On Friday, January 30, Msgr. Joseph Pekar departed this world. He had served as the pastor of Saints Cyril and Methodius parish  in Bridgeport CT between 1971 and 2017. This parish was founded in 1905 for Slovak immigrants.  By the time of Msgr. Pekar’s pastorate, the original congregation was leaving the neighborhood. For decades Msgr. Pekar soldiered on in the midst of surroundings of fearful, almost surrealistic urban decline. Yet the parish survived. Thanks to Msgr. Pekar, the beautiful decoration and furnishings of this church were preserved intact. In the 1990s the Traditional Latin Mass returned. What had been thought to be a dying parish revived!  As the story of Saints Cyril and Methodius demonstrates, when a parish is losing its original parishioners,  the immediate response should never be consolidation and closing. 

When the time came for Msgr. Pekar to retire in 2017,  he was able to hand his parish over to the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest.  Since then, Saints Cyril and Methodius has flourished as a center for the beautiful celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass in the Bridgeport diocese. Its young congregation continues to grow. 

We have seen it again and again –  the seemingly quixotic actions of individual priests and laity,  in very dark times and often in obscure or endangered chapels or parishes, preserved the forms of Catholic tradition in art and music – and even the Traditional Mass itself. Later these early initiatives often blossomed into flourishing institutions. The parish of Saints Cyril and Methodius and all Traditionalist Catholics of Connecticut are grateful to Msgr. Pekar for leading and preserving this parish through so many challenging decades to its current success.

Canon Francis X. Altiere, current pastor of Saints Cyril and Methodius had this to say about the circumstances of Msgr. Pekar’s death in email to parishioners, dated January 30th:

“Having just now returned from Stamford Hospital with our parish trustee T.R. Rowe for the purpose of visiting Monsignor Pekar, I am writing with sadness to share with you the news that Monsignor has now been called into eternity. He had been anointed within the last few days and received visits from several longstanding parishioners; he had passed away not long before we arrived today, and so I recited the prayers for the commendation of a soul and blessed the body.

Better than anything I could say, Bishop’s Caggiano’s words upon learning of Monsignor Pekar’s death are the perfect summation of his legacy: “Monsignor was a wonderful priest who was committed to serve his people during times of great challenge for Bridgeport. He remained with his people with little regard for his own safety. It was heroic service.””

This Society had the opportunity to work with Msgr. Bevins in the revival of the Traditional Mass at Immaculate Conception parish after Summorum Pontificum. The photograph above shows the first celebration of the Traditional Mass at that church in some forty years. (November 18, 2007 – Msgr. Bevins is at left in choir). On October 26, 2008, we assisted at a Missa Cantata celebrated by Msgr. Bevins himself.

Since those days there have been many twists and turns for the Traditional Mass in Waterbury. But since 2019 the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest has administered the parish of St. Patrick in that city. But this was possible because of the foundations laid years before by many others – and especially by Msgr. John Bevins. R.I.P.

Today I heard the sad news that Fr. John Hunwicke had died on Tuesday, April 30th. He was a member of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham.

So many of us became acquainted with him on his blog Mutual Enrichment. An untiring champion of orthodoxy, Latinity and traditional culture, Fr Hunwicke offered a running commentary – now humorous, now acerbic and always erudite – on the (often disastrous) developments in Church and State. I would like to offer some personal reminiscences of Fr. Hunwicke.

In 2016 the Society of St. Hugh of Cluny had the pleasure of welcoming Fr. Hunwicke to the New York area. He spoke and celebrated mass at St. Mary’s, Norwalk; subsequently he spoke in the so-called “catacombs” of Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral. I’m sure many fondly recall this visit!

In between his official program. I had the honor of showing Fr. Hunwicke around New York. We visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Frick Collection, where he observed that Mr. Frick had had a simple plan for his collection, instructing his agents “just to buy the best, no matter what it is.” Fr. Hunwicke was very interested in Art Deco – what better place in the world to see it than New York City? Walking around Rockefeller Center (and later St Patrick’s Cathedral) he pointed out errors – sometimes egregious – in a coat of arms here, in a stained glass window there. A tour about town with Fr. Hunwicke was an amazing educational experience – for me!

Fr. Hunwicke later summarized his experiences in and around New York in his inimitable style:

I took the opportunity to avail myself of the very great privilege of celebrating and preaching in the fine church at Norwalk in Connecticut over which a fellow Oxonian, Dr Richard Cipolla of Cardinal College, a hospitable host, presides to such splendid effect. It is most impressive; the liturgy runs like the smoothest clockwork and the Music is in the charge of the mighty, impeccable, and infallible David Hughes. I had the unusual experience of being congratulated by no fewer than two of my hearers on preaching a sermon full of Ciceronian praeteritio. You don’t often get that class of comment on this side of the water.

For his full comments see Greetings from Father Hunwicke on this blog.

We stayed in touch. In 2019 the Society sponsored a Mass in thanksgiving for the canonization of Cardinal Newman at St. Catherine of Siena Church in New York. That Mass featured a new setting by Mr. David Hughes of a hymn written by Father Hunwicke, which begins:

Salve Fundator, Pater et Magister!

To set this hymn to music, Mr. Hughes had to enter into minor negotiations (supported by Fr. Hunwicke) with the Birmingham Oratory, which holds a copyright on it!

Fr. Hunwicke was a unique defender of the faith in our time. May he rest in peace!

(Above and below) At the Sacra Liturgia Conference in Menlo Park, June, 2022. The presentation he gave there was unforgettable.

He died today in Rome at age 81.

I only saw Cardinal Pell once – at the 2022 Sacra Liturgia Conference in Menlo Park sponsored by Archbishop Cordileone. Cardinal Pell’s address was easily the most memorable presentation at this event. He spoke of his imprisonment, of his inabilty to celebrate Mass and of his trust in the Lord despite all adversities. His physical presence alone was impressive; his direct and unmannered eloquence was moving. He later celebrated a beautiful Novus Ordo Mass.

