Sung Mass for the Dead on Tuesday, November 18th at 7:30 in the evening
Saint Mary Church
Greenwich Avenue
Greenwich, Connecticut

Mass Mobs: From the New York Times

“Elizabeth Davis, 47, of Harmony, Pa., decided to start a Mass mob in Pittsburgh after hearing about the group in Buffalo. Her first effort, organized via Meetup.com, drew 25 people and the second about 50. Now, by reaching out through a Catholic women’s organization and youth programs, as well as to members of a historic preservation group, she hopes to hit 150 later this month.

“These beautiful old churches were built by our grandfathers and great-grandfathers, and to see them close is really sad,” said Ms. Davis, who is also raising six children and finishing a college degree. “We have 2,000 years of tradition, and it’s time we get excited about it.”

(As the article notes, there is a “Mass mob” movement in Fairfield County!)

Paulson, Michael, “At Forlorn Urban Churches, Mass gets crowded in a Flash” (The New York Times, 10/11/14)

Another Article from Maureen Mullarkey at First Things.

Meanwhile, the formal dedication of the Sheen Center has taken place. In a “powerful address” Cardinal Dolan explained that:

“(Archbishop Sheen) demonstrated “once and for all that American society had nothing to fear from Catholics, and in fact could count on the Church to be a real partner in fostering democracy, justice and freedom.”

(Sheen) was attempting to “move Catholics from an outsider to an insider status within American culture.”

Whatever their relevance to Sheen’s mission, these comments very accurately describe the objectives of the “American Catholic Church” of the last 50 years.

From the description of the article, the initial clients of the Center have been entirely secular: companies associated with NYU, Pace University etc.

See: Woods, John; “Archbishop Sheen Center Dedication Points to Man It’s Named For” (Catholic New York 9/17/14)

Two events coming up at St. Mary Church in Greenwich, CT:

On Tuesday, October 7th, at 7:30 in the evening the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary there will be a candlelight Rosary Procession (outdoors, weather permitting) including Eucharistic Procession and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

On Friday, October 17th at 7:30 in the evening there will be a Solemn High Mass Votive Mass in honor of Pope St. Pius X commemorating the centenary his death.

“In the Netherlands, churches have been closing at a rate of one or two a week. The bishops told the pope in Rome on Monday that about two-thirds of all Roman Catholic churches in the Netherlands would have to be shut or sold by 2025, and many parishes merged, because congregations and finances were ‘in a long-term shrinking process’.”

However…..

“Ad de Groot, a lay Catholic leader in Eijk’s archdiocese of Utrecht, said secularization and the sexual abuse crisis had prompted people to leave in the past. But now, the very plan to close churches is alienating the Catholics who are left, he said.

De Groot’s group accuses the bishops of merging parishes without consulting those who are losing their local churches. “Many people are angry and disappointed,” he said.

His group told the Vatican last week that half of practicing Catholics would drift away in coming years as their churches closed.

(My bolding)

SOURCE

After rumors of an immediate confrontation – undoubtedly the wishful thinking of many in Rome – the meeting between Msgr. Fellay and Cardinal Mueller & Co. is reported by both the FSSPX and the Vatican to have proceeded in a cordial manner, with an understanding to continue the talks. It’s a welcome change from the name-calling and ultimatums of the prior two years. We will wait to see the follow-up to this. But just the commitment to further serious dialogue is an accomplishment. And we know how much the Church of the Council reveres dialogue!

See Reports HERE and HERE (more detailed, perhaps overly enthusiastic and very pro-Vatican – but in German)

How to proceed with the FSSPX?

Three days before the meeting planned for Sunday between Bishop Fellay of the FSSPX and Cardinal Mueller, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and the president of the attached commission Ecclesia Dei, Pope Francis had an interview with the secretary of this commission, Archbishop Guido Pozzo. Nothing specific is known about the content of the conversations with Pozzo, who undoubtedly will take part in the meeting of Cardinal Mueller with Fellay.

Instead, all kinds of prognoses and opinions are circulating in Rome, that agree in this: that a rapprochement in whatever form remains extremely unlikely. Some observers expect that the state of suspended animation that has existed since the termination of negotiations in 2013 will be continued for an indeterminate period. Others, however, claim to have learned that Mueller has been commissioned to make a clean break and, given the expected refusal to “accept the Council without reservations” and to subject themselves to a papal commissar, to once more excommunicate the bishops of the Fraternity and possibly also its priests. Moreover, sanctions against the faithful who attend exclusively the services of the FSSPX are being discussed.

As an additional variation, in the last few days speculation had emerged that the “expulsion” of the Fraternity will be the last mission in that office for the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Mueller – who himself also has extremely critical views of the FSSPX. After that – and possibly even before the synod of bishops – the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in its current form is supposed to be dissolved and be replaced by a structure which is more flexible regarding pastoral needs. Responsibly for the Ecclesia Dei communities would thereafter be transferred to the Congregation for the Clergy.

SOURCE

(Thanks to Le Forum Catholique)

Our Society takes its name – a bit presumptuously, I admit, from the abbey of Cluny, in its day the largest church in the West. It was the focal point of a grand spiritual revival in the 11th and 12the centuries centered on the celebration of the liturgy. After the French Revolution almost all of this monumental church was demolished. Now there is a virtual recreation of the abbey:

(In French; there is at times interference in the sound of this clip)

It seems that others, though, have the ambition of recreating Cluny in stone:

New Seminary for the FSSPX

“The architecture, drawing much of its inspiration from great Romanesque churches, provides a structure that is simple and yet austere and stable.”

Thanks to Le Forum Catholique.

(above) Mother Angelica’s Blessed Sacrament Shrine.

An interesting article. See also HERE from Crisis magazine.

(For someone like myself, unfamiliar with EWTN and the Blessed Sacrament Shrine, it seems odd to have what appears to be a beautiful and elaborate rood screen – with the “Vatican II” altar before it. But I don’t mean to be overly critical of some encouraging developments!)

From our own Fairfield County Catholic:

“Fr. John B. Giuliani, a major American artist and priest of the Diocese of Bridgeport, will be featured next week in an exhibit at the Gallery of Contemporary Sacred Art in the Church of Santa Maria del Popolo in Rome.”

Fr. Giuliani was ordained in 1960. “In 1977, with the permission of the Most Rev. Walter, W. Curtis, Second Bishop of Bridgeport, Father Giuliani embarked on a new pursuit, founding the Benedictine Grange, a small monastic community in West Redding, Connecticut.”

Now what is the spirituality of the Benedictine Grange? Fr.Giuliani was certainly no friend of Pope Benedict:

“In the meanwhile the Pope has succeeded in offending the world of Islam, he has reintroduced into the Good Friday Liturgy a prayer identifying the Jewish people as culpable in the death of Jesus, he has insulted the Anglican communion with an invitation to the disaffected to join the Roman Church, and he has demoralized the Catholic community in his divisive attempts to undermine the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council—despite Grafton’s adulatory comment on Benedict’s beautifully performed Mass, as if performance were the intent of liturgical worship!”

“As if performance were the intent of liturgical worship!” – well, we have this recent report on “liturgical worship” at the Grange:

“Tonight, the Barn was pure magic. 

I had the most incredible sense of beauty – the blood red roses in front of the altar so vibrant, 
the music so sublime, the oil so sweet, the love so palpable, the bread and the wine so nourishing; 
this indescribably beauty, in the face of the human reality of betrayal and treachery and suffering; 
this inescapable paradox, placing us directly in the center of the cross, the center where love wins out.
John and Harry and Ed marched out solemnly to “Come, now, let us be on our way…” 
and most people left.
The musicians remained, and began singing one of our very favorite songs, 
one that I already can’t remember, and they just couldn’t stop.
The barn emptied except for about eight of us and the music ministers just kept improvising 
for maybe forty verses or more, each musician offering her or his own gifts; 
Marian on the drum, Greta’s angelic voice, Beth’s fantastic guitar playing.
This most sacred concert went on and on for at least fifteen minutes and it was absolutely sublime. 
The small group of us left in the barn became our own little community, and we were mesmerized.
We then wafted outside in complete silence into the mysterious, mild and gentle evening, misty and wet, 
but not raining. The lights of the property created an incredible old and mystical feeling, 
creating starshapes in the fog throughout the Land of the Grange.
The dark outlines of the trees silhouetted against the mist seemed as warm, embracing friends 
rather than ominous apparitions, and the treefrogs were singing up a storm, reminding us 
that the world was alive and throbbing with the promise of our long-awaited springtime, 
and the fruits of our deepest spiritual longings.
We tiptoed into the cottage to sit awhile in the garden of daffodils, tulips, and candles, 
a place to center ourselves and to remind ourselves to stay awake; awake to the beauty, 
to the suffering, to it all.
This night is always so awesome to me. I cannot take it in; it is too big. 
I can relate to the bread and to the wine, to the beauty, and even to the paradox.
My political self can image the drama and the intrigue and the high state of anxiety 
and arousal about what is to come. I can see it in pieces, but the meaning of the whole thing,
the sacrificial aspect, the enormity of the unfolding of this supreme act of love, still eludes me.
Perhaps it because, as John says, you cannot look fully into the face of a God that is too brilliant, 
too terrible to behold. And yet, this beautiful night brings me as close as I have ever come…”

Now consider that, since 1977, the Grange has continued a tolerated, if not widely publicized, existence within the diocese. (Not widely publicized, that is, if one ignores an adulatory New York Times article) During this entire period, upholders of Catholic morality, supporters of the Traditional mass and organizers of orthodox Catholic Education were anxiously supervised, marginalized and even persecuted. Fortunately, the latter situation is in the course of changing under the new management of the diocese.

What are the works of the master?

There is a long series of “Indian” holy images – here, a Peruvian Joseph and the Christ child(?)

Fr. Guiliani will also paint your pet:

Those wishing to see more works of Fr. Guiliani – or even acquire some for themselves – are directed to HERE.