Due to the inclement weather tomorrow,the Mass and picnic at the Marian Shrine,Stony Point,N.Y. , scheduled for tomorrow, is cancelled.  A rain date will be announced in the future.  However it is not the end.   Instead we will have the same Missa Cantata tomorrow at the Church Of The Holy Innocents at 1PM.   That is Sat.May25th.   Father Christopher J Salvatori,S.A.C. will be the celebrant.

Our photo shows the outdoor shrine dedicated to Mary Help of Christians, erected in 1954.  The grounds also include splendid life-size  statues depicting the 15 mysteries of the Rosary in Italian marble, outdoor Stations of the Cross, a replica of the boyhood home of St. John Bosco and a 48 foot tall statue of Our Lady of the Rosary.

This Pentecost three  “events”  nicely illustrated the current state of affairs, spiritual and artistic, in the Church. First, the Vatican – under the leadership of Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi – offers us a preview of its pavilion at the Venice Art Fair.  Obviously concerns about the “poverty of the Church” do not affect such initiatives.  The cost, however, has decreased to about $1,000,000  – well below earlier estimates.  Moreover, the Vatican went out of its way to note that “sponsors” funded this amount.  Obviously the criticism of the cost of the pavilion had stung. 1)

And what is the art to be exhibited? – it appears to be the usual collection of arbitrary, meaningless objects devoid of beauty, craftsmanship or any reference to the Church’s Tradition.  There is talk  (by Ravasi) of “creation” and even of “recreation.”   And to whom is this exhibit addressed? This art obviously does not appeal to the overwhelming majority of the Catholic Laity. I very much doubt that the Catholic clergy would have any more interest in it. Whether the dominant forces of “modern art” in the West today will develop some new appreciation for the Catholic Church and its continued love affair with modernity is also very doubtful.  They have gone on to bigger and better things!

Rather in such exhibits the higher clergy of the Catholic Church in Europe are primarily talking to themselves – trying to convince themselves that the supposed reconciliation between modernity and the church still lives. For those of us outside the Vatican and the Archiepiscopal sees of Europe, the important point is that this art  – not any “reform of the reform” or “other modern” – is still the official artistic ideal of the Roman Catholic Church.

A second “show” this Pentecost weekend was the gathering of the lay “movements” in Rome.  The spokesman for the event was another of the Vatican’s dialoguers with modernity, Archbishop Rino Fisichella. Supposedly 200,000 gathered in St. Peter’s square.  Over 150 new “ecclesial realities “ – like the Neocats,  Focolare,  Communione & Liberazione, Sant’ Egidio etc.,  dispatched their foot soldiers to this event.

Now “movements” is an uncertain concept derived from the political sphere. it embraces all the new organizations that have developed over the last 60 years – although some date to the 19^th century.  They all are focused an the laity, usually are “creative” in theology and liturgy, and often have a strong charismatic or Pentecostal flavor.  These, according to Archbishop Fisichella, are the “Fruits of Vatican II“ and the future of the Church. 2)  While the first statement may be true – with some reservations – I very much doubt the second!

First, it seems odd that the paragon of such organizations – Opus Dei – does not want to be included under the  ”movements” rubric. Second, the track record of such communities is anything but a record of unbroken success. For example, their typical organizational form – an absolute charismatic leader demanding blind obedience _ continues to facilitate an almost endless series of scandals.3) Third, the spread of the “lay movements,” which has taken place primarily in the Latin countries, has not arrested the decline of the Church there or elsewhere in the West – on the contrary!

For I believe that closer look would reveal whatever success the new “ecclesial realities “ have achieved has come largely at the expense of established parish structures and organizations. It is a case of “robbing Peter to pay Paul” – so bizarrely appropriate for groups that assembled this weekend in St. Peter’s Square!  Indeed, the positive witness of these groups is a protest against the monotonous spiritual and liturgical void that is the life of the typical parish and religious order.  Yet the hierarchy draws exactly the opposite conclusion. For the establishment, the “movements” are the last hope that the great experiment of the 1960’s continues, that despite all evidence to the contrary, the “new springtime” is still alive.

Yet there was a third event taking place this Pentecost. As always some 10,000 – 15,000 youthful pilgrims proceeded from Paris to Chartres – through, it seems, somewhat adverse weather this year. (Tragically, because of Church politics, a comparable if somewhat smaller number undertake this same weekend a pilgrimage in the opposite direction  – Chartres to Paris.) The relationship with the local bishops has improved  – the Paris to Chartres pilgrims are now welcomed by the local hierarchs and their representatives.  Yet it would be far from the truth to say that the pilgrimage for Tradition is “sponsored “ by the French Church – let alone by the Vatican. These groups follow no charismatic leaders, do not seek new liturgies or theologies but rely entirely on the unbroken Tradition of the Church.  No Cardinals or Archbishops hold laudatory news conferences.  The secular world is indifferent or hostile. Yet is there a better example of the laity spontaneously and publicly giving witness in shared prayer and sacrifice? 4)   A quiet , personal example that paradoxically is more in tune with  the actual if  largely unexpressed needs of modern man,  more respectful of his dignity and intelligence, than the extravagant shows and media initiatives  that have dominated evangelization in the Church for these last 30 years and more….

