(Above) St Gabriel, Stamford. (Below) Solemn Mass, Fr. Cyprian LaPastina, Celebrant.

(Above) Holy Innocents,New York – Fr. Richard Cipolla, celebrant. (Below) The blessing of chalk.

St. Gabriel Church in Stamford, CT will be offering a Solemn Mass in the Extraordinary Form for the Feast of the Epiphany on Monday, January 6 at 7:30 pm.  Refreshments will follow in the parish meeting room.

More and more Catholic properties hit the market. Now it is the former school of the parish of Old St. Patrick’s cathedral. In the 1980’s it was apparent to the outside observer that this school shared the post-Conciliar decadence of so many other Catholic institutions. In 2010,after various vicissitudes, it closed with 129 pupils. Now the building is on the market for $29 million.

It is indeed a splendid building in a magnificent setting. It was erected in 1825 as an orphanage, after a fund raising concert in the cathedral featuring the soon-to-be-world-famous Maria Malibran. A few decades later, one of the first parochial schools in New York moved into the building. Now after nearly 190 years of Catholic use, this magnificent relic of glorious past is up for sale.

See the New York Daily News Article.

We at the Society of St Hugh of Cluny wish all our members, friends and readers a blessed and merry Christmas.

(Requested by our friends at St. Columba parish)

ST. COLUMBA EN LA RADIO

Desde el 19 de diciembre todos los jueves la comunidad hispana de San Columba coauspicia un programa de radio. A través del mismo queremos llegar a toda nuestra comunidad, en especial a los privados de libertad, los enfermos, los emigrantes solos y toda persona que busca a Dios. Sintonícenos todos los jueves a las 9 de la noche por WPAT-930AM o también por el internet donde quiera se encuentre en http://www.descubriendoelsiglo21.com/programaderadio.html#.UrJpPNJDuSp. El Padre Tomás del Valle dirige el programa y lo produce Descubriendo el Siglo XXI. Para más información favor de llamar al 212 244 4778, la oficina del Padre Tomás. http://www.descubriendoelsiglo21.com ; www.radiosiglo21.blogspot.com

Yesterday we have this article in the NYT on the fate of New York Catholic churches and their “artifacts.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/17/nyregion/for-relics-from-closed-churches-an-afterlife-in-staten-island.html?ref=nyregion

The article has as its stated theme the “recycling” of furnishings from closed churches.

“Some items ended up at the warehouse after the 2007 decision of the Archdiocese of New York to close or shrink 21 parishes. Others came because of renovations. Much more will be coming; the archdiocese plans to announce another round of parish closings in 2014.”

The more interesting part, however, is a chronicle – not totally complete – of the real estate deals of the Archdiocese involving the sites of former churches. Some of these deals don’t appear to have been that advantageous.

“In 2007, the archdiocese said it would not sell closing churches to developers, but that turned out not to be the case. Mary Help of Christians was sold in December 2012 to Steiner NYC for $41 million. Near the Holland Tunnel, Our Lady of Vilnius, a former Lithuanian Church, was put on the market by the diocese for $13 million. It sold in October to the Extell Development Company, which is flipping the property and asking $19 million for it. A brochure suggests 22 stories of apartments could be built there.”

The AP reports it – must be something to it, then. It’s a story that already has been extensively covered for weeks by Italian secular media and conservative Italian websites:

Pope’s crackdown on order alarms traditionalists

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/12/14/5418242/popes-crackdown-on-order-alarms.html#storylink=cpy

Where we read among other things:

“Francis has called Benedict’s 2007 decree allowing wider use of the Latin Mass “prudent,” but has warned that it risks being exploited on ideological grounds by factions in the church; Francis has made clear his disdain for traditionalist Catholics, saying they are self-absorbed retrogrades who aren’t helping the church’s mission to evangelize.”

“The sanctions (taken by the Vatican -appointed ‘commissioner’ against the Friars of the Immaculate- SC) seem harsh when compared to recent actions taken by the Vatican against other much larger religious orders or groups found to have doctrinal or other problems, such as the Holy See’s crackdown on social justice-minded American nuns or the Vatican’s reform efforts of the disgraced Legion of Christ. In both cases, a papal envoy was named to rewrite constitutions or statutes and oversee reforms, but Volpi’s actions with the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate would appear to go much further.”

On the other hand, those models af reliability, Fr. Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, and a representative of Opus Dei, deny anything unusual is going on at all.

The bottom line: you can’t stick your head in the sand any longer. The direct persecution of Traditionalists has resumed.

