but one surviving ship, it would still befit you to maintain your enthusiasm for studies unimpaired. Why should lasting values tremble if transient things fall?” (Prosper of Aquitai

(Above) Examples of calligraphy in the exhibition correspond more closely to traditional “Islamic” art.

We have seen that the glorious heritage of Catholic religious art, music and architecture has largely fallen to the care of secular institutions: The Cloisters, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Frick collection, the Pierpont Morgan Library – to name just a few in the New York area. After the Second Vatican Council, the Church itself repudiated this heritage along with the Traditional liturgy. Indeed, generally speaking, Church patronage of the arts all but ceased. Yet, certain institutions of the Church continue involvement with the arts – but more in the sense of importing outside developments into the Church or at least maintaining contact with the “art” patronized by the secular establishment.

Such are the Paulists, “whose mission statement is in part to ‘build bridges of respect and collaboration with people of other world religions.’” They have organized “the first exhibition ever of contemporary Islamic Art in a Catholic place of worship” at St Paul the Apostle church in New York. The “Islamic” art ( a hodgepodge of traditional Islamic calligraphy and Western modern ideas)is interspersed among three side chapels dedicated to Our Lady, St. Theresa and St. Agnes. Verbose descriptions of the exhibits are provided. Never mind that some of this art, to the extent it attempts to formulate some kind of spiritual vision, directly contradicts Christianity. So we read that the first man may have been androgynous. The coran is quoted for the proposition that the birth of Jesus was painful. Or syncretistic links are attempted, such as between the worship of Krishna and of Allah, or where an Islamic gate is juxtaposed with a nearby statue of the Virgin Mary. Note that the Church of St Paul the Apostle is not just employed as a secular exhibition space (as is often the case, for example, with the Cathedral of St John the Divine) but “the Islamic work (is placed)side by side with the permanent Christian frescoes and statuary, creating extraordinary visual and ideological dialogs between the two traditions’ expressions of faith.”

And of course the secular political agenda of Pope Francis and progressive Catholicism is on display as well:

“This exhibit derives its title (“Brothers and Sisters: Islamic Art/Christian Space” – SC) from Pope Francis’s visit to war-torn parts of Africa in November 2015, in which he told the warring Christian and Islamic factions that “Christians and Muslims are brothers and sisters.” Seeing tensions in the U.S. (and Europe) being exacerbated by political voices eager to spread dissent and distrust, Openings (an “artists’ collective” supported by the Paulists  that organized this exhibition – SC) makes a proud statement of peace and solidarity among Americans of different faiths and backgrounds with this timely exhibition this election season.”

It’s very clear at whom this is aimed!

Unfortunately (or fortunately?) today, November 15 was the last day of the exhibition.
Source for quotes:Brothers and Sisters: Islamic Art/Christian Space

(Above and Below) Much of the art (including an “installation” – a video show) bears little or no resemblance to Moslem traditions. I am sure it would be well received in Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan.