Una Voce: The History of the Foederatio Internationalis Una Voce

Leo Darroch
(Gracewing, Leominster 2017)

I have long been interested in the story of American Catholic Traditionalism. Una Voce: the History of the Foederatio Internationalis Una Voce is an account of Una Voce, one of the main protagonists in Europe,  written by a former president of that organization. I find it an invaluable contribution to our knowledge of the survival of Traditionalism – yet some major reservations and qualifications are necessary.

To start, this book might be more accurately titled “Materials for the History of the Foederatio Internationalis Una Voce.” For Darroch’s book is in no way a complete history of the Una Voce federation, let alone that of post-Vatican II Traditionalism. Rather, it is the story of the center or headquarters of the Una Voce organization, its status reports and above all its discussions over the years with Vatican representatives. The president of Una Voce (international) freely admits that at times he has very little idea of what is happening in the local chapters, where much of the actual work of the federation in education and publication was being done. Some of these, such as the UK and German chapters, were established early and continued to play a major role throughout the period covered by this book. Others, like the United States organization,  flowered early, vanished and reappeared in different reincarnations.

One would very much like to hear more of the experiences of the main national chapters. The Latin Mass Society of the UK, for example, was involved in the granting in 1971 of the only real concession  to the Traditional Mass made by Rome prior to 1984/88: the “English” indult. (This book, however, makes clear how extremely limited this concession was.) There is also mention that in some chapters a more defiant attitude regarding celebrating the Old Mass continued to exist  “under the radar screen” of the international headquarters.

The format of this book may also be challenging for readers other than dedicated historians. For the text consists largely of verbatim reports, interviews, minutes of meetings and letters, at the expense of a coherent narrative. Questions of substance and procedural intricacies, fundamental discussions of principle and bureaucratic trivia are freely mingled here; critical issues arise and are then suddenly dropped in mid-stream. On the other hand, a chief contribution of Darroch’s book is indeed the generous selection of excerpts from the original documents!

We have spoken of the president of Una Voce. This book is indeed largely  the history of one man, Eric de Saventhem,  the founding president of the International Federation, who sustained the efforts  of the federation’s center with his energy, persistence – and, probably, financial resources. It is to his credit, first,  that at least some central point of contact was retained for the “Uniate” ( basically, “non-Lefebvrian”) Traditionalists. Second, Una Voce preserved throughout the decades its advocacy of  the pre-Conciliar Mass and never deviated into the so-called Latin (Novus Ordo)Mass that gained such a hold on “Conservative Catholics” in the US. Third, de Saventhem left us such memorable and visionary statements of principle as:

A renaissance will come: asceticism and adoration as the mainspring of direct total dedication to Christ will return. Confraternities of priests, vowed to celibacy and to an intense life of prayer and meditation will be formed. Religious will regroup themselves into houses of ‘strict observance.” A new form of ‘Liturgical Movement” will come into being, led by young priests and attracting young people, in protest against the flat, prosaic, philistine or delirious liturgies which will soon overgrow and finally smother even the recently revised rites…

It is important that these new priests and religious, these new young people with ardent hearts, should find—if only in corner of the rambling mansion of the Church—the treasure of a true sacred liturgy… (Address to the Una Voce United States chapter in June 1970)

How could the aspirations be better articulated – and so early on! – for a movement that would demand so much personal sacrifice with so little hope of success over so many decades?

De Saventhem had, however, far less success as a would-be ecclesiastical politician. His attempts over the decades to obtain some kind of concession or deal from the Roman authorities
with whom he was in fairly regular contact had, by his own admission, absolutely no success prior to the indults of the 1980’s. And, as we can infer from this book, the concessions of the Indults were entirely due to the efforts of Archbishop Lefebvre, not those of Una Voce. Indeed, de Saventhem’s bureaucratic maneuvers and proposed compromises served only to undermine the credibility of a movement allegedly based on the highest principles. Inevitably, wishful thinking seems to color de Saventhem’s reports. At times, he grasped for signs of papal favor (under Paul VI!); on other occasions he talks of parties in the Vatican more or less sympathetic with the Tradionalist cause.   One feels thrust back into the era of the Cold War Kremlinologists, who in search of the will-o’-the -wisp of détente, constantly sought to identify alleged “moderate” and “hardline” factions in the Soviet leadership. It was a futile endeavor for Una Voce as well: the rudeness, arrogance and duplicity of the Vatican and the hierarchy in general is laid out here in great detail. One should read this book to understand the FSSPX’s well-founded distrust of the Vatican. There is also abundant evidence of the vacillations of Pope John Paul II.

Archbishop Lefebvre, on the other hand,  after a late start even subsequent to the foundation of Una Voce, focused on preserving the celebration of the Traditional mass at all costs and, increasingly, regardless of ecclesiastical permissions. To do that he began by training missionary priests in his own seminary adding schools, communities of sisters and  affiliates such as Traditional Benedictines, Dominicans and Redemptorists – and, finally, in his most dramatic step, bishops. It was a course of action that had been put on the table in the early days of the formation of Una Voce but not adopted (at least not by the federation’s headquarters).  De Saventhem seems to have been in communication now and then with the Archbishop whose movement, in contrast to the static situation of Una Voce, continued its steady and relentless growth.

Of course, this was not just a case of mistaken tactics on the part of de Saventhem.  More fundamental factors were in play, whether or not the main players of that era could or would have been willing to articulate them. De Saventhem remained in practice wedded to an “ultramontane” ecclesiology wherein the liturgy was the creation and property of the papacy. Therefore, the principal focus of Una Voce’s center was  “negotiations with” ( for most of this period, more accurately: “supplication of”) the relevant Roman authorities. Archbishop Lefebvre, however, given his background as a missionary, must have sensed the radical loss of faith underlying the developments of the 1960’s. While Una Voce – or at least its central leadership – saw saving the Mass as a bureaucratic exercise, Lefebvre understood it as a spiritual problem, a challenge of evangelization requiring the radical refounding and reconstitution of Church institutions. Of course, Archbishop Lefebvre’s  policy was also superior from the purely secular perspective of negotiation tactics (he was, after all, conducting his own discussions with the Holy See).  For while de Saventhem could only talk to the Roman prelates of the personal attachment of some of the faithful to the Old Rite, citing petitions and surveys, Lefebvre commanded a growing institutional following that was causing acute embarrassment to Rome. Something had to be done!

The indult of 1984 and even more so the motu proprio Ecclesia Dei of 1988 combined with  Archbishop Lefebvre’s ordination of bishops in that year changed all this. A large number of Lefebvre’s priests and affiliates could not follow him in the latter action. Suddenly,  Una Voce acquired substantial institutional and clerical allies. Now there was indeed more to talk about at the Vatican as Ecclesia Dei was rolled out! Furthermore, the hostility of the Roman authorities softened somewhat and there was a new dialogue partner – the Ecclesia Dei commission. Nevertheless, Una Voce had to contend with the unabated hostility to Traditionalism of other ecclesiastics in and outside of the Vatican who would continue to defy implementation of the 1988 Indult.

The most dramatic incident of the post-Indult years occurred, however, under the presidency of Michael Davies, who succeeded de Saventhem in 1995. For it was under his watch in 2000 that the future conservative hero, Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, launched out of a clear blue sky an underhanded attempt to impose “adaptations” derived from the Novus Ordo on the Traditional liturgy. Davies and Una Voce, exhibiting greater firmness than the preceding Una Voce administration had shown, resolutely opposed this move. The initiative, which would have destroyed non – FSSPX Traditionalism, was quietly allowed to die. Here Una Voce did indeed show its worth.

There are many other gems and curious facts scattered about the pages of this book. It is admittedly incomplete. Yet, if you want to get a sense of what in particular early Catholic Traditionalism was like – and the forces it had to contend with – it’s a great place to start

There are a few priests who have risen to the occasion. One of them is Father Joseph Scolaro, who has planned an extensive Eucharistic procession tomorrow covering a big expanse of his neighborhood.

Here’s what his notice says:

“You may not be able to come to the church to see the Blessed Sacrament… but he can come to you!

