The nave of St. Patrick’s cathedral today – pews and side altars – was mostly occupied by images of fentanyl victims. It seemed as if worshippers were only in only a few pews at the very front…..

THe Bridgeport diocese now has an “Apologetics Director.”

Brennan, Rose, “Suan Sonna named new Apologetics Director,” 3 Fairfield County Catholic(July/August 2025).

In his new position,  Mr. Sonna proposes to invite speakers, to organize retreats,  “conversations,” parish “Apologetic Sundays,”  “testimony nights,” etc. 

“Apologetics Begins,” bridgeportdiocese.org (August 6, 2025)

In Brennan’s article, supra, we learn that :

“(Sonna’s) favorite topics to speak on include sacred Scripture, moral theology and the papacy. Notably, his article “Lessons from St Peter’s Papacy” will appear in the upcoming book Faith in Crisis: Critical Dialogues in Catholic Traditionalism, Magisterial Authority and Reform.”

But what kind of book is Faith in Crisis (Andrew Likoudis, ed., En Route Books and Media, St Louis MO)?

Judging from the extensive blurbs in the advance notice, it will be first and foremost an anti-traditionalist polemic. Then, it will defend the papacy as it was exercised under Pope Francis. The overall objective will undoubtedly be to vindicate the clerical establishment.

The editor is Andrew Likoudis:

Andrew Likoudis is a Catholic scholar and entrepreneur with degrees in Communication from Towson University and Business Administration from the Community College of Baltimore County. He has served as a fellow at Johns Hopkins University and at Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Small Businesses initiative. His professional experience includes a role as a business development administrative assistant at theCathedral of Mary Our Queen. Additionally, he has nearly a decade of experience providing hospitality hosting with Airbnb.

Some well-known contributors are drawn from the blogging/podcast world (Mike Lewis, of course); most of the others (like Mr. Sunna) are in the employ of the Roman Catholic Church. But a couple stand out.  Rocco Buttiglione, who writes the foreword, is a “conservative” – centrist Italian academic and politician.  The last I heard of him, Buttiglione was aggressively defending Pope Francis and specifically Amoris Laetitia. The only real surprise is Cardinal Sarah. Will his contribution discuss his involvement with the traditionalist Chartres pilgrimage? Or his experiences dealing with both a Pope and a Pope Emeritus at the time of the “Amazonian” synod?

The entire project of this book is very establishment (or would-be establishment): confrontational anti-traditionalism,  blind ultramontane devotion to the papacy combined with very attenuated “conservative Catholic” notions and charismatic nuances.  Now Faith in Crisis has not yet been published.  I wonder: are the publisher and perhaps certain contributors waiting to see what direction Pope Leo takes before launching a new assault in the intra-Catholic culture wars? Moreover, the ideological alliance of the contributors in this book is inherently unstable.  Consider that En Route Books and Media (the publisher of Faith in Crisis) still prominently features in its catalogue works by Detroit seminary professor Eduardo Echeverria – who was  recently summarily sacked by the arch-Bergoglian Archbishop of Detroit. 

It seems to me that the present task of Catholic apologetics is to facilitate the recovery of a faith that has been eclipsed  – not just among the laity, but also among the clergy and church bureaucracy. Defending the papacy and the institutional Church no longer primarily means, as it did in the 19^th century, repelling attacks by outside enemies. Rather, under Francis,  these controversial themes primarily served a role in the intra-Catholic cultural wars waged by a once unthinkable  alliance of an ecclesiastical bureaucratic establishment and the progressive ( “modernist”) forces. These conflicts have only accelerated the decline of the faith. A valid apologetics would not focus on Church politics and internal enemies but on rekindling the faith. But is that possible?  Do we dare admit that we cannot transmit our beliefs when our own faith has become nebulous and uncertain? You cannot give to others what you do not have yourself!

Your Statutes were my Song in the Land of Exile: The Sorrows and the Joys of the Battle for a Birthright

(For the Whole Christ: The Collected Works of Dr John Rao, volume 3) 

2025 Arouca Press, Waterloo, Ontario

199 Pages

I should say up front that I have known John Rao since the early 1980s and indeed have written a blurb for this book. Yet, although I have met him many times over the decades, for one reason or another my acquaintance with Dr. Rao and his writings is not as great at it could have been. Except for one very brief and atypical encounter(post-Covid, on Long Island!) I have never attended any of his annual Gardone retreats. Nor, except at their very beginning, have I had the chance  to hear his annual lectures on Catholic history.  Moreover, except for the chapter  “The Freed Mass,” which mentions a conference the St Hugh of Cluny Society organized in 2007, I had not previously read any of the essays collected in Your Statutes were my Song. Accordingly, I read this slim volume with interest.  It’s an invaluable resource for the student of the traditionalist movement in the United States written by a direct participant in the trials and triumphs of Catholic traditionalism.

Although individual essays deal with events as far back as 1970 (and 1000 AD!) and as recent as 2017, the heart of the book deals with the period between 1999 and 2007. This was the era I described in American Catholic Traditionalism as “Part II of the Indult” – a time of confusion, even spiritual trial for traditionalists. 1) After the hopes raised by Ecclesia Dei and the amazing achievements that quickly followed, the Traditionalists soon realized that their fanatical enemies in the institutional Church were by no means prepared to allow the TLM to flourish. And the “conservative Catholics,” deserted by the hierarchy on issues like kneeling for communion and for whom Ecclesia Dei was an affront to their liturgical dogmas, responded with ever more bitter attacks on traditionalists. This had its effect on some supporters of the TLM. As Rao writes: “Some people, disturbed by the uncertainties and nightmares of unbridled change, are convinced that they are living in the end times.”  

Yet the traditionalist movement could and did not succumb to apocalyptic temptations. Rao describes the mood of this era from a unique vantage point:  in 1999 he became president of Una Voce-US; in 2004 he was forced out for being, it seems,  too critical of the papacy. An interesting accusation against one who had started his academic career with an examination of  the Ultramontane Civiltà Cattolica of the Pius IX years! For Rao had to face the basic conflict within Una Voce: between a strong commitment to the TLM and  the desire to remain in the graces of the hierarchy and the Vatican, with whom Una Voce always dreamed of striking a deal. It was a tightrope walk that he himself could not manage.  

Your Statutes were my Song  recalls for us events of that time that illustrate the conflicting currents in the traditionalist world.  Notably, in 1999 the FSSP was shaken by an internal uprising against its leadership by “the sixteen.” (a group of priests wanting compromise with institutional Church and the Novus Ordo) With its usual underhandedness,  the Vatican immediately responded favorably to their complaints by issuing a document that ultimately would have made the FSSP, in the best case, “bi-ritual.”  By 2001 the crisis had died down without the worst fears of the traditionalists being realized . Yet the FSSP never recovered its leading position in the “Uniate” (post-Ecclesia Dei)traditionalist movement. 

This era came to an end with the arrival of Summorum Pontificum.

Throughout Your Statutes were my Song  John Rao makes trenchant observations and draws prescient conclusions fascinating for their relevance to today. Here are a few:

(Regarding the restrictions the Vatican proposed to impose on the FSSP in response to the revolt of the “sixteen”)

“[S]igns” and “law” are set against one another in order to permit arbitrary action. Hence, signs of the times, such as concelebration with a local Ordinary, are elevated to tests of loyalty, freeing one from the suspicion of schismatic tendencies, despite the fact that legally no one is supposed to be forced to celebrate.

(In 2003 Rao wrote critically of the supposed  “golden age” of the years immediately preceding Vatican II)

American Catholicism in the 1950s and early 1960s was not a model for the world, whether on theological and pastoral grounds or, generally even more, on liturgical ones. …  Sloppiness at Low Masses and inattention to ceremonies and proper music at High Masses was very common. … As one Una Voce leader summarized his experience to me, the 1950s, in many respects, was actually a period of decline, covered over by a great deal of success on the statistical level.  Still, there remains the temptation to look upon this period as the norm for restoration purposes.

(Regarding certain historical assertions contained in Summorum Pontificum)

From what I remember, Paul VI did not merely fail to anticipate the strength of attachment to the Traditional Mass. Rather, he was enthusiastically committed to a liturgical revolution which he knew and expressly indicated would offend pious people. …

Still, these are the games that institutions, including divine institutions with a human side, regularly play.  The rediscovery by the Church of her proper pathway (after going astray – SC) is generally a messy, halting, and not fully honest affair. It almost never takes place in one, clean, action-packed cinema-like scene.  

(Rao, however,  fully understood the immense significance of Summorum Pontificum)

Historical game playing, painful though it can be, is a minor blemish on the flesh of Summorum Pontificum compared to the significance of its return to traditional forms and familiar words in its pastoral language.  The potential number of glorious consequences stemming from such a remarkable and courageous recovery of a rhetoric pronounced irrevocably dead by the powerful of this world is great.

How these words, written in 2007, resonate with us after the subsequent war  – to a large extent continuing – of Pope Francis and his clique against the TLM and, really, all of Catholic tradition. And now traditionalists are (still) hoping for action on the part of Pope Leo.  Rao’s accurate summary of how the Church changes course offers consolation if, as is likely, the way back for traditionalists is a long, tortuous process.

There are many other gems in this concise book- I can only mention a handful.  The chapter “From Hoboken to Eternity” is a miniature biography of the author, setting out facts of which I was unaware. It turns out that, like many others (including myself), John Rao developed his liturgical understanding through frequenting the Divine Liturgy of the Eastern Church. And that for several years in the pre-indult wilderness,  he served as a lector in Novus Ordo masses at Our Lady of Pompeii in New York! Dr. Rao frankly discusses the personal spiritual trials of his early years.  

In “The Waiting Game,”  Rao gives us an inspiring account of how the Holy Roman emperor intervened in 1007 onward to restore the papacy, suffering through its darkest hours.  For, contrary to Ultramontane myths, the two universal powers of the Middle Ages, the pope and the emperor, were originally not antagonistic but complementary. In “Malcolm Muggeridge, John Vennari and the Prince-Bishopric of Bamberg” he speaks in glowing terms of the “magical kingdom” of the city of Bamberg, Germany, created by that same Holy Roman Empire. And this incomparable Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque city, which Rao calls a “Bavarian Catholic Oz,”  is my personal favorite as well! In both these historical essays, Dr. Rao doesn’t only describe the past but creatively uses it to develop instructive examples for the present.   Finally, the author offers us a moving tribute to the late Fr. Ignacio Barreiro, a champion of the TLM and the pro-life cause. 

I do have some criticisms. Your Statutes were my Song would be of greater utility to readers not having extensive familiarity with the issues and people encountered in this book if introductions, notes and an index had been included.  I myself am still confused as to the organization and history of Una Voce-US. There also seems to be a recurrent problem with the chapter headings printed at the top pf each page. 

In a sense, Your Statutes were my Song is a melancholy book. Despite the hopes of Summorum Pontificum,  traditionalism is once again the adversary of the Church establishment. Yet through all the years covered by this book, Dr. John Rao never gave up hope – but a hope always informed by realism. I conclude by quoting the following passage of Rao’s “The Waiting Game” so very relevant to these days. Just as today anticipations are rising regarding possible actions of Pope Leo, so in 2007 traditionalists waited for the rumored motu proprio of Pope Benedict:

Waiting games, whether they involve wondering when a delayed  airplane flight will actually take off or speculating if a long-desired moto proprio will ever see the light of day, are never a particularly entertaining pastime for normal people.  …. It may well be the case that our undeniably good-willed Pope will have ended the current Traditionalist Waiting Game with respect to the liturgy by the time the present article is published. But even if he does so, I still think that we Tridentini, who have suffered so much from ambiguity and disappointed hopes over the past 40 years, and have continued to cherish the Papacy and Rome through all the heartbreak just the same, ought to explore the many twists and turns that the miserable Waiting Game can take just a wee bit longer…. 

1. Chessman, Stuart , Catholic Traditionalism in the United States: Notes for a History Part 4 (The Era of the Indult (Part II) 1993-2007) (The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny, 2014)

We are pleased to promote these three major multiple-day Traditional Mass pilgrimages in North America. For those with the time and energy, there’s the possibility of attending all three.

August: Quebec

August 30-September 1

The 22nd annual Marie Reine du Canada pilgrimage from Lanoraie, Quebec to the miraculous shrine of Notre Dame du Cap will take place on August 30 – September 1 this year, a 100 km (62 mile) walk along the St. Lawrence River in the footsteps of the North American Martyrs. Pilgrims from Ontario, Quebec and the United States are served en route by priests of the Fraternity of Saint Peter, as well as diocesan priests; Mass is celebrated daily in the traditional Roman Rite.

Marie Reine du Canada is a lay-led organization of the FSSP’s apostolate in Ottawa, St. Clement Parish. For registration forms, see: https://www.mariereine.ca/participate. Inquiries can be directed to mariereineducanada@gmail.com.

In September: New York State

September 26-28

The pilgrimage, now in its 30th year, is a journey of the faithful to Our Lady’s Shrine of the Martyrs in upstate New York, at Auriesville. Here, Jesuit Father Isaac Jogues and Companions were martyred, beginning with lay-brother René Goupîl and several Native American Converts in 1642, and later layman John de LaLande and Jogues himself in 1646.

Since 1996, pilgrims walk near and along the paths the saints followed as captives of the Iroquois. Their journey was hundreds of miles over 28 days under torture. Our journey, modeled on the ancient annual Pentecost Pilgrimage to Notre-Dame de Chartres, France, is 62 miles over 3 days and, though penitential, is full of joy. The purpose is to honor Christ Our King publicly, to pray for the restoration of His Reign in the family and civil society, and to make reparation for sins committed against the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

n.b. There is also an opportunity of you or your loved ones to receive the sacrament of Confirmation in the traditional rite at this pilgrimage. Click here for more details

October: Oklahoma: Clear Creek Abbey

October 9-11

Each October the Three Hearts Pilgrimage guides thousands of participants through a rigorous terrain to the Benedictine monastery at Clear Creek Abbey, located in Northeast Oklahoma.

Last year approximately 3000 pilgrims from 42 states and 11 countries came to pray and sacrifice together in defense of the sanctity of life and in support of the traditional family unit, while pursuing what is Good, True, and Beautiful.

For more information and to register: link

And Finally: Washington, DC in October

Saturday October 11

This is a one-day pilgrimage to pray for the restoration of the Traditional Latin Mass to its former liberty, a procession between the Catholic cathedrals of Arlington, VA, and Washington, DC.

Full details at https://tlmpilgrimage.com

SAVE THE DATE for the National Latin Mass Pilgrimage 2025 – Saturday, October 11

Join us in prayer for the restoration of the Traditional Latin Mass to its former liberty, on this pilgrimage between the Catholic cathedrals of Arlington, VA, and Washington, DC.

Full details at https://tlmpilgrimage.com

This Friday, August 15, is the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, which is a holy day of obligation. The following churches will celebrate Traditional Masses. Please notify us if you know of a Mass that is not on this schedule.

Connecticut

St. Mary Church, Norwalk, 8 am, 12:10 pm, 7 pm

Sts. Cyril and Methodius Oratory, Bridgeport, Low Mass 7:45; High Mass 6 pm followed by procession and blessing of herbs and fresh fruit. Please place your herbs and fruit on table provided before Mass begins.

St. Patrick Oratory, Waterbury, Low Mass 8 am; High Mass 6 pm

St. Martha, Enfield, 7 pm

New York

Holy Innocents, Manhattan, Low Mass 8 am; High Mass 6 pm

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Manhattan (Harlem), 7am Low Mass, 7:45am Low Mass, Adoration from 10am to 4pm, 3pm Rosary and Divine Mercy Chaplet , 6pm Confessions , 6:30pm Rosary, 7:00 PM Missa Cantata 

St Josaphat, Bayside (Queens), Low Mass 7 am; Missa Cantata 7 pm followed by procession and blessing of flowers and herbs.

St. Rocco, Glen Cove, Long Island, Missa Cantata, 7 pm

St. Matthew, Dix Hills, Long Island, 10:30 am

St. Paul the Apostle, Yonkers, 12 noon

Annunciation Church, Crestwood, Missa Cantata, 7 pm. (Missa Cantata every Sunday at 2 pm)

Immaculate Conception, Sleepy Hollow, Low Mass, 7 pm (Traditional Mass every Sunday at 4 pm)

Sacred Heart, Esopus, 11:30 am

St. Mary and St. Andrew, Ellenville, 7 pm

New Jersey

Our Lady of Sorrows, Jersey City, Missa Cantata 5 pm

Our Lady of Victories, Harrington Park, 5:30 pm

Our Lady of Fatima, Pequannock, 7 am, 9 am, 12 noon, 7 pm

St. Anthony of Padua Oratory, West Orange, Low Mass 9 am; High Mass 7 pm

Corpus Christi, South River, Missa Cantata 7 pm

Shrine Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, Raritan, Missa Cantata 7 pm

St. John the Baptist, Allentown, Low Mass 8 am

Here is the schedule for AUG 2025 Traditional Latin Masses at the Shrine Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in Raritan, NJ

• WED 8/6 – 7:00 PM – Transfiguration
• MON 8/11 – 7:00 PM – Our Lady of Knock
• FRI 8/15 – 7:00 PM – Assumption of the BVM
• FRI 8/22 – 7:00 PM – Immaculate Heart of the BVM
• THU 8/28 – 7:00 PM – St. Augustine

Additionally, a Sung TLM is celebrated every Sunday at 10:30 AM.