Cardinal Pell indeed had much to suffer. He was called to Rome to address the financial affairs of the Vatican which have been a source of scandal and disgrace since the late 1970’s. He was forced out relatively quickly with the involvement of politically connected characters who themselves were subsequently dismissed and are now facing a criminal trial. Cardinal Pell’s actions were vindicated all too soon.

Subsequently Pell was a victim of the clerical abuse hysteria, which the media (with their Catholic allies) selectively direct against political adversaries. Cardinal Pell was convicted in Australia after a preposterous trial, forced to spend a year in solitary confinement – only to be completely exonerated on appeal. That hasn’t stopped the media from presenting Pell, after his death, as a “controversial,” tainted figure. One thinks of the German media storm and resulting legal action againt Pope Benedict in 2022. Pope Benedict has also continued to be vilified as an alleged facilitator of clerical sexual abuse. Yet, far more recent and well-founded revelations regarding prominent figures still in authority remain, to large extent, unexplored…..

As for Cardinal Pell’s relationship with Catholic Traditionalism, I can only relay the following news from Michael Matt (the leader of many years of the American chapter of the Pentecost Chartres pilgrimage):

I think it is more than appropriate for us to remind our readers that one of George Cardinal Pell’s last public acts was to let it be known that he’d accepted an invitation from Notre-Dame de Chretiente to offer the Traditional Latin Mass in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Chartres on Pentecost Monday for the close of the 2023 Pilgrimage to Chartres, France. Given the controversy surrounding Traditionis Custodes and the Vatican’s attempted suppression of the Latin Mass, this was indeed an act of courage and fidelity to Tradition on the part of His Eminence. Cardinal George Pell R.I.P.

When I heard the other day that the “pope emeritus,” Benedict XVI, had become seriously ill, I searched through what I and others had written about him over the years. But it was especially the illustrations to these writings,  the pictures of Benedict himself,  that I found moving. From the years of his papacy there were so many images of a kind, friendly, smiling man. In his dress and demeanor, he perfectly represented the dignity of his office as well as his own personal modesty. It contrasts with the disturbing images, deeds and revelations that emanate almost daily from the Vatican under the regime of Benedict’s successor.

A Theological Leader

In the 1950s Joseph Ratzinger commenced a career as an academic – always his first love. Early on he became involved in the progressive circles of the Catholic Church in Germany. He acted as part of the team that pushed through the documents of the Second Vatican Council. In retrospect,  Ratzinger never conceded any issues with his advocacy at this time, never felt any remorse at the effects of some of those decisions. Yet, he had been one of the movers in the revolution in the Church. At about this time he even took up a teaching position side by side with Hans Küng in Tübingen.

Very shortly thereafter, however,  his path diverged from that of the German Catholic establishment. By the late 1960s, as his major theological works were published,  he came to be seen by the orthodox minority of the German Church as a potential theological savior. Already people were turning with hope to him to find spiritual leadership in the midst of the growing chaos within both the Church and society.

By the 1980s he had emerged as the most articulate defender of the Catholic tradition within the establishment (and the hierarchy). In books such as the famous Ratzinger Report he acknowledged the damage inflicted upon the Church by disregarding Catholic tradition in the liturgy. This was a breath of fresh air. Indeed, Joseph Ratzinger was by far most effective as a theologian and spiritual writer. I know people (and have read of more) who have been inspired and even transformed by the reading of his books. His influence on priests was remarkable.

But in the 1970’s and 80’s he found papal favor as well, first from Paul VI,  and then from John Paul II.  For, as his “conservative” admirers had already discovered,  he seemed to offer both loyalty to the Council and reverence for Catholic tradition. In 1977 he was appointed to the prestigious see of Munich and was also made Cardinal. 

As Bishop and Vatican Prefect

We find, however, that Ratzinger early on encountered difficulties in a position requiring leadership and management skills. The best that can be said about his five years in Munich was that he was little different, both for better and for worse, than his colleagues in the German episcopate. Some of the decisions he took at this time later came back to haunt him (e.g., regarding a specific abusive priest or the “Catholic Integrated Community”). 

In 1982 he was appointed to the Vatican as the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (and chief theological adviser to John Paul II). He remained in this office for the next 23 years. Both in his public statements and in behind the scenes advocacy he worked for the preservation of Catholic faith –  in theology, morality, and liturgy. 

As a professor in Germany,  Joseph Ratzinger had already attracted the hostility of the Church progressives. Their animosity intensified drastically during his service as prefect and, thanks to the media, spread far beyond the borders of his homeland.  The media depicted this kind, gentle and scholarly man ludicrously as a merciless authoritarian in contrast to the outgoing, warm personality of John Paul II.  A near riot would be staged against a lecture Ratzinger gave in New York. 

It seems that Joseph Ratzinger had sought neither elevation to the see of Munich nor his subsequent appointment to the Vatican. It is reported that he tried to retire from his Vatican office several times. Certainly, at the Vatican he insisted on continuing, in addition to his administrative duties, his scholarly writing and the interaction with his circle of students.  I get the sense from accounts such as those of Seewald that he remained isolated in the Vatican, failed to develop the contacts and networks necessary for getting things done in such an incompetent bureaucracy, and that the actual management of the affairs of the Church rested in other hands. He could not necessarily restrain John Paul II even in theological matters (e.g., the first Assisi meeting).

The Pope

Accordingly, it must have come as the greatest shock of all to Joseph Ratzinger to have been elected Pope in 2005. Benedict XVI,  in his Christmas address of that year, signaled that he wished to promote a shift in the culture or attitude of the Catholic Church and her relationship to her own past.  Famously, he advocated  a “hermeneutic of reform…in… continuity,” distinguishing it from a “hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture.”  Yet, in practice, his implementation of this vision was extremely limited and fragmentary.  As for the liturgical reform of the reform, for example, Pope Benedict made only some timid gestures in the matter of the arrangement of candlesticks and crucifix on the altar and continued to promote exact translations of the liturgical texts. On the administrative level, he addressed some of the more egregious situations bequeathed to him by his predecessor ( such as the matter of Fr. Maciel and the Legionaries of Christ) and tried to start a reform of the curia and its finances.

Pope Benedict’s limitations as a leader became increasingly evident. His selection of associates in the Vatican was just as erratic as that of his mentor John Paul II; his management decisions were often inexplicable. His official statements could be disappointing; his encyclical on the economy had several luminous paragraphs, apparently written by him, buried in pages of meaningless verbiage. His political sensibility, in both theory and practice, was limited. Although a man of great musical and artistic sensitivity,  Benedict now and then celebrated Masses wearing vestments or accompanied by music of an ugliness and incompetence that were scandalous even in the opinion of  progressives. Pope Benedict found it difficult or impossible to directly confront opposition inside or outside of the Church  – even that in his own Vatican. On at least one occasion,  Benedict‘s own staff forced him to abandon his own decision – an abortive deal in 2012 for the recognition of the FSSPX. When the files are opened,  I would not be surprised to discover that this specific incident first led Benedict to consider resignation. 

Yet, in one case Benedict by his personal engagement overrode intense internal opposition  –  the hostility of the Vatican bureaucracy, the mainstream religious orders and much of the hierarchy –  to finally give freedom to the Traditional Mass. The implications of this were profound.  Benedict undoubtedly sensed that the prohibition of the Traditional Mass was only one aspect of an attempt to cancel (as we say today) the entirety of Catholic tradition. Furthermore, by assigning  the initiative for obtaining Traditional Masses in the laity, Benedict was putting his finger on the monstrous failure of the Catholic hierarchy,  bureaucratic or progressive or both, to respond to the needs of the Church today. It was even perhaps the first step in a reform of the centralized, ultramontane structures of the Church.  Associated with this action, Pope Benedict partially regularized the status of the FSSPX. Thus, Benedict sought to end the exclusion of Traditional Catholics from the Church and heal the resulting tragic divisions.  Yet Pope Benedict would not go further – he would not celebrate the old liturgy publicly as pope.

The Resignation 

After his election as Pope, the animosity to Ratzinger that had been building for decades exploded into outright hatred on the part of the clergy, academics and the secular news media. The assault on the pope now took on international dimensions as well. He was depicted as a fanatic, a persecutor, a mindless disciplinarian. He was indicted for triggering hatred towards Islam, for advancing “holocaust deniers,”  for trying to restrict birth control (condoms). No matter what he did, he encountered the same relentless drumfire from the media.

Clearly, insidious clerical circles, both inside and outside the Vatican, were also conspiring against him. His own butler betrayed him. Of course, we do not yet know the full story of what exactly happened in the Vatican in 2010- 2013, but it seems that Benedict finally had convinced himself that he could no longer effectively govern the Church. You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to conclude that the pressure of an organized and treacherous opposition in his pope’s own curia played a decisive role in the pope’s stunning decision to resign.

It was a shattering blow to the Church and to Benedict’s personal mission of reconnecting the Church to her own Tradition. With the election of Pope Francis, moreover, the “pope emeritus” Benedict soon had to witness a regime coming to power that set out to undo everything he and John Paul II had done to preserve or even recover Catholic tradition. By his resignation, Benedict had jeopardized the labors of decades. As in the case of his actions during the Second Vatican Council,  however, Benedict was unable to acknowledge publicly that he had done anything wrong by resigning.  

As “Pope Emeritus”

In retirement, Pope Benedict resided in Rome for almost another 10 years – longer than the period of his active pontificate. Again, we do not know the details of all that happened during this period.  I don’t think we would be very wrong, however, to surmise that Benedict provided support, either directly or through his mere existence, to the forces trying to slow down the Francis revolution. The most obvious example of this was the book Benedict co-authored with Cardinal Sarah which undoubtedly played a role at derailing –  for the time being –  Pope Francis’s push for a married clergy and female deacons. Some very plausibly think that this incident was the genesis of Traditionis Custodes, Pope Francis’s subsequent attack on the Traditional Mass – and accordingly on Benedict himself. Characteristically, as a media uproar ensued upon publication of this book, Benedict immediately tried to dissociate himself from its co-authorship.

The relentless hounding of Benedict by the media and the official Church continued throughout his retirement.  The new pope’s minions celebrated Francis as a liberator, as the new John XXIII, with Benedict playing the role of Pius XII. Benedict lived to see his sole major legislative accomplishment, Summorum Pontificum, abrogated and the reasoning behind it misrepresented by Pope Francis and his academic and media followers. A book was published (with some discrete Vatican input) depicting Benedict as an effete, eccentric aesthete obsessed with lavish vestments and ceremonies. In early 2022 there was yet another all-out attack on Ratzinger in Germany, this time in regard to how he handled the case of an abusive priest while archbishop of Munich. The renewed rage of the German media and the “German Catholic Church” against Benedict knew no bounds – a poisonous atmosphere to which Benedict contributed by various gaffes and misstatements.  Indeed, legal action was initiated against Benedict to obtain a kind of declaratory judgment against him for his management of this matter ( the case was dropped on December 31 after Pope Benedict’s death) 

Even after his death, the castigation of Pope Benedict continued.  The (official) German Catholic media seemed to damn him with faint praise (amid the obligatory platitudes). But we are also told, for example,  that he was a reactionary, that his theology no longer has any influence in the official German theological world.  In the United States,  the secular media accompanied the announcement of his death with sound bites summarizing Benedict’s reign as a series of scandals or describing his primary accomplishment as worsening ecumenical relations. 

A Spiritual Man in a distressed, fossilized Church

As a bishop, as prefect of a major Vatican Congregation and especially as pope,  Ratzinger’s accomplishments were more limited than his intellectual talents and spiritual vision would have led his many supporters to expect. Yet, this negative assessment is not at all the whole story. His pontificate may not have been successful; but were those of Paul VI,  John Paul II, and the current incumbent any more so?  In many respects, Benedict’s papacy appears to have been more positive than theirs. We have referred to his public style and external image –  dignified yet modest – forming such a contrast with the ceaseless self-promotion of Benedict’s successor (and predecessor)! We have mentioned his willingness to give to the laity the initiative in reclaiming the Traditional Mass – as opposed to issuing decrees from on high addressed to the clergy. And with Summorum Pontificum he took a courageous decision which his immediate predecessor had been unable to make. For, as a rule, John Paul II was content to adopt a passive, laissez-faire attitude to governing the Church. Paul VI and Francis, in contrast, have indeed been capable of taking actions that have shaken the whole Church. However, they could do this only because they enjoyed the support and prompting of the ruling secular powers of our day. 