“Father Scolaro will be going around town with the Blessed Sacrament this Thursday beginning at 4 pm. Visit https://tinyurl.com/sbvlqkl to see a detailed route.
Please meet us anywhere along the route. We will be posting updates as we hit every mile marker on the map. Out of reverence for the Blessed Sacrament we’re invited to genuflect as Our Lord passes and we receive His blessing

“We ask that you do not follow us in procession, but rather greet the Blessed Sacrament from a distance outside your home.”

A screen shot of this morning’s 7 am Low Mass at St. Patrick’s Church, live-streamed.

Father Michael Novajosky will celebrate a Missa Cantata at 6 pm this evening at St. Patrick’s Church in Bridgeport, CT.  It will be a Votive Mass in Time of Pestilence.   The Mass will be live-streamed from the Cathedral Parish website.

Father Novajosky has been posting a daily schedule of live-streamed Masses on this website, including a daily Low Mass at 7 am.  He is planning add more to the schedule.

Father Cipolla celebrated a Solemn Mass for Laetare Sunday at St. Mary Church, Norwalk in 2016.

A screen shot of the live-streamed Mass at Sts. Cyril and Methodius, Bridgeport,   this morning, Canon Todd celebrant.

Sermon for Laetare Sunday

From the Introit:  “Laetare Jerusalem.”  Rejoice, O Jerusalem… and from today’s Gradual Psalm: “I rejoiced when I heard them say, let us go into the house of the Lord”.  And from the Epistle:  “For freedom Christ has set us free.”

In the American psyche there is a strong relationship between freedom and joy.  The whole American enterprise, both mythical and historical, has been a celebration of freedom, usually understood in the Enlightenment sense: the freedom of the individual from all coercion, whether that coercion be from the State or from organized religion.  It is the freedom to be who you want to be without interference from outside sources.  We call ourselves “the Land of the free and Home of the brave.”  These basic individual freedoms are enshrined in the United States Constitution.  And these freedoms and freedom itself are inextricably linked in the minds of Americans with democracy.  Two World Wars were fought–in our understanding– to make the world safe for democracy.  And we have seen in the post-World War II period in our history, with its own wars in foreign lands, however imperfectly conceived and fought this wars have been, there has been this sense of duty to see to it that democracy spread thought the whole world, and this, always in the name of freedom.  And it is expected that the freedoms enjoyed in a democracy will fulfill the people and make them happy, for the ultimate fulfillment of the individual is to be free.

But we have seen in recent history that even in those places where democracy has been established after decades of dictatorships or some other form of tyranny, there has not been an outpouring of peace and joy based on new freedoms.  In so many cases there is chaos with warring factions trying to destroy each other, and all in the name of freedom.  To point this out is not to deny the value of democracy as a form of government.  It is rather to call attention to a deep forgetting by Catholics about what true freedom is and its relationship to joy and happiness.  What Catholics have forgotten is that the secular understanding of freedom is provisional, is relative and can never by a source of true joy.  The only source of true joy is that freedom won for the whole world by the Cross of Jesus Christ.

“Rejoice, O, Jerusalem”, sings the Introit.  What is Jerusalem in this phrase?  It is not the city in the Middle East which despite being holy to three religions, is a place of constant strife and warfare, both religious and secular.  The city Jerusalem is certainly the place where Christ entered in triumph—not like a Roman triumph—on Palm Sunday and then was crucified on Good Friday some two thousand years ago.  Jerusalem is the place where the Son of God, the Incarnate Word, walked and taught.  As such it provides a grounding for the reality of the Incarnation in history and as such, remains important to every Catholic.  But it has little to do today with the faith that is the Catholic faith.  It is neither an object of our love nor a cause of our joy.

Rejoice, O Jerusalem!  What this phrase means in today’s Mass is the new Jerusalem, the heavenly city, that place where the saint defines what Christian freedom really means and where joy finds its place and expression in the worship of the Lamb who sits on the throne with his wounds glowing like gems. I hesitate to call this place heaven, because that word, even so often in the Church, now carries silly religious images, a place according to preachers at many Catholic funerals to which all Catholics go.  How many fatuous homilies have we heard by priests and bishops telling the family of the deceased that Joe or Mary are right now in heaven.  No—what this Jerusalem means cannot be expressed in words. To even call it a place is misleading, for it is not in time and space but in eternity and hence is beyond our imagination. Those passages in the book of Revelation paint a picture of the New Jerusalem in terms of gold and precious gems, in terms of clouds of incense, in terms of choirs singing praise to the Lamb upon his throne.  It is there that there is perfect freedom, for here there is freedom from sin and death, and it is here that there is freedom for life, for life eternal.  Here is that perfect freedom that is the service of God for eternity: “whose service is perfect freedom”. Here there is unspeakable joy, the joy of those whose personal fulfillment lies not in what they amassed for themselves, nor in how they feel about themselves, nor in their successful relations with other people, but rather and solely in their fulfillment in God, who alone can and does fill that voice that haunts throughout our lives here on earth.

And yet, Jerusalem here also refers to the anticipation of the New Jerusalem that is the Church.  “Gaudete cum Laetitia: rejoice with happiness, you who were in sadness, that you may exult and that you may drink fully from her breasts for your

Consolation”.  The Church as our mother. And this not some abstract church but the Catholic Church, the Church that we know from Rome to our own parish church.  How downtrodden and forgotten is the reality and image of the Church as our mother because of the scandals of immoral and unfaithful clergy!  How marred is the image of the Church as our mother by the vapid self-centered worship that plagues all too many of our parish churches!  How limp is the image of the Church that has forgotten the mission to evangelize the whole world!

And yet it is the Church that gives us birth to new life in baptism, that offers up the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for the living and the dead, that feeds us with the body of Christ in the Eucharist, nourishes us by word and sacrament, who cleans our soiled baptismal garments by Confession, who speeds us on our way to eternal life when we die.  This is a call today on this Sunday for the Church to rejoice, to rejoice in the knowledge that the ultimate freedom has been bought for us by Christ’s Cross, a freedom that cannot be taken away, a freedom that does not depend on a type of government, a freedom grounded in God, and the only source of joy.

And yet, is it not true that we are tempted to despair, not only because of the state of the world today but also because of the state of the Church?  But this temptation comes only because we have forgotten something important.  We are tempted to cynicism and despair because we act and think as if we are of this world.  We have forgotten—and this is a real sin—that we are IN the world without being OF the world, that our goal is beyond this world, that the ultimate meaning of our life and the lives of those we love and the life of the whole word lies outside this world, not in a romantic and deluded sense, but in the sense founded on the fact that God became man and part of this world and died because of and for this world and rose from the dead and ascended into heaven and there waits for us: ”that we too may thither ascend”, as the old Collect for the Feast of the Ascension so wonderfully said.

But can we see in some small way, however fleeting, a hint of this joyous freedom that will be ours in faith?  Can we see some intimations of the reality of heaven within the Church?  The answer is Yes.  It is in the Liturgy, especially in the celebration of Holy Mass, that is where we may experience that real joy in freedom that is found only in heaven.  For here, in the Mass of the Tradition of the Church, by means of sight, smell, music, words, silence, archaic language, gestures, all of which binds us to the Tradition of the Church and forces us to deny our own wants and desires, that Sacrifice in which the perfect freedom of God is made present, and when we give ourselves over to what is happening in the Mass here in this time and space for us, we realize what it means to be free, and we catch a glimpse of that joy which will be ours with Mary and all the saints in heaven.

New Liturgical Movement is compiling a list of regularly scheduled live-stream traditional Masses.  They are asking for information.  Go to

http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2020/03/collecting-information-about-live.html#.XnOQqy3MyWY

At St. Patrick Church, Bridgeport, the  Traditional Mass is live-streamed every day except Sunday.  The schedule is 7 am Monday through Friday and 12:10 pm on Saturday.   Go to the Cathedral Parish website,  clink on the link to livestream and choose St. Patrick’s Church.

The Fraternity of St. Peter live-streams traditional Masses on LiveMass.net.   On the website there is a schedule of Masses that are live-streamed.

The latest Catechism class