The Traditional Requiem Missa Cantata on January 7, 2019 at St. Vincent Ferrer Church, New York. Fr. Leo Camurati, O.P. was the Celebrant.

This monthly Requiem Mass is sponsored by the New York Purgatorial Society.
Photo by Diana Calvario.

The Roman Forum Announces the Twenty-Seventh Annual Summer Symposium

Gardone Riviera, Italy

 (July 8^nd – July 19^th, 2019; 11 nights)

For more information please contact Prof. John Rao: drjcrao@aol.com

Modern Foundation Myths & the Destruction of Church & Civilization.  

          The twenty-seventh annual Summer Symposium at Gardone Riviera derives its theme from our general frustration—spiritually, intellectually, artistically, politically, and socially—with the mindless, often self-delusional, and frequently overtly manipulative visions of the ideology of modernity. Despite the fact that we have regularly dealt with the problems posed by modernism in a variety of ways in the past, this will be the first time that we have tackled its actual pillars themselves: nominalism and contempt for philosophical and theological thought; the cult of the autonomous individual and his supposed cultural genius; the contradictory themes of the total depravity of man and nature on the one hand and the glory of natural, pragmatic, scientific progress on the other; social contract theories; the concepts of freedom, equality, and democracy; the biological evolution and magical transformation of beast and man; the American foundation myth, as well as those underlying modern materialist economic visions. 

A great course taught by Dr. Jennifer Donnelson, starting on January 19th . . .

Solemn Mass for the Feast of the Epiphany today at St. Agnes Church in Manhattan.

Fr. J. P. Hough, S.J. (based at St. Ignatius of Loyola, Manhattan) was the celebrant. Fr. Leo Camurati, O.P. was the deacon.

Photos courtesy of Diana Calvario.

Tomorrow, December 29, Father Michael Novajosky will celebrate a Missa Cantata at St. Patrick Church, Bridgeport, CT at 12 noon.

The Roman Forum announces a new location for its annual New Year’s Eve party: Immaculate Conception Church at 199 North Broadway, Sleepy Hollow, New York, 8 pm onwards.

The organizer, Dr. John Rao describes the party as “a great Catholic Event -Finding more joy in the Christmas season. Family friendly – best recorded music.”

Bring your own food and drink to share.

Parking is on the surrounding streets.

This article appeared in the Una Voce New York bulletin:

“By God’s grace, on January 22, 1989, the traditional Latin Mass was restored to the Church of Saint Agnes in Manhattan. It was celebrated on that day by the Pastor, Msgr. Eugene V. Clark, and the “Mass of the ages” has been offered without interruption at Saint Agnes’s since that momentous occasion. Accordingly, a traditional sung Mass, followed by the singing of the Te Deum, will commemorate this Anniversary on Sunday, January 27, 2019, at Saint Agnes’s (143 East 43rd St., bet. Lexington and Third avenues).”

For those who understand German, katholisch.de, the official website of the Catholic Church in Germany, makes fascinating reading. For it is one of the few official new sources of the establishment Catholic Church anywhere that actually reports news instead of suppressing it (to borrow a quip of Damian Thompson’s regarding two similar-sounding US Catholic news services). 

Of course, the bias of the website is relentlessly progressive. Just in the last few days we learned from a “liturgical scholar” that it is entirely appropriate for priests to alter the text or the Novus Ordo mass. Bishop after bishop gives permission for the reception of communion by Protestant spouses of Catholics. A report on the historical status of female deacons has been submitted to the pope – it is insinuated that the conclusion is that the early historical record is “unclear” – coincidentally, exactly what Francis himself said “off the cuff” two years ago. Katholisch.de picks up a report (from the New York Times?)  about a “nun” who prays for Trump by sending him a tweet every day.  Katholisch.de then quotes one of her aggressive, hostile political “prayers.”

Yet katholisch.de ran several favorable articles on the recently deceased philosopher Robert Spaemann.  And when one of this site’s editors raged recently against Princess Gloria of Thurn und Taxis, stating that her “wish for Christmas” was that the princess “shut up,” katholisch.de did post a rebuttal from the editor of the conservative Die Tagespost.

And all is not well in the happy home of Catholic progressivism. Katholisch.de reports on cases of sexual abuse exploding everywhere, monasteries that are closing and financial and sexual scandals (that the Vatican is seeking to cover up) in a diocese in neighboring Austria. 

But perhaps the most surprising developments are financial. For we in the US have the impression that “Germanchurch” is awash in money. On a worldwide comparative basis that is undoubtedly true. It is only the famous church tax (Kirchensteuer) and more generally the relationship with the German state and its funding that is gives the Catholic Church in Germany what life it has – and I suspect accounts for its influence in the Vatican. But although the revenue from the church tax has hit a record level, the Catholic and Protestant churches continue to lose up to 500,000 members each year. 

And we learn from katholisch.de that three dioceses located in areas with a predominantly Catholic population have just recorded massive deficits; Würzburg, Mainz and Trier.  The stated causes are low interest rates and massive increases in expenses for personal including pensions. But in the case of Trier, the diocese is also reducing the number of parishes from 887 to 35 – triggering protests by the laity. The administrators of the diocese, however, don’t see any problem at all.

Similar financial crises have been happening in German dioceses for many years now.  For example, the critical situation of the Catholic church in Archdiocese of Hamburg – an area without a significant Catholic population – is prompting the closure of up to 8 of its 21 schools. Once again, the laity is up in arms. Do we need to add that even katholisch.de’s hero, Cardinal Marx of Munich (an archdiocese in in better financial condition than most of the others) has had to scale back expensive construction projects? 

Germanchurch is finding that when salaries get out of hand even their ample resources are inadequate. The future on the revenue side  is also dark – the impact of “demographic trends “and the uninterrupted decline in church membership call into question the long-term viability of the church tax.  And, as we all should know, all the money in the world can’t motivate people to attend church or serve at the altar.

For further information see:  katholisch.de

St. Mary Church, Norwalk, CT will offer a Rorate Mass this Saturday, Dec. 15, at 6:30 am.  Pictured below is last year’s Rorate Mass with Fr. Cipolla as celebrant.

The other day the New York Times ran a lengthy article on Princess Gloria Von Thurn und Taxis. 1) She has been a fixture in the German-language media for so many years now and has also drawn the attention of American media from time to time. For many years too, she has been known as a supporter of the Traditional Mass. Why this sudden interest in her?

We recall our own direct experience with the Times in December 2009, when it dispatched a team to cover the Latin mass at St. Mary’s parish, Norwalk. Why would the Times suddenly show an interest in the extraordinary form, when it had studiously avoided Traditional Masses and associated events for so many years? The answer soon became clear. You see, someone had requested a requiem Mass for a prior pastor, who had hanged himself years ago at the infamous St.  Luke’s institute. Whereupon a further person appeared and requested a mass for the victims of clerical sex abuse. This the then pastor of St.  Mary’s refused, and this “news” made its way to the Times, courtesy of some Catholics at other Norwalk parishes.  The entire purpose of the Times’ visit was to build the case that traditionalists blindly supported the clerical establishment against the victims of abuse.  Anyone with the remotest knowledge of the relationship over the years between the hierarchy and Catholic Traditionalism would know how preposterous this claim is. 

The same is true of Mr. Horowitz’s article. – as always, the political angle is paramount. You see, according to Horowitz, Princess Gloria, and other wealthy Catholics are funding an offensive of Archbishop Vigano and other conservative bishops against Pope Francis. Steve Bannon, of all people, (who a year and a half ago our progressive media had preposterously depicted as the wire-puller behind Trump) has joined the team. The article provides a portrait of Princess Gloria that is not exactly flattering;

Princess Gloria von Thurn und Taxis breezed through her 500-room German palace, keys in hand, a bracelet of rubies and a Virgin Mary charm on her wrist… In the crypt chapel…she removed her rose-colored designer glasses, knelt in her Comme des Garcons pants on the upholstered kneeler…colored light poured in through the six stained glass windows and on to the 58-year old’s Yves Saint Laurent jacket….

In the patented modus operandi of the Times, the reporter weaves into his story assertions masquerading as statements of fact:

In August, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano published a letter accusing Francis covering up abuse. His charges have so far proved unsubstantiated, but Princes Gloria called him “a whistle blower.”

I think great parts of Vigano’s letters have indeed been “substantiated” – but little or nothing of this has been due the efforts of the Times, which has not followed up on the most obvious leads.  Why should it do so?  – Francis continues to give the secular establishment results beyond their wildest dreams (such as favorable treatment of homosexuality). One doesn’t easily let such a man fall!  This very article reaffirms the strong commitment of the establishment media to Francis – after some wavering this year because of the Pope’s incompetent handling of the abuse issue.  

What are the efforts of the “conspiracy” (all out in the open) compared to the massive scale and resources of the secular pro-Francis bloc: the establishment media, prominent corporations, representatives of “think tanks” and NGOs  to which should be added the Western European episcopates, the Vatican bureaucracy, the mainstream religious orders and the pro-Francis Catholic media funded by  the Knights of Columbus….

Truly I am grateful to the Princess and others mentioned in the Times for organizing resistance against these overwhelming forces! And she has made clear (apparently to Mr. Bannon) that this is not a matter just of politics – any participants in this campaign need to clean up their personal religious act first.

Yes, Princess Gloria is a celebrity. She even has co-authored (with Todd Eberle) her own coffee table book. 2) In it we do get to see her family, her castle, her art collections, and read of her friendships. But we also see her serious commitment to the Church and to the Traditional Mass.  We find a bibliography including writings of the princess on matters religious and Catholic starting in 1999. 3) 

Indeed, she has inquired into the state of the Traditional Mass in New York City.  Martin Mosebach, who just visited New York once again, contributes his own assessment to this volume:

Princess and mother-figure Gloria von Thurn und Taxis possesses a courageous temperament she manages to communicate to all about her.  For her, “princess” is not simply a title, but a duty…She seizes the good fortune of her birth…as a rare opportunity to live a life out of tune with her times: as both feudal princess and democratic contemporary, as pious Catholic and collector of distinctly un-holy art, as patriotic Bavarian and member of the fashionable smart set who wander the world – all at once and at the same time without ever betraying a single one of these roles. 4)

1. Horowitz, Jason, “80s Party Girl Now has a Salon for Conservative Catholics, NYT 12/8/2018)
2.  House of Thurn and Taxis (2015, Skira/Rizzoli.)
3. Ibid. at 236-37.
4. Ibid at 219.