1)http://magister.blogautore.espresso.repubblica.it/2013/05/17/alla-biennale-di-venezia-anticipi-di-ricreazione/ ; http://fidesetforma.blogspot.com/2013/05/santa-sede-alla-biennale-confermate-le.html

2) http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/church-movements-bringing-50000-more-than-vatican-expected/

3) For example, see last week:http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2013/05/18/operation-verite-pour-les-freres-de-saint-jean-eclabousses-par-les-scandales_3313590_3224.html ( Thanks to Jean Kinzler at le Forum Catholique)

4) http://www.nd-chretiente.com/dotclear/index.php?post/2013/05/20/Pe

it was a fortunate audience who had the chance to hear  last Saturday the final performance this season of Poulenc’s Dialogues. The staging – from 1977 – was magnificent, the performances of the singers almost uniformly splendid and the conducting inspired. Poulenc’s modern musical idiom – if very much restrained here – works well in conveying the feverish, oppressive even nightmarish atmosphere of France in the revolution – or that of twentieth century totalitarianism.

For when Gertrud von le Fort published in 1931 the story upon which Bernanos’s libretto is based, the First World War had just ended and Catholics had experienced the persecutions in Mexico and the Soviet Union; the Spanish Civil War and its massacres, the Second World War and the conquests of communism in Europe and Asia stood immediately before. After the Second World War, Bernanos could survey all this. So possible martyrdom had become a reality for a large part of the Catholic world. For that world Bernanos crafted an extraordinary libretto of utter honesty, of bleak realism, of the courageous faith of flawed human beings in the face of seeming doom.

Soon, after the Council, Catholics had no more appetite for such depictions and such a message. I believe it was Mircea Eliade who interpreted the sudden rise of Teilhardianism in the early 1960’s as the Catholic repudiation of the “existentialist” spiritual drama and intensity of the Catholic Literary Revival with its focus on sin, redemption conversion and martyrdom. The soft and optimistic “spirit of Vatican II” is not that of Bernanos’ Dialogues.

In a similar manner, the Council paradoxically made impossible works like this opera. For those instances in the 1940’s and 50’s where “modern art” had achieved something in the spiritual realm – like Poulenc’s Dialogues or the churches of Matisse or Le Corbusier – had only come about through the fruitful confrontation of modernity with the still intact forms of belief and liturgy of traditional Catholicism. After the 1960’s such interaction was no longer possible – the Church either opted for junk or pandered to the worst excesses of a “modern art” gone mad.

It was impressive to see that each of these performances was nearly sold out and that so many young people attended. It was even more heartening to see in the audience musicians active in Catholic music and quite a few  seminarians as well (2 in cassocks!). These young Catholics are rediscovering the links between the arts and the sacred lost to the Catholics of my generation. Those links that produced – not just in the middle ages or the Byzantine Empire but as recently as 1957 – a masterpiece like the Dialogues.

The 18th annual “Pilgrimage for Restoration” to the shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville, New York will take place this year on Friday to Sunday, September 20-22. For further information and registration see HERE.

(Above and below: scenes from the 2010 Pilgrimage)

(Of course since the last pilgrimage, Kateri Tekakwitha has been canonized by Pope Benedict on October 21, 2012. She was born in nearby Fonda)

Statue of Kateri Tekakwitha in front of the Auriesville shrine.

The Friends of the Traditional Latin Mass, North Jersey, invite you to a pilgrimage and picnic at the National Shrine of Mary Help of Christians, 174 Filors Lane, Stony Point, NY on Saturday, May 25. Mass in the Extraordinary Form will take place at 12 noon. Picnickers should bring food and drinks. There are no barbecue grills on the premises. For more information, contact John Tobak at jtobak@yahoo.com or 973-738-4492.

Our photo shows the outdoor shrine dedicated to Mary Help of Christians, erected in 1954.  The grounds also include splendid life-size  statues depicting the 15 mysteries of the Rosary in Italian marble, outdoor Stations of the Cross, a replica of the boyhood home of St. John Bosco and a 48 foot tall statue of Our Lady of the Rosary.

There will be an Eastertide Day of Recollection on Saturday April 20 at the Shrine of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, East Harlem, 448 E. 116 Street, New York.  The pastor, Fr. Marian Wierzchowski will conduct the Day of Recollection.  There will be a low Mass in the Extraordinary Form at 10 am followed by Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, two talks, the Rosary, Confessions and Benediciton.  This event is sponsored by the Agnus Dei Council of the Knights of Columbus.  For more information:  (212) 534-0681.

At the Cloisters! For more on the flourishing cultural life under Mary Tudor see THIS and THIS. in 2008, from a rather unlikely source….