Pope Benedict’s significant presence in the Church did not disappear with his resignation. We get a sense of the hidden influence that the “pope emeritus” exercised by comments after Benedict’s death in German–language media, both Catholic and secular. It is there asserted that now Pope Francis will enjoy greater scope of action, that he at last will be able to speak more directly on issues. The NZZ (one of the two main German-language newspapers) even entitles an article: ”After the death of Benedict XVI Pope Francis is now, for the first time, sole pope.”

The difficulties Benedict experienced as pope were not, however, primarily attributable to his acknowledged lack of leadership and management skills. For the fundamental faults of Benedict’s papacy were not personal to him but institutional. In my view,  the real issue of the Church is the need to respond to the spiritual void that had developed in the West since the 18^th century and to reconvert the people to the Faith. Yet, this intuition of the need for spiritual change and renewal contrasted sharply with the establishment’s simultaneous commitment to the “system” of the Church with all its attendant weaknesses:  bureaucratic complacency, lack of transparency, the avoidance of unpleasant problems,  eagerness to reach an easy accommodation with the world and its ideology.  

This contradiction became even more glaring under Pope Benedict, a man endowed with genuine intellectual and spiritual gifts. More than most Catholics,  he sensed that the Church was at the point of a great transformation – even a great trial or purification.  Yet, at the same time, he remained the quintessential man of the establishment: loyal to the Council,  devoted to academic bureaucracy, always taking great pains to avoid conflict (and the appearance of conflict)within the Church and trying to maintain a public facade of unanimity and harmony. To balance an intensely spiritual, dramatic, almost apocalyptic vision with complacent, even conformist practice was an impossible task, inevitably doomed to failure. But it was a failure Pope Benedict shared with whole Conciliar Church! The defects of Pope Benedict were shared by many; his virtues only by a very few.

There are far more enduring aspects to Benedict’s legacy. I see them every day in the great renaissance of the Traditional Mass movement, made possible by Summorum Pontificum. It is heartening that many priests and young people rediscover the full Tradition of the Catholic Church. These priests, religious and laity are now standing firm in their faith in the face of renewed attempt by the current Pope to exclude them from the Church and to eliminate Catholic Tradition. All this was a made possible by Summorum Pontificum, its implementing regulations,  and its predecessor indults. Pope Benedict either issued these or, as prefect, was involved in their creation. Moreover, it was Benedict’s ( or Joseph Ratzinger’s) writings that had helped to create broad awareness within the Church of the significance of liturgical issues in the first place. 

Outside of traditionalism in the strict sense, Benedict’s legacy also continues to inspire.  So many still discover “orthodox” Catholicism by reading the theologian Ratzinger’s works and addresses.  Benedict also authorized the Ordinariate of the Anglican patrimony which is enjoying success in some regions.  Even the reform of the reform seems to retain its adherents! We owe an immense debt of gratitude to Benedict for all this. In future generations the spiritual and intellectual legacy of Pope Benedict,  I am confident, will continue to be studied and flourish.

UPDATE: A clarification or correction to the statement above on the German legal procedure against Benedict. Although it had announced the legal action would be terminated upon Benedict’s death, the court said later that the case will continue against Benedict’s “heirs.” No such “heirs” have been identified, nor has any property of Benedict’s been found in Germany. So it is very unclear what will happen next. The entire purpose of this proceeeding is to rehash in public allegations embarrasssing to Benedict (or now, to his memory); monetary damages are reported to be precluded by the applicable statute of limitations.

The denigration of Benedict in his own homeland continues even after his death.

Below are relevant links from katholisch.de (in German).

Landgericht Traunstein: Verfahren geht gegen Erben Benedikts weiter.

Amtsgericht ermittelt vorerst keine Erben von Benedikt XVI.

Alice von Hildebrand died on January 14.  I would like to offer a few remarks on her connections with the traditionalist Catholic movement both in the areas of morality and liturgy.

Certainly when I first encountered her in the 1980’s at conferences and lectures she did not appear to me to show any traditionalist liturgical sympathies.  I associated her with organizations such as Opus Dei and CUF (Catholics United for the Faith) which were and are anything but traditionalist. Her interests also seemed to be more on questions of personal morality and ethics rather than liturgy. For example, at a memorable conference sponsored by Opus Dei she and Christopher Derrick squared off on issues related to the nature of marriage. Her highly romantic views contrasted with his realism; her apotheosis  of marital love with his satisfaction at having been able to “muddle through”  his many years of marriage.

She had been for many years a professor at Hunter College. Strange,  how many Catholic writers and intellectuals in those years ended up at non-Catholic institutions (Dietrich von Hildebrand himself at Fordham was a noteworthy exception).  Alice von Hildebrand took retirement in 1984 – I heard at that time this was an action initiated by the university,  prompted by several prominent conversions among her students. Alice von Hildebrand in a memoir published in 2014 confirmed incidents related to conversions but made no causal connection between them and her voluntary decision to retire. 1) Thus, her secular academic career has some similarities with that of John Senior at the University of Kansas.

Alice von Hildebrand devoted much of her efforts over the years  to preserving the memory of her husband Dietrich von Hildebrand. Now,  Dietrich von Hildebrand was, among other things,  an early and outspoken critic of tendencies within the Catholic Church that erupted into a virtual civil war after the Second Vatican Council. For example, he – together with his wife – wrote a critique of the views contained in the novel Kranz der Engel of Gertrude von Le Fort. This 1946 novel was a very early example of Catholic situation ethics such as that later canonized in Amoris Laetitia.2)

Dietrich von Hildebrand was also an early critic of aberrations in Catholic liturgy, morality and theology in the 1960s. One of his main works in this area was the famous Trojan Horse in the City Of God  (1967) which received praise from noted intellectuals but induced fits of rage among members of the Church establishment. For example, the German writer Ida Goerres, outwardly conformist yet privately critical of post-Vatican II developments, was motivated to write a negative review of this book (which I have yet to find!) 

But Dietrich von Hildebrand  did not limit himself to the role of commentator. For example,  he was involved early in the organization of a chapter of Una Voce in the United States. He was one of the early contributors to Triumph magazine. And Roger McCaffrey provides the very important information that Vincent Miceli SJ celebrated a traditional Latin Mass in the home of Dietrich and Alice von Hildebrand in the mid 1970s. At that time the traditional Mass was an affair of the catacombs! 3)

Alice von Hildebrand adopted a less public role on these issues – yet she was not inactive either. In 1993 Roman Catholic Books published The Charitable Anathema, a collection of Dietrich von Hildebrand’s essays on, among other things,  liturgical issues. I believe many of these forceful writings appeared first in Triumph magazine.  Alice von Hildebrand held the copyright to these works. We read here:

Thus I hope and pray that the Tridentine mass will not be abolished but will continue to be celebrated side by side with the new Ordo.  Furthermore, I hope and pray that in the course of time, its superiority, from the pastoral as well as the doctrinal standpoint, will be recognized by the Holy See, and that in the future the Tridentine mass will be reinstated as the official liturgy of the holy Mass in the Western Church. 4) 

Roger McCaffrey also informs us that Alice von Hildebrand helped to organize traditional Masses in Westchester county . 5)

In 2002 I returned to the New York area. For years we attended Sacred Heart parish in the town of Port Chester on the Connecticut border,  where an ”indult” traditional mass was celebrated each Sunday. Alice von Hildebrand was a regular member of the congregation. It was a low Mass; the priest was rather eccentric (to put it mildly) and I don’t recall if that parish had any music at all. But I think that humble service suited Alice von Hildebrand fine.  

In 2014 Alice von Hildebrand  organized a traditional Requiem in memory of her husband. Her own Requiem also will be in the traditional rite. Let us offer prayers for the repose of her soul. Her funeral arrangements: link

1. Von Hildebrand, Alice and Crosby, John Henry, Memoirs of a Happy Failure at 167-77 ( 2014 Saint Benedict Press, Charlotte, NC)
2. His position on von Le Fort’s novel can be found here: “To derive from the possibility of a ‘felix culpa’ the right to choose, under extraordinary circumstances, a sinful action, is one of the basic errors that we find in circumstance ethics, at least in its most radical form. … A typical case of this error is to be found in Le Fort’s “Kranz der Engel.” The Father Angelo who advises Veronica to accept a marriage outside the Church because in doing so she may eventually succeed in converting her fiancé, patently adheres to the principle, ‘The end justifies the means.’ He advises her to commit a sin in order to attain eventually an end of great value.” von Hildebrand, Dietrich, with Alice Jourdain, True Morality and its Counterfeits at 85 (footnote 4) (1955, David McKay Company, Inc., New York). Reissued as: von Hildebrand, Dietrich & Alice,  Morality and Situation Ethics, (1966, Franciscan Herald Press, Chicago, IL) and available online from EWTN. (Readers may be amused by the new Vatican II-style preface to the 1966 edition written by none other than Bernard Häring) 
3. Alice von Hildebrand, Valiant Catholic (accessed 1/17/2022)
4. Von Hildebrand, Dietrich,  ”Belief and Obedience: the Critical Difference” in The Charitable Anathema at 33 (1993 Roman Catholic Books, Harrison, NY)
5.  Alice von Hildebrand, Valiant Catholic

I was saddened to hear that Alex Šepkus had passed away last Sunday. Born in 1954, he emigrated from Lithuania in 1988 and quickly became a major creative force in jewelry design. Alex Šepkus was always a staunch supporter of the Traditional rite, and in the New York area he was a familiar face among Traditionalists. He was a member and supporter of this Society, and could often be encountered at our masses and events. Indeed, his death came as a particular surprise to us in the Society since just on August 21 he had corresponded with me about a recent post on this blog. Alex Šepkus was a founding member of the Sleepy Hollow Chorale. Undoubtedly a true artist like Alex Šepkus had a special appreciation for the beauty of the Old Rite. May he rest in peace! Our deepest condolences to his wife, Dangė.

Above: Alex Šepkus(second from left in background) singing in the schola at a Solemn mass at Holy Innocents Church, New York, on March 25, 2010. The Mass was in the presence of the late Cardinal Egan. Below: Alex Šepkus(in the back, standing, third from left) singing at the Roman Forum conference in Huntington, Long Island on June 30, 2021. Alex was one of the many in the Catholic Traditionalist movement who express and deepen their faith by their “active participation” in scholae and choirs.

The wake will be held Saturday, September 11th and Sunday, September 12th from 4pm-7pm, Coffey Funeral Home, 91 North Broadway,Tarrytown, NY 10591(914.631.0983).

The 90-minute funeral services will be held on Monday, September 13th at 11am at Immaculate Conception Church, 199 North Broadway, Sleepy Hollow, NY 10591(914.631.0446)

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Arcadi Nebolsine died last year on August 21 at the Westhampton Care Center  (Long Island) after a long illness. He was 87. For an obituary see HERE.

What can I say about Arcadi Rostislavovich Nebolsine? He was my dear friend for so many years. I first met him in the company of his own great friend, Thomas Molnar, in the early eighties. I visited him regularly every year after that – and even more frequently after I had moved back to the New York area in 2002.  I saw him the last time in 2020 in a nursing home out on Long Island shortly before he died.

His impressive, formidable appearance was certainly out of the ordinary. And Arcadi spoke with an accent all his own – a mélange of American, British and vaguely European. He may have been a character, yet he was no eccentric or pseudo-intellectual. Rather, he projected the image of a cultured European gentleman.  Indeed he could be quite the bon vivant when the occasion presented itself.  His own parties after Easter and Christmas (according to the Julian calendar, that is) always drew a crowd of guests from the Russian exile community and many others who know Arcadi well.  For Arcadi had an amazing army of friends who shared his passions for art and culture. And he would attend the gala Petrouschka ball of the Russian nobility society. 

The basis of his culture was a profound knowledge of Russian literature and philosophy. But no aspect of European culture and music was foreign to Arcadi. In particular, Arcadi was a great admirer and collector of the works of 20^th century English Catholic and Christian authors: G.K. Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, Charles Williams, C.S. Lewis and T.S. Elliot. Next
to his Russian literary studies, it was, so to speak,  a second fundamental point of reference for him. Indeed, Arcadi very much regretted not having had the opportunity to get to know C.S. Lewis better when he studied at Oxford in the 1950’s. At the time, he had been put off from exploring the Christian alternative – insofar as it had any visibility – by the social climbing antics of the Catholic chaplain and the eccentricity of the local clerical leader of the Orthodox….

Over the years, Arcadi and I would often meet and dine together for an evening of wonderful conversation. Since Arcadi always had some difficulty in getting around, our excursions were restricted to places in the vicinity of his apartment on East 86th Street. One such spot was the Heidelberg restaurant – along with Schaller & Weber, the last remnant of German and Central European Yorkville. Arcadi would inevitably order a couple of Martinis – with plenty  of olives – and an immense Schweinshaxe. Then he would unfailingly request a side of preiselbeeren  – only to he told they only had available cranberries ( the same answer the waiter had given him for over twenty years.)

In our conversations we would inevitably go over his latest cause. For Arcadi was always campaigning for something. Let me give you a brief hint of the range of his interests.

He was a great champion of the preservation of traditional art, cities and landscapes  He was always highly critical of modem invasive restorations – such as the renovation of the Sistine chapel – which substituted aggressive, bright colors for the subdued palette of the past. For his spiritual homeland, Russia, he helped organize a society for the preservation of Russian art and monuments. In particular, the fate of St. Petersburg was of grave concern to  him.

For it was the baroque and neoclassical styles that were dearest to Arcadi’s heart. Now that may seem surprising – but, as Arcadi liked to point out, non-Russians generally know nothing about the classical element in Russian culture: the poetry of Pushkin or the neoclassical architecture of the St. Petersburg of 1800. Who outside of Russia knows, for example,  that the Kazan cathedral of that period in that city was conceived as variation on St. Peter’s in Rome? And it was Arcadi who revealed to me that Nikolai Gogol  – the most passionate protagonist of the pro-Russian, pro-Orthodox  tendency in Russian culture,  had also written the most sympathetic account of the city of Rome and of the Catholic culture that still survived there in the 1840’s. 

In his struggles for the preservation of culture he developed and applied the concept of an ecology of the beautiful – uniting in the landscape nature and the works of man ( architecture). St. Petersburg, situated in a flat landscape by the waters of the Neva river under a limitless Northern sky, was for him a cultural ideal. Again, contrary to the notions of outsiders, he saw the old imperial capital with its “Western” domes and spires as a Christian city reaching up to heaven. He worked with local activists to prevent its desecration by modern high rises.

Similarly, Arcadi’s enthusiasm for the Austrian baroque was boundless. In the United States, he was drawn to the beaux-arts tradition that had flourished before 1914. Arcadi had less use for certain other periods and styles – such as those of the Victorian Age or the imitation “Slavic” architecture or Nazarene style icons of the same period in Russia. For more recent innovations, he had no understanding at all.

A second country dear to him was Portugal, where he often spent part of the year. He often spoke of the wonderful Portuguese landscapes, architecture  and people, and of his friend the pretender to the  Portuguese throne. He knew Fatima and its message well and also wrote an essay about the Azores and its “enchanted” landscapes, villages and small towns.  (The Azores, 1996 (untranslated)).

On a subject that should be of interest to the readers of this blog, Arcadi had a keen understanding of the liturgy and could always make a quick comparison of the Latin  (Traditional Catholic, that is) and the Orthodox rites. I first heard from him criticism of the 1955 changes to the Easter Triduum in the Latin church. He had had years ago contacts in Europe with circles of supporters of Archbishop Lefebvre. Regarding the whole question of revising the liturgy,  the Russian Orthodox Church had gone through a stage after the Revolution  in which  liturgical experimentation was encouraged by the authorities (the so-called Living Church). It was quickly dropped even in Soviet times, and Arcadi regretted that in Russia any otherwise harmless adjustments to the liturgy were no longer possible given the association of such changes with Communism. 

There were amusing differences between us illustrating the contrast between the Orthodox and Catholic perspectives. I had commented to Arcadi that I had read that if the Patriarch of Moscow would ever propose Vatican II – style changes, he would be deposed. Not at all, said Arcadi – in Orthodoxy nobody would listen to him in the first place .

His knowledge of all things Catholic was great, but the Second Vatican Council and John Paul II were insuperable barriers to any further interest he may have had. Although Arcadi was of the opinion that very little separated (Traditional)Catholics and the Orthodox. A few minor things like the papacy and divorce, to give a couple of examples…

Towards the end of his life he was working hard on trying to find a doctrinal formula that could serve to unite West and East. As in his efforts for the preservation of monuments, the gigantic nature of such a task never deterred Arcadi.

His own written output was small but select. Aside from his remarkable dissertation on poshlost, Arcadi left us a series of essays published in Russia and, as far as I am aware, untranslated: On Silver (1995) On Gold(1995),Le Soleil Inconnu (1996-97) and On the Colors (1996). He summarized his thoughts in The Metaphysics of the Beautiful: an Introduction to the Ecology of Culture (2003, also untranslated) It is an audacious synthesis of theology, philosophy, liturgy, literary criticism, environmentalism, travelogue and art history- focusing naturally on Russia but including much else besides.

Arcadi only enjoyed limited professional success to the United
States as a teacher. After Communism started to disintegrate, however, he found congenial friends and allies and a warm reception in Russia itself. There, people more easily appreciate Arcadi’s attempt to find a great synthesis or summary of what otherwise seem unrelated movements and disciplines.

As for poshlost, that was his arch enemy. Drawing on the writings of
Gogol and Dostoevsky,  Arcadi characterizes with this term those who are
simultaneously cowardly, depraved, lukewarm and banal. In other words, very much in the mood of today and characteristic of 21st century man. Arcadi’s other foes were big business, technology and globalism.

It is tragic that in such a culture as that of today,  true gentlemen like Arcadi R. Nebolsine, Thomas Molnar and Helmut Rückriegel  have departed  without leaving, it seems, any heirs or successors – at least in the US.  But we know, just from a survey of recent publications of a rising generation,  that this perception is false.  Arcadi Nebolsine will always find disciples – inspired by his vision of culture and humanity. And I look forward to the day when, following Arcadi’s last wishes,  East and West Christendom will fully unite once more. May his memory be eternal!

Fr. Richard Foster, OCD, died on December 25, 2020 at the age of 81.

By Fr. Richard Cipolla

Those who love the Latin language were saddened to hear of the death of Father Reginald Foster on Christmas Day. It was heartening to see the many laudatory obituaries in the press and letters from those who knew Reginaldus, as he was known to his students. 

Ever since I heard of his death, I knew that I had to write something myself about this remarkable man whose influence on me was greater than he knew. It is not an exaggeration to say that the two summers I studied with Reginaldus in Rome changed my life.  It was not only the Latin that I learned in those weeks under the hot Roman sun.  It was also being taught by this unique man, a mixture of ‘60’s rebelliousness, harshnes, a profane veneer- all this- but coming forth through this formidable exterior was a genuine love for his students  for his vocation as an Carmelite priest, and above all for his love of the Latin language, a love so powerful that one would have to be a stone not to become an amator Latinitatis under his influene.

I arrived for the first summer session in Rome as a Catholic priest who had taught science and math for many years at both the prep school and college levels, but I always harbored the hope that somehow and someday I would be able to teach  Latin. My love of Latin came from my days at Classical High School in Providence, Rhode Island. One day, a friend who knew my fondness for Latin, informed me of an opening to teach Latin at a prep school in Greenwich, Connecticut. I decided to take advantage of this opportunity

I signed up for the Reginaldus’ Rome summer course—which he called the Experience– to brush up on my Latin and to see if I could learn some teaching techniques from this man who had become a legend as a Latin scholar and teacher.  I remember meeting him for the first time in a group of some forty people, mostly young, but also including a good number of middle-aged people like me. He, a Carmelite priest, appeared in his version of glory:  a worker’s outfit– non-descript short sleeve shirt and pants, and worker’s boots, which was a contrast to my impeccable black suit, Roman collar, and tasseled black loafers. He was carrying a small bottle of what looked like wine and was in fact wine.  He explained the basic structure of the course and the division of the students into Juniores and Seniores.  He told us to choose what group we thought we would fit into based on our study of Latin.  Then he said: “If you are here to have a vacation in Rome, I am telling you right now: Go home! I can’t be bothered with kids from the best schools who think they know Latin and are here for the pizza and wine. Most of you here think you know Latin. Well—you don’t. I don’t care at all if you leave or stay. Up to you. I really don’t care.”

A few did leave that day, either put off by what he said or frightened by this man’s demeanor. More left after the first week.  Then those who stayed, like me, began a Latin course like no one of us had ever imagined could exist. It was not a course. It was literally an “experience”.

Before I encountered Reginaldus, I thought I knew Latin. I found out I knew very little. The first part of that summer he deconstructed me—which involved some pain—and then reconstructed me so that I not only significantly improved my Latin skills, but I for the first time truly fell in love with Latin.  

Let me give you an example of Reginaldus’ teaching method. We would be reading some obscure text that he had xeroxed (not always clear) and thrown at us to translate together in class.  When there was a pause in the translation, we knew what was coming.  The dreaded drill. We all kept our heads down pretending to be absorbed in the text, hoping that he would not call on us.  

“You”, he shouted, “the one who dresses up like a priest every day like an idiot in this summer heat, I forgot your name, what’s your name? “  “Ricardus”, I answered in dread. “OK, hot shot, look at that verb in the fourth line of the page we are reading:  tell me everything you know about it.” I answered: “Third person plural, imperfect subjunctive passive.” Next question: “Why is it in the subjunctive?” Pause, mind racing.  Couldn’t be sure why it was in the subjunctive, said to myself: I will choose something sort of obscure to impress him.  “Relative clause of characteristic” I boldly asserted.  “What the hell is a relative clause of characteristic?” he shot back.  “THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A RELATIVE CLAUSE OF CHARATERISTIC!  Stupid people who write Latin textbooks invent these things because THEY DON’T KNOW LATIN!” I swallowed hard and was thankful that my hot-seat experience was over for today. But I was wrong. I was still on his hook. He then proceeded to ask me how the form of the verb would change if it were in the context of an indirect statement. I somehow managed to answer that correctly.  But he was not satisfied.  On he went asking me questions—until I failed to answer correctly. Then he uttered what sounded like a grunt, and went back to translation.  

That process of deconstruction was not pleasant. But it was in the reconstruction under Reginaldus that followed that I began to understand Latin not as a puzzle to be solved but as a living language whose beauty was not always easy to unlock, but the act of unlocking was part of the beauty. It was the discovery of that difficult beauty that enabled me to teach Latin for many years to the most gifted students in my school and to enjoy the wonderful fruit of seeing my students understand and come to love the tough beauty that is the Latin language. They will never forget the lacrimae rerum, the tears of things, of Aeneas.

My second summer with Reginaldus was an experience of great happiness.  We developed a real relationship that transcended his 1960s post-Vatican II spirit and my own deeply traditional faith, a relationship that I believe was amicitia, friendship.  It was during that second summer that I became one of the members of Sub Arboribus. Reginaldus invited a small group of the Seniores to read Latin “under the trees” in the early evening after the last class. We would get something to eat and then meet him on the grounds of his monastery on the Janiculum Hill. He would bring a jug of wine, and we would bring our copies of Ovid’s Metamorphoses. There in the twilight we would take turns declaiming these fantastical mythical tales in glorious dactylic hexameter.   I remember my fluency surprised me and gave me great delight—and this was not mainly because of the wine.  

Reginaldus would organize field trips to sites that are important to Latinitas such as Horace’s farm and St. Thomas Aquinas’ birthplace. The buses that he hired for these excursions were old and beat up. Not much comfort. Reginaldus handed out texts on these trips, texts in Latin poetry meant to be sung.  And he led us in these songs.  Who else but Regnialdus would know enough about the various meters of Latin poetry, so that we could sing these poems with his direction.  The melodies were mostly from the Monastic Breviary, which chant melodies he had learned from singing the Office in his monastery. And so we sang one of Horace’s Odes to the melody of a Vespers hymn that was written in the Sapphic Strophe meter. Quite an—I must use the word again—experience.

 But there was one field trip that for me was in its way a life-changing experience that deepened my faith, my understanding of beauty and the power of Latin.  He brought us to Ostia, which was in ancient times the seaport for Rome at the mouth of the Tiber. It was there that St. Augustine and his mother, St. Monica, staying at a hostel in Ostia, had a mystical experience while standing at a window. The intensity and beauty of this experience Augustine describes in Book IX of his Confessions.  The area where the hostel was, near the sea, has long since been filled in by the silt of many centuries, so that the place where the hostel stood is now a grassy field with no water in sight. And there we sat and read together this passage from the Confessions. Reginaldus finished the passage himself.  When he finished, he stood up and pointed up and over some small buildings. And he said: “It was there—there! That’s where this happened when they heard the silence!” And then there was silence.  And we sat there for a few minutes in that silence, in that place, on that day.  

Some years after that I took a group of my own students to Ostia, and we sat in that field and read from the Confessions the passage telling of that mystical experience which the son and his mother experienced so many centuries ago.  I read the last part myself to my students. Then I stood up and pointed up and over, and I said to my students: “It was there—there!  That’s where this happened when they heard the silence.”  And there was silence.

Richard Gennaro Cipolla

I’ve spoken directly with others who treasure Reginald Foster as a friend, a teacher, a “character” and above all a Latinist. I have also read similar published appreciations. The Latin language is an integral, irreplaceable part of Western culture and Latin Christianity. Fr. Foster did much to revitalize its active use.

Nevertheless, a society devoted to the Traditional Latin Mass under Summorum Pontificum – like this one – in all candor must acknowledge that Fr. Foster publicly opposed this cause. Furthermore, while leaving a network of devoted students, Foster presided over a decades-long decline of Latinity at the Vatican itself. Thus, his official, institutional impact seems to have been decidedly more limited than his private influence.

Stuart Chessman

As this calamitous year approaches its end, we would like to recall briefly several of those who died in the last 12 months. Their lives illustrate the amazing possibilities of Traditional Christian life in the radically secular city that is New York. One of these people was Archdeacon John DeMeis.

One fine day in the early 1980’s, when I was attending NYU law school, I had wandered over to the northern reaches of Mulberry Street.  In those years that neighborhood was semi-deserted even in the middle of the day and featured mainly garages and “social clubs.” I passed by an open door on the ground floor of a small building next to old St. Patrick’s church and peered in. Someone inside noticed me and invited me inside – it turned out to be a Byzantine church: St. Michaels’ Russian Catholic chapel! And the man extending the invitation was John DeMeis. From that day on,  for many years, I regularly attended St. Michael’s. But for John’s welcome, I never would have thought of entering there. I owed to him my main experiences of the Eastern liturgy – at that time, in the pre-indult days, the only fully satisfactory alternative for those seeking Traditional Christian worship. Wasn’t  John’s welcoming gesture a real, if modest, example of that  “evangelizing” that is so endlessly discussed nowadays ?

John DeMeis, a retired transit cop,  had deep connections with both the Eastern rite and one of the most obscure and unusual Catholic parishes of Manhattan. Our Lady of Grace chapel, a storefront church on Stanton Street,  was the spiritual home in New York City of the Italo-Albanians.  This people had migrated to southern Italy and Sicily in the 15^th century, fleeing Turkish oppression. In their new home they preserved the Byzantine rite, celebrated in Greek, but stayed in communion with Rome. Quite a few of them after 1870 joined the mass emigration from Southern Italy to the New World. 

Our Lady of Grace chapel was founded in 1906 by Fr. Ciro Pinnola, an Italo-Albanian priest from near Palermo (another source says the foundation was in 1904). He was married, a practice that was beeing repressed in in the other Catholic Byzantine communities in the U.S. In 1909, the chapel’s congregation numbered 400.

Regrettably, when Fr. Pinnola died in 1946, the parish ended as well. But John DeMeis and others labored to keep its memory alive. Even today, the Our Lady of Grace Italo-Greek Catholic Mission and Society preserves the memory of this community.  John DeMeis was devoted to this society – he later became its archivist and historian. The society (“OLOGS”!)  publishes a newsletter for the Italo-Albanian community several times a year and sponsors events as well. 

After 1990 I moved out of New York and returned to St Michael’s only now and then, on special occasions. In fact, I don’t think I ever saw John DeMeis ever again in person after that year. Tragically,  St. Michael’s Russian Catholic chapel, once a significant initiative of the Archdiocese of New York,  was evicted in 2019 from the home they had occupied since 1936. The space is currently occupied by a souvenir shop. The community, however, has continued – for the last two years they have been hosted by the parish of St. Vincent Ferrer and St.  Catherine of Siena(at St. Catherine’s).

I had the impression that John had moved on as well – deepening more and more his commitment to Eastern or Greek Catholicism. He was ordained deacon in 1990 and archdeacon in 1997. For many years he served as a chaplain to the police department.

John DeMeis died on August 19^th of this year at the age of 90. He is survived by his beloved wife Rita and their children and grandchildren. May Archdeacon John’s memory be eternal!

(Photo courtesy of Kristina DeMeis)

Our Lady of Grace Society Facebook page.