At St. Cecilia Church in Brooklyn, New York.

In 2019 Herder Korrespondenz published the following “polemical discourse” of which I translate excerpts.1) This interview sent representatives of  German Church into incoherent rage. 

Lucas Wiegelmann is the interviewer. I assume our readers know of  Martin Mosebach. Thomas Sternberg is a politician and quintessential member of the establishment of the German Catholic Church. He is the president of the (lay) Central Committee of German Catholics which is in the forefront of the current “Synodal Path” agitation. I will only comment that at this very moment the Synodal Path proponents are speaking far less favorably of the papacy than in this interview. The Vatican’s recent prohibition of the blessing of homosexual couples has touched off only the latest of a series of clashes with “Rome.”

…

You’re saying that Peter was the first Pope?

Mosebach: Of course!

Sternberg: Excuse me, but I can’t  agree with that. It’s simply nonsense! The papal office developed with the times. There  were bishops relatively early in the Church. A certain theological precedence crystalized around those bishops who had dioceses in the government centers. …..

…

Do you have a favorite pope in history?

Sternberg: I especially admire Paul VI – the greatest reforming pope of recent history.

Mosebach: The most terrible pope of recent history.

Sternberg: Just in his first appearance he sent a signal. He sold his tiara to an American museum and donated the proceeds to the poor. ….He viewed himself as the bishop of Rome, as the first among bishops……It was also fitting that he radically pruned  the court ceremonies of the Vatican….The guards were abolished,  the diverse ranks and special offices, the ostrich feather fans – all that was eliminated.

Mosebach: Paul VI did what a pope has no right to do. With his reform of the of the mass he destroyed the organically developed Catholic liturgy and left us an order of worship 2) that obscures the Eucharistic mystery. Paul VI abused papal authority. You yourself have said that up to the middle ages the early papacy was characterized by deciding controversies. Therein is the area of responsibility of the pope, not the unleashing of religious and political forces. It’s a passive authority. The office of Vicarius Christi would place completely insuperable demands on everyone who would understand it as an active office. This office can only be exercised in a passive manner. It’s an office that Mr. Everyman has to be able to assume. Peter, not Paul, became the first pope. If genius and charisma were essential, this office would be madness. By the way, the old pomp, which Paul VI abolished, accomplished exactly this – it covered up the person of the pope. When the pope entered, one didn’t see the little old man anymore because he was hidden under the mass of brocade. Then,  in the 20^th century this cult of the solitary man in white developed under the influence of the news media – the Pastor Angelicus shining out over the masses.  The pope as charismatic leader, however, contradicts Catholic Tradition. The pope isn’t free, he is subject not just to the gospel but to the entirety of Tradition. Only within this can he act (take the initiative), and in the end that means he cannot act at all. And, indeed, he absolutely shouldn’t!

…

Mosebach: It’s clear: the entitlement to infallibility only exists when the pope speaks in submission to Tradition. When he doesn’t do that, then he is simply not authoritative. He possesses his authority by being a mere submissive mouthpiece of the eternal, that existed before him.

Sternberg: With this formulation you open the door to resistance against the pope. The judgment whether something is accord with Tradition or not depends very much on the historical convictions, knowledge and perceptions of the individual.

Mosebach: You are probably thinking of Cardinal Lehmann, who once reinterpreted the papal directive to exit advising on “pregnancy conflicts”  (abortion) as a directive to remain doing it. He supported this with the infamous words: “I’ve learned how to handle texts.” Especially Jesuits are very much engaged in handling Tradition in this way. I almost have the feeling that Pascal’s cruel caricature of the Jesuits in “Lettres a un Provincial“ has only been vindicated truly and completely in our days. In that book Pascal wrote this beautiful sentence about the Jesuits: “Ecce patres, qui tollunt peccata mundi.”  One would think he is talking about Francis. But these maneuvers, these cunning ideological reinterpretations, collapse after a certain amount of time. What endures is the great block of Tradition by means of  which a believer can take the measure of something. First of all a glance in the gospels suffices. The gospels are radical. Every line of the gospels denounces that cunning that would make Christianity acceptable. But everyone can also take the measure of something using, for example,  a gothic cathedral – if you stand before Notre Dame de Paris and ask if this or that encyclical, this or that papal address stands comparison to this building? And if not, it’s certainly not the fault of the cathedral.

…

Francis wants precisely that, going forward, Rome doesn’t have to decide everything. In Evangelii Gaudium he writes: “I also don’t believe that one should expect from the papal magisterium a final or complete  answer  to all questions concerning the Church and the world.”

Mosebach: Pope Francis is trying here in a somewhat unclear manner to address a mistaken development. The First Vatican Council in the document Pastor Aeternus confirmed, in the midst of a political crisis, the infallibility of the pope in questions of faith and morals. It thereby launched  through in part dramatic formulations an exaggeration of the papal office that didn’t correspond to Catholic Tradition.  Especially in the post-conciliar papal theology the papal office was exalted to an extent that doesn’t survive a comparison to Tradition. This omnipotent papacy, which seems to have imitated the absolutist fantasies of Joseph de Maistre,  has revealed its full danger really only now, when suddenly everything is supposed to depend on this one very special personality Bergoglio. Perhaps Catholics should be thankful for this situation, because it makes more urgent the correction of such exaggerations. Leading the papacy back to its old constraints would be fortunate for the Church. The Pope as supreme judge, who decides controversies in submission to Tradition – that suffices.

…

Sternberg: …The papacy has acquired a totally new coloration with Francis….…I really very much admire Francis’s opening to the perception of other people. The way he treats disabled people, the way he really lifts people out of their wheelchairs and always goes first to them instead of to officials. …

Mosebach: But you must certainly know, Herr Sternberg, that that’s part of the ritual of modern dictators: kissing children, soothing the sick, visiting field hospitals and so forth. Since publicity has existed, since we have had propaganda,  rulers have displayed themselves in this manner. It was old fashioned, almost touching in its rootedness in the past when the papal court still had its ostrich feather fans. The strong men of the modern age – a Hitler or Stalin – have used far different stylistic means to exhibit themselves in the best light. It’s the same with the current pope. A football stadium, where tens of thousands zero in on a solitary white form in the middle – that’s a far more totalitarian language than the ponderous, old-fashioned  court etiquette of the past!  Then there’s the utilization of the sick in their wheelchairs! Lined up a row,  they are now used to demonstrate our charity and mercy towards them! A shiver runs through me when the reigning Holy Father always speaks of the “tenderness of God.” I’d just like to roll up and die! The tenderness of God – that, in the face of the hard language of scripture! It’s a reprehensible downplaying, a deception, to deprive the faithful of the Rex Tremendae Majestatis from the regrettably abolished Dies Irae. Permit me too here to call attention to the close connection between kitsch and heterodoxy.  

Sternberg: I really have to object strongly here, because I have experienced it differently….

1. „Käme es auf Genie an, wäre dies Amt ein Irrsinn“ Herder Korrespondenz Spezial 1/2019
2. Gottesdienstordnung: The German word here refers to the regulations governing worship services (agenda) of the German Protestant (Lutheran) church.

We had previously covered in The Churches of New York the saga of the Jesuit church of St. Francis Xavier on West 16th Street – its origins, its glorious past and where it stands today. Now “William Po” (a pseudonym) in an article on OnePeterFive has updated the story, giving some insights into the current life of the parish – apparently, through the end of the pastorate (as administrator) of Fr. Daniel Corrou SJ ( in 2019).

Jesuit Craters, Jesuits Cratering, and Margaret Sanger on Venus

And some things never end. If we take a casual look, for example, at the most recent parish bulletin of March 28, 2021, we read the following Holy Week message from the associate pastor:

This week our nation was again gripped in horror at two mass shootings. The first, in Atlanta, targeted women of Asian descent, killing six women of Asian descent as well as two others. This attack came after a year of increasing numbers of hate crimes targeting Asians.

…

If our nation is ever to break its addiction to racism and gun violence, we must have a national conversion to acceptance and love for one another.

As we enter into Holy Week and the Paschal Triduum, we are reminded of our call to work with all people of goodwill for peace, inclusion, reconciliation and justice.

…

Throughout Lent, many have been involved in the Lenten Racial Justice Examen; others have examined the environmental impact of their lives; and still others have taken more personalized journeys.

…

On Holy Thursday, we recall the institution of the Eucharist, when Christ took bread, blessed it broke it, and gave it to his disciples. We who receive the Eucharist are made into one community standing in solidarity with all who suffer. As a diverse people gathered as one, we affirm that all people share the same dignity regardless of country of origin, gender identity, economic status or sexual orientation.

On Good Friday, we recall Jesus’ suffering and death for the sake of sin and injustice. By his crucifixion, Christ suffered the reality of violence and humiliation by the powers that be. Yet violence and humiliation did not have the last word. Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday followed Good Friday. May the coming celebration of the Resurrection give us hope in our day-to-day struggle against bigotry, violence and injustice and in the building of a just community for all.

I don’t think William Po’s experiences should be surprising to anyone having even the remotest familiarity with the Jesuit order or St. Francis Xavier parish. And is it news that the Archdiocese is taking a hands-off attitude to this parish and the growing number of others like it? I am surprised why, given his own principles, Willam Po is or was attending St. Francis Xavier in the first place. The parish is, after all, extremely open about its guiding principles. Yes, Margaret Sanger crater is on Venus – but what about the National Historic Landmark of the site of Margaret Sanger clinic across the street from St. Francis Xavier church?

By Peter Seewald

(Droemer Verlag, Munich 2020)

(This review is of the German original. All quotations are my own translations. Ignatius Press has published in 2020 the first volume of an English translation – SC)

We are fortunate that Pope Benedict XVI is with us still. Indeed, even though by now he has been “Pope Emeritus”  longer than “Pope” we have heard much from him on several fronts just in the last year or so:  his journey to the side of his dying brother in Germany, his dramatic book written with Cardinal Sarah. Last year appeared Benedict XVI: a Life, a quasi-authorized biography by Peter Seewald including new interviews with Benedict. How premature then was the title given to the English language edition of Peter Seewald’s last (2016) book of interviews with the Pope Emeritus: Last Testament!

I confess that I have never been a fan of Peter Seewald’s work. For starters, his style is excessively colloquial, even coarse at times, and studded with English borrowings  and outlandish  formulations:  (“the psychedelic sound of Gregorian chant”; Spindoktor (sic – referring to Ratzinger’s role vis-à-vis Cardinal Frings!)). Seewald easily falls into hyperbole:

“There are moments of world history in which time positively stands still. The (rotation of the) earth around its axis stops.” (referring to the day of Pope Benedict’s resignation)

In other passages, however, he serves up undigested academic or theological jargon. And everywhere he bombards the reader with an endless series of facts. It seems nothing can be mentioned without an explanatory parenthetical, clause or sentence. The longer digressions can be massive, covering every conceivable subject connected, however remotely, with Joseph Ratzinger. I could easily see this book abridged by at least 25% without doing any harm to the narrative.

But more problematic than his style is the inadequate historical context for Ratzinger’s life. Peter Seewald seems to derive most of his historical knowledge from German magazines and newspapers – nowadays a decidedly myopic perspective. As a result, the author’s endless historical digressions generally offer just platitudes and commonplaces, not real insights. As an example of Seewald’s historical judgment, again and again the significance of an author or his book is demonstrated to his satisfaction by the number of copies sold.

 But that’s not the only media-related problem in this book. Seewald’s declared purpose is to defend Joseph Ratzinger against a negative image of him created by the media (“prejudices, underhandedness and even outright disinformation”). Seewald takes up the cause of the Roman Catholic Church as well. Yet, by assuming the role of defense attorney, isn’t Seewald allowing these same media enemies of Ratzinger and the Church to lay down the “rules of the game”? For example, in the poisonous German media culture it may be a laudable undertaking to demonstrate that Benedict – and the Catholic Church – are not Nazis.  I submit that structuring an apologia around demolishing such absurd claims contributes little to our understanding of the role of either Pope Benedict or the Church.

All too numerous are the errors of fact and questionable assertions. Did rock n’ roll fascinate Germans five years after the end of World War II (before it even was invented in the US)? Does Nono el mondo mean “grandfather of the world” in Italian? At the ordination of Ratzinger did Cardinal Faulhaber process into the church to the motet Exicocaelibus magnus? During the war, when Joseph Ratzinger served as a Luftwaffe auxiliary, did he and his unit directly operate a Freya radar (“developed by Konrad Zuse”?)? Did Bishop Richard Williamson’s father die in the concentration camp Sonnenburg in 1944, after helping Jews escape from the Nazis (just like Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre’s father did)? “In the two thousand years of Christianity no really ruling successor of St. Peter had had the courage to take this step.” (referring to Benedict’s resignation) Such things do not inspire confidence in an author.

Yet Seewald’s lengthy narrative does keep moving – often with the aid of (sometimes artificial) cliffhangers. Seewald may be deficient in judgment, but here and there Benedict XVI: A Life does offer startling anecdotes and revealing comments. And if his overall tone is adulatory, Seewald doesn’t avoid some of the more problematic aspects of Benedict’s career. Seewald obviously can’t follow all of his hero’s opinions – even those restated in this book (such as Benedict’s still rosy assessment of the Second Vatican Council). And Seewald can be informative even when he goes off track. For example, he reminds us of John Allen’s initial hostile account of Cardinal Ratzinger – and how it changed when the cardinal became pope. The descriptions of towns, schools and landscapes connected to Joseph Ratzinger’s early life can be evocative. Seewald’s detailed account of the coordinated media campaign against Pope Benedict is important reading,  describing a trial run of the tactics employed by the civil establishment in the subsequent, infinitely more massive assault on President Trump.

Finally, what alternatives to Seewald does Benedict really have for a German-language biographer/dialogue partner/ publicist? Certainly the overwhelming majority of “serious” writers on religion in the German press and academia are either inveterate enemies of Benedict or unreadable – and very often both. But so much for our author – what of the story of Pope Benedict that he tells? In an account spanning some 90 years, I can only pick out a few topics that hopefully would interest the readers of a Traditionalist blog.

Ratzinger’s childhood inspires some of the best pages in the book. Born early on Holy Saturday, (as Seewald notes, at that time the Holy Saturday liturgy took place in the morning) the young child would seems destined to a spiritual career. The first residence of the Ratzinger family, as described by Seewald, seems like a fairy tale of faith and traditional German Catholic culture despite (or partially because of?) the economic constraints of that time. The young Joseph Ratzinger was introduced at an early age to prayer – but also beautiful music, splendid liturgies and glorious nature. It seems that Joseph Ratzinger’s simple, severe and devout policeman father was the greatest influence on him. – “his teacher, his spiritual master, his literary mentor.” 

From my own experiences I could sympathize with Joseph Ratzinger when he later entered a Catholic “high school”  (we would say) where, as seems universal in such Catholic institutions, sports were heavily emphasized. Like me, Ratzinger was totally incapable in this field, but he was able to manage his way through it all more sucessfully than I.

After the war, Joseph Ratzinger entered the seminary with his brother, and later attended the university in Munich. According to Seewald, the nascent West German state represented  the very essence of Catholic social doctrine. Yet despite this purported early influence, the Church soon encountered problems in the postwar world the origin of which Seewald does not explain. Increasingly, members of the theological faculty have problems with “Rome.”  The local population, even in supposedly Catholic Bavaria, was not necessarily receptive to Christianity. At this early stage Ratzinger began to gravitate towards the liberal wing of the church. Curiously, however, he at first rejected the liturgical movement – but later grew comfortable with it. 

Early on Ratzinger had also settled on becoming an academic. He had, however, an almost career-ending conflict with a certain Professor Schmaus when the latter rejected his Habilitation book (in Germany a necessary step to obtain a teaching position at a university). Naturally Seewald calls Schmaus a “bigwig,” vain, easily taking offense – and, of course, previously friendly to Nazis. This incident also features prominently in Seewald/Ratzinger’s Last Conversations(aka Last Testament), but here we learn that Schmaus’s  opposition to Ratzinger was far more fundamental and militant than I had supposed from that account – Schmaus held the young theologian to be a nebulous modernist. Through skillful tactics Ratzinger worked around this obstacle and in 1958 he received his first professorship. 

From this beginning Ratzinger steadily rose to prominence among German theologians – and he was reckoned to the progressive wing. In an early essay,, he speculated on the salvation of all kind and helpful people, and, according to Seewald at least, by 1959 he sported a “black suit and a black tie.”   Commenting on this era,  Ratzinger makes the claim – startling in view of his later experiences – that “I always was very much interested in politics.”  

Ratzinger of course eventually became one of the main spokesmen and leaders of the progressives at the Second Vatican Council. Yet I still don’t get a good sense from reading this book what his specific objectives actually were.  He is quoted as endorsing such such vague but sweeping propositions as repudiating the “armor” of scholastic theology and advocating that the Faith must find “a new language and a new openness.”

Seewald can’t help but label the Conciliar enthusiasm of the early 60’s as “naïve,” specifically referring to Ratzinger’s liturgical expectations of that time. Indeed, Seewald cites sources – including, I may add, many of my own favorites – who profoundly dissented, if for different reasons, from the Conciliar euphoria, men like Alfred Lorenzer and Hubert Jedin. Pope Benedict himself is untroubled by any second thoughts about the Council. Going forward, defending what he viewed as the true legacy of the Council against the post-Conciliar “Council of the media” became his mission. Almost immediately, therefore, the Second Vatican Council – the opening to the World, the saving reconciliation with modernity – had become just one more non-intuitive set of dogmas that required endless further defense and interpretation (or hermeneutics)

As the Council ended, Ratzinger took up a new position at the University of Tübingen. There he taught side-by-side with Hans Küng – which is likely why he transferred there in the first place. It seems that gradually Ratzinger’s views began diverging more and more from the those of majority of the intellectual leadership of the German Church. As described by Ratzinger,  this was the natural development of his growing understanding of his colleagues’ theology and objectives. Why Ratzinger did not discern these problems with Küng, Rahner etc. earlier is not addressed in this book. The relationship with Küng eventually deteriorated into outright enmity – at least on Küng’s part. Throughout the rest of Seewald’s book, Küng has the role of a recurring demonic figure and hostile commentator on Ratzinger’s career.

In 1968 Ratzinger moved again from Tübingen, dominated by Küng, to the more congenial surroundings of the University of Regensburg in his homeland of Bavaria. By this time the deficiencies of the Conciliar regime were manifest. As Seewald reports, only two years after the conclusion of the Council the percentage of Catholics regularly attending Mass in Germany was plummeting.  Conversely, by 1970 the number of those exiting the Church in Germany had skyrocketed. At this time Ratzinger began to be considered the “theological savior” of Germany by the conservative remnants of the Church.

In 1977, Ratzinger was appointed to the prestigious see of Munich. Aside from a very brief curacy in the early 1950’s, it was his first pastoral experience. In this role Ratzinger does not seem to have distinguished himself from the rest of his bureaucratic and/or progressive colleagues in the “German Catholic Church.”  We read, for example, how he facilitated a typical progressive stunt of setting up a child speaker to publicly challenge John Paul II on a papal visit to Germany. And then there was Ratzinger’s patronage of the controversial lay “movement” Katholische Integrierte Gemeinde. To some extent Ratzinger retained his connection to this group even after he had become Pope. By 2019 the KIG had collapsed in scandal.

 In 1981 Ratzinger was named prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome. For the next 24 years Ratzinger exercised this office. He assumed the role of the “bad cop” for John Paul II and earned the opprobrium of much of the world media as a result. He was a loyal subordinate even when he disagreed with the Pope’s actions. Ratzinger did express reservations, for example, regarding the mammoth spectacles John Paul II loved. And he at first refused to participate in the ecumenical Assisi event. But nothing came of this – and Ratzinger of course later attended later Assisi meetings himself.

There are also early indications of Ratzinger’s limitations as a leader. Seewald reports that he really never developed effective relationships or networks within the Vatican bureaucracy – despite all the years he served there. A specific incident illustrates some of Ratzinger’s difficulties – the one event described in this book which I personally witnessed. The Vatican had issued in 1986 a letter on “The Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons,”  essentially reiterating Catholic doctrine. Shortly thereafter, Cardinal Ratzinger gave an address in the Lutheran church of St. Peter in New York. Seewald describes how a crowd of homosexuals in the audience attempted to shout down Ratzinger. What Seewald doesn’t mention, however, was that Ratzinger’s presentation was entirely devoted to questions of Biblical exegesis, in connection with a closed-door conference on this subject he was holding shortly thereafter.  Even though the homosexual issue was dominating the media, Ratzinger apparently hoped to just ignore it in his address. His uninspiring appearance and delivery only stirred up the demonstrators all the more. And the “40 policemen” that Seewald mentions only deigned to intervene after the address had been thoroughly disrupted. 

And of course in 2005 Joseph Ratzinger ascended the papal throne as Benedict XVI. For the next 8 years he was to lead the Church through crises caused by all the things which had been swept under the rug in previous papacies. Seewald (and Benedict XVI?), however, seem to regard the main challenge of  Benedict’s papacy as maintaining a good relationship with the press – primarily that of Germany. The subject is nearly obsessive. Seewald even attributes to the media attacks over Bishop Williamson the beginning of the end of Ratzinger’s’ pontificate.  But obviously much more than inadequate public relations work was at fault in Benedict’s papacy. The man who could set a new liturgical course with Summorum Pontificum and at least start to sanction some of the worst, previously untouchable,  abusers was otherwise incapable of transforming his ideas into practice. That would have required well-planned, detailed implementation,  finding and promoting competent and loyal supporters, confronting opposition directly, and ceaseless personal advocacy. 

Seewald recites revealing examples of Benedict’s problematic style as ruler. Pope Benedict arranged for Archbishop Vigano to be sent as nuncio to the U.S – a step down in status –  after the Archbishop had clashed with Cardinal Bertone. Of course that wasn’t a punishment, the Pope Emeritus assures us, for Vigano’s zealous activity in attempting into bring order into Vatican’s  financial affairs. “Although Vigano certainly was right in many things be created a climate of general suspicion of all against all, so he couldn’t stay.” – so Benedict.  Ettore Gatti Tedeschi, another would-be financial reformer, met an even worse fate: summary dismissal amid uncorroborated accusations – once again, after running afoul of  Bertone. A year afterwards, in a characteristic gesture, Pope Benedict declared his continued trust in Tedeschi –  but refused to reinstate him. We have subsequently seen the effects of this laxity in the oversight of the Vatican finances,

Then, there was the strange business of Ingrid Stampa, a former  housekeeper of Ratzinger who had inserted herself in the papal  palace. She obtained the keys to the papal apartments and often showed up unannounced in his office. As described by Seewald, she was adept at manipulating Pope Benedict, when necessary with hysterical displays and fits of rage. She assumed more and more authority,  blocked the advancement of rivals in the curia and even had a favorite of hers made Cardinal. Apparently she had to hand back her keys to the papal apartment only after the explosion of the “Vatileaks” affair.

Perhaps we should say something here about the topic of this book that should be of the greatest interest to Traditionalists. Amazingly, Seewald writes very little about Ratzinger’s liturgical principles, the Traditional Mass and Summorum Pontificum. That’s because our author has no sympathy for the subject  – he calls Archbishop Lefebvre an “apostate” (abtrünnig). I have mentioned, however,  the late adherence of Ratzinger to the liturgical movement. As a professor in Regensburg,  Ratzinger was horrified by the introduction of the Novus Ordo. Such a thing had never been done in the entire history of the Church! – lamented Ratzinger. “It did us extraordinary damage. For now the impression formed that the liturgy was not preexisting and given, but something ‘made.’ ”

Of course, years later, as Pope, Ratzinger did do something about it by issuing Summorum Pontificum. Seewald comments in his inimitable style that: “no measurable changes in the liturgical framework of the Church were produced by Summorum Pontificum – much less developing into a mass movement. Benedict’s readmittance (to the Church) of the ‘Old Mass’ basically corresponded to the trend to rely on ‘Classico” and “Traditionale” after adulterated wine, poisonous foodstuffs and the fast food madness.”

But others felt and continue to feel differently. As Seewald himself writes: “Cardinal Koch even considers (Summorum Pontificum) the most important decision of all of this pontificate. With it, something enduring had been created, which the 80-year old pope had pushed through against all resistance. And he did this simply because for decades he had held this rectification for right and necessary.” Indeed, it was Benedict’s one success in legislating, implementing and defending a major change in the life of the Church. A change that, contrary to Seewald’s perspective, has indeed generated its own movement throughout the world. 

But then Pope Benedict resigned. The reasons for this  incredible step are not explicitly articulated in this book. The following extraordinary “reign” of Benedict as  “pope emeritus” – which by now exceeds the time of his own papacy – also receives, perhaps unsurprisingly, scant coverage.  Pope Benedict, ever the man of the establishment, is quoted as supporting and admiring his successor (as he has already stated in previous books).  I don’t think many people are convinced by that.

So, in 2019 when Bergoglio had set off another crisis – the threatened introduction of married priests, female deacons and even female priests, Cardinal Sarah and Ratzinger collaborated on a book defending Catholic Tradition in these issues. I am sure that this – combined with other, behind-the-scenes activity – helped put the brakes on the drive for change to the priesthood. Yet, in a typical foolish spectacle, after the anger of the Bergoglian faction exploded, Pope Benedict withdrew his name from the book (as co-author)  – even though he did not withdraw his contribution. It is quintessential Benedict, as described again and again in this book – the inability to confront opposition resulting, at least in appearance, in an apologetic compromise. 

So Seewald leaves us with the impression of a man of intelligence, spiritual insight, scholarly attainments, artistic sensitivity and having the best of wishes for the Church. But reverence for the institution and the lack of leadership skills often negated his gifts and virtues, ultimately leading to a disastrous decision that plunged the Church once again into the very moral and institutional chaos from which Benedict had striven to rescue her.  

But of course, as Seewald himself argues elsewhere on other issues,  Benedict’s character was not the main cause of his papacy’s difficulties. I have already alluded to some of some of these objective underlying problems of strategy and tactics.  But the fundamental issue with the Church between 1977 and 2013  – the period when Joseph Ratzinger was Archbishop, Cardinal, and Pope –  was the inherently contradictory nature of both the legacy of the Vatican Council and the Church’s clerical culture. Apocalyptic hopes and conformism; yearning for a leader in the format of the secular figures of the last century yet anxiously avoiding conflict (and the appearance of conflict) within the Church and with the world; dreams of great transformations combined with bureaucratic complacency – really, I don’t think anyone could have pulled it off. 

Please help us to complete this schedule by sending in information about traditional Masses in the area.

Connecticut

St. Mary Church, Norwalk, CT

Palm Sunday: 9:30 Solemn Mass. (no 11:15 Mass)

Wednesday of Holy Week: 7 pm Tenebrae

Holy Thursday: 7 pm Solemn Mass; 9 pm Vespers and stripping of altars; 9:30 Vigil before Blessed Sacrament in altar of repose in upper church

Good Friday: 3 pm, Mass of the Presanctified; 7 pm Tenebrae and the burial of the Body of Christ

Holy Saturday: 12:30 pm Blessing of Easter food; 7 pm: Great Vigil of Easter; 11:30 pm festive reception

Easter Sunday: 9:30 Solemn Mass; 11:15 Missa Cantata

Sts. Cyril and Methodius Oratory, Bridgeport, CT,

Palm Sunday: 8 am Low Mass; 9:45 Solemn Mass

Holy Thursday: 12 noon Solemn Mass; 6 pm Tenebrai

Good Friday: 12 noon Mass of the Pre-sanctified; 3 pm Stations of the Cross and Veneration of the Cross; 6 pm Tenebrae

Holy Saturday: 12 noon: Easter Vigil followed by blessing of Easter baskets (Aaron 3:15)

St. Joseph Church, Danbury

Palm Sunday, 11:30 am Solemn Mass

Wednesday of Holy Week: 6 pm Tenebrae

Holy Thursday: 6 pm Solem Mass, all night adoration

Good Friday: 12 noon Traditional Liturgy

Holy Saturday: 10 pm, The Great Easter Vigil

Easter Sunday: 11:30 am Mass

St. Stanislaus Church, New Haven

Palm Sunday, 2 pm, Missa Cantata, Fr. Richard Cipolla celebrant

Good Friday, 12 noon

Easter Sunday, 2 pm, Missa Cantata

New York

Church of the Holy Innocents, New York, NY

Holy Thursday, 6 pm, High Vesperal Mass followed by all -night adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament

Good Friday,, 3 pm

Holy Saturday, East Vigil at 6 pm followed by a festive reception in the parish hall

Easter Sunday, 9 am Low Mass; 10:30 am, Missa Cantata followed by Benediction, Festive reception in the parish hall after the 10:30 am Mass

Our Lady of Mount Carmel, New York, NY

Palm Sunday, 10:30 am, Missa Cantata

Holy Thursday, 9 am Tenebrae; 7:30 pm Mass of the Lord’s Supper 1962 Missal

Good Friday, 9 am Tenebrae; 3 pm Liturgy of the Presanctified

Holy Saturday, 9 am Tenebrae; 7:30 pm Easter Vigil and First Mass of Easter 1962 Missal

Easter Sunday, 10:30 am Missa Cantata

Immaculate Conception, Sleepy Hollow, NY

Palm Sunday, 3 pm Solemn Mass. (only one Mass this Sunday)

Easter Sunday, 2 pm Missa Cantata. (only one Mass this Sunday)

St. Cecilia Church, Brooklyn,

Good Friday, 3 pm, pre-1955 liturgy, Fr. Richard Cipolla, celebrant

New Jersey

Our Lady of Sorrows, Jersey City,

Palm Sunday, 3 pm Missa Cantata

Wednesday of Holy Week, 7 pm Tenebrae

Holy Thursday, 5 pm

Good Friday, 3 pm

Holy Saturday, 10 pm Easter Vigil

St. Anthony of Padua Oratory, West Orange, NJ

Holy Thursday,   Confessions 7:00 pm;  High Mass 8:30 pm;  Adoration at Altar of Repose
Good Friday, 12 noon  Stations and Confessions; 3:00 pm  Mass of the Presanctified
Holy Saturday, 4:00 pm Confessions; 5:00 pm Easter Vigil
Easter Sunday, 7:30 am   Low Mass 9:00 am   Low Mass 11:00 am Sung Mass

Traditional Mass is now offered every Sunday at 11:30 am at St. Joseph Church in Danbury, CT by Fr. Michael Clark.  Saint Marguerite in Brookfield also has a weekly traditional Mass every Sunday at 12:30pm.

The Viri Galilaei, under the direction of David Hughes, will be singing two Masses for feasts of Our Lady later this week.  The first will be on Thursday, March 25th, at 6:00p at St. Joseph’s in Danbury, for the Feast of the Annunciation.  The second will be on Friday, March 26th at 7:30p at St. Josaphat’s in Bayside, Queens.  At both Masses, they will be singing Machaut’s magisterial Messe de Nostre Dame, the earliest polyphonic Mass by a single known composer.  According to David Hughes, “As part of our Lenten practice, we’ve been working on the piece every Saturday this Lent, and hope that it will bear good fruit at these Masses.”

In the church of Saints Cyril and Methodius, Bridgeport, CT:

By Father Richard Gennaro Cipolla

Because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.  Which of you convicts me of sin?  If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? (John 8: 45-47)

So the scene is set for the final confrontation on this first Sunday of the Passion.  It is from here that we enter Jerusalem with our Lord and watch in the garden and walk the Via Dolorosa with him and climb that hill to see and to know the greatest act of love that has ever been made and will ever be made.  For it is the act of the love of God.

And today’s Gospel focuses on the roots of the conflict.  The conflict here is the historical one between Jesus and the Jews of his time.  Among these Jews in conflict were the religious leaders, the Chief Priests and the Pharisees.  We forget, because of the negative casting of these men in the Gospels, that these were those men who knew deeply of the roots and teaching and practice of Judaism.  These were those who offered the sacrifices in the temple; these were those who were experts in the Law; these were those who knew of the covenant between God and the Jewish people. These were those entrusted to lead the people in the teaching and practice of their faith.  But in this crowd there were also those who had believed in Jesus but now found him too much to take.  It was bad enough when he said: “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you”.    But now: “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.” Those words” I am”, the name of God heard by Moses from the burning bush, the name never pronounced by a Jew because of its terrible holiness.  “Before Abraham was, I am.”

But the conflict here goes far beyond the historical conflict with the Jews.  If it were merely history, then we would dismiss it as something in the past and move on.  But the conflict here is the very center of the opposition to the person of Jesus and his claims in all ages, in every generation.  Jesus says: “But because I tell you the truth you do not believe me.”  And again: “ If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?”  The latter question is asked of us today, is posed to the whole world, whether the world is listening or not.  Why is it that when people confront the truth they do not believe?  And this is true of people who do not scorn the notion of truth. Why even the secular post-modern New York Times would defend the truth in some sense.  The most secular person would not deny the quest for truth wherever it is found.  The motto of Harvard University is Veritas, truth.  The motto of Yale University is one better, Lux et Veritas, light and truth, both of which are seen as ends to the whole education process.  The motto of Villanova University, a professed Catholic college, is Veritas, Unitas, Caritas:  Truth, Unity, Charity.  And yet, without being prejudicial, can any one of these institutions of higher learning answer the question Jesus poses?  No, they cannot, for when truth is abstracted into the realm of ideas, when truth becomes some nebulous goal to which education strives, when truth becomes disembodied and not something one can touch, feel, hear, know, have a relationship to, then Jesus’ question becomes meaningless. It has no context.  When truth becomes a concept divorced from God, then not only is its deepest meaning lost in the miasma of individualism and relativism, but also truth loses its pungency, its sharpness, its ability to judge.  

This confrontation:  why does it necessarily involve the religious leaders of Jesus’ time?  Because these are those in the know, those who are supposed to teach the people the truth.  And these religious leaders do know the truth in an objective way; they know the facts of the truth, so to speak.  But yet, they do not know the truth in the deepest sense, because they have failed to or are unwilling to make that truth part of their lives, of their very existence. They are fond of delivering powerful sermons about the truth, about the Commandments, about the special relationship of the Jewish people to God, but they have refused to make this ultimately real for this truth is not a part of who they are. They live their lives as if truth does not exist, as if God does not exist.  And so when they are confronted with that very person who is the Truth, not some abstract notion of truth that can be manipulated at will, but the very embodiment of the Truth, standing there speaking:  they do not believe. And they do not believe in the Truth standing there, because they have never made truth of part of themselves.  These men are terrified by the one who says: “before Abraham, I am”.  For if this is true, then their lives have been only religious posturing, playing at religion, leading people astray with a facile and false religion.

But once again we cannot take the sting out of Jesus’ words, which are the heart of the conflict, by retreating into history, into the past.  This is true both of our religious leaders and of ourselves.  We leave aside those charlatans who fill the airwaves on Sunday morning masquerading as Christian preachers of the truth and who fill the people with false hopes of self-fulfillment and cheap grace.  We look instead at our own religious leaders, those who are entrusted with the passing on of the sacred Tradition, of the teaching of the Catholic faith, those burdened with the truth of God in Jesus Christ, a burden real but easy to bear in faith.  How easy it is for these men to appeal to the truth of Scripture, the Creeds, of the Catechism, of the moral teaching of the Church and yet to treat it as if it were something out there, something purely objective, which has no relationship to their own lives pr the lives of their people? 

I am always amused and perplexed when a conservative Catholic says to me about a certain bishop: “You know, he is orthodox”.  I never know what to respond.  Does this mean that he accepts all of the teachings of the Church, and if so am I supposed to offer some encomium of praise for this man for he happens to hold these opinions?  What does this have to do with that confrontation with truth that demands that making that truth the center of one’s life and therefore taking on suffering, for the conflict we see in today’s gospel always demands and ends up with suffering, for if the truth of God in Jesus Christ is taken seriously and is made a part of one’s life at the very center, and now we are talking about ourselves, each other, you and I:  if the truth of God in Jesus Christ is taken on as the center of one’s life,  then conflict becomes the mode of one’s life, and suffering an inevitable part of that life.  That is true. And it is Jesus who tells us that today.  But this is not bad news, not something to get depressed about and wring one’s hands and dismiss Christianity as a dour, oppressive religion.  The good news is that if one makes Christ the center of one’s life and conforms one’s own will to his and therefore to the will of God and therefore to the truth about the world and about oneself, one is freed in the deepest sense to be fully who each of us is called to be: the truth makes us free.  And it is the Cross of Jesus Christ that is the only possibility of human freedom.  For the cross is the judgment of truth on the world that refuses to see the truth.  But the Cross is also the only hope, spes unica, that we who are blind because of sin may see the wonderful and amazing and hopeful and joyful love of God that breaks the bonds of the lie that is death and opens us up to the truth of eternal life.

And yet the delicious and wonderful liturgical irony embedded in the Tradition is that on this Passion Sunday, the Cross is hidden from our eyes.  It is said that in the papal liturgy, in times now made hazy by historical mist, at the moment the words in the Gospel, “Jesus abscondit se”—Jesus hid himself and left the temple—all the crosses in the papal chapel were covered until after the liturgy of Good Friday.  And so do we.  “Jesus hid himself”. The Son of God hides himself from those who are trying to kill him, and he does so not because of cowardice but out of humility, knowing that he had not come to die the death of a religious martyr at the hands of a few wicked men, but that he had come to be handed over to death by the final encounter with the forces of sin and death. He had come for the awful humiliation of the Cross, the Cross as the triumph over sin and death from the deepest parts of the cosmos itself.  You and I hide from God like Adam and Eve because of our sin.  Jesus hides himself on this Passion Sunday to empty himself even more deeply and so submit himself to death for love of us.