For those of you who don’t know exactly what is going on in Rome – or don’t want to know what is going on – and further don’t have the time to work through Evangelii Gaudium, the Bishop of Rome has just provided some helpful clarification. It takes the form of remarks reported to have been given to the Dutch bishops on their recent ad Limina visit and as reported by Joshua J. McElwee, “Pope talks openly about reform, sex abuse, Dutch bishop says,” National Catholic Reporter (December 6, 2013)

“Pope Francis told a group of Dutch bishops this week that the Vatican must continue reforms undertaken by the Catholic church in the 1960s and ‘70s, according to one of the participants in the meeting.
Bishop Jan Hendricks, who attended the meeting Monday, later recounted that the pope said implementation of the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council is only half complete.
‘We have been implementing the council only half-way,’ Hendriks recalled from the pope’s words. ‘Half of the work has still to be done.'”

This, in reference to a country where the Council was most immediately, completely and radically “implemented” and where Paul VI already had to apply the brakes in view of the complete ecclesiastical collapse. These words are also revealing, of course, on the current pontiff’s attitude towards his two immediate predecessors.

And according to another bishop who attended the meeting:

“de Korte said the Dutch bishops had focused in their written report to the pope for their ad limina visit on issues of catechesis, but Francis seemed more interested in issues of charity.”

So, just as in the 1960’s, charity and doctrinal clarity are viewed once again as antagonistic.

On the other hand, the Pope seems to have accepted with relative equanimity the news that the Dutch church is in a catastrophic situation and that roughly half the Catholic churches in the Netherlands will be shut in the next 5 years. The Dutch bishops report hearing from Francis on this issue none of the emotional reactions the Pope reserves for traditionalists! The scope and the authoritarian nature of the church-closing campaign have been harshly criticized in the Netherlands- see this very detailed REPORT.

Pope Francis, according to one bishop, “did not say whether what we did or wanted to do (regarding church closings – SC) was right or wrong.” He reflected that the Dutch people must feel sad just like the Jews were sad when their temple was destroyed. The pope told the bishops, according to this report, that they should share the sentiments of the people whose churches are shut down and use the opportunity to get in contact with them. For finally, Francis is reported to have said,“I would like to encourage you not to be sad.”

SOURCE.

(Above) From the Fluminalis website.

From Kath.net 1) we learn of a major enterprise – a true “fruit of the Council,” so to speak. It is the Netherlands-based Fluminalis. In the wake of the Vatican Council, in thousands of churches across Europe the same scene took place: statues, monstrances, vestments, tabernacles confessionals etc. – all were thrown on the junk heap overnight. Some were used as landfill. Others were simply swiped by the local clergy. A lot of these objects can be found today on ebay where they are easily available to “nuts, freaks and occultists” – so Mr. Brüggemann.

Consider the fate of the font where one Joseph Ratzinger was baptized in 1927 in a little town in Bavaria. In 1965 it was transferred to the rectory garden as a kind of birdbath. in 1992 it landed in the local museum. In 2005 – after Joseph Ratzinger became Pope – it was refurbished and brought back into the church…

Now Joannes Peters,the proprietor of Fluminalis saw a business opportunity here already in the 1970’s. He has since acquired and resold untold quantities of sacred objects and has become a world leader in the “religious artifacts industry.” He rents others out as props for movies. Frequently he undertakes the complete demolition of “buildings of a religious character.” He has a very complete website showing his vast inventory. And Mr. Peters does have his principles: no monstrances for sale to pubs!

I’d imagine though, that this market may be volatile indeed: recent news from locations as diverse as the Netherlands Church and the Archdiocese of New York indicates that a wave of new inventory may be hitting the market soon…. 2)

1) Alles musste raus (“Everything had to go”) by Alexander Brüggemann

2) http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=19844 (600-700 churches – roughly half the number of Catholic Churches in the Netherlands – will be closing in the next five years)

I wonder which group the Bishop of Rome has in mind in the following  passage of  Evangelii Gaudium, couched in accusatory and  violent language?

One is the attraction of gnosticism, a purely subjective faith whose only interest is a certain experience or a set of ideas and bits of information which are meant to console and enlighten, but which ultimately keep one imprisoned in his or her own thoughts and feelings. The other is the self-absorbed promethean neopelagianism of those who ultimately trust only in their own powers and feel superior to others because they observe certain rules or remain intransigently faithful to a particular Catholic style from the past. A supposed soundness of doctrine or discipline leads instead to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism, whereby instead of evangelizing, one analyzes and classifies others, and instead of opening the door to grace, one exhausts his or her energies in inspecting and verifying. In neither case is one really concerned about Jesus Christ or others. These are manifestations of an anthropocentric immanentism. It is impossible to think that a genuine evangelizing thrust could emerge from these adulterated forms of Christianity.

(EG 94 – emphasis added)

And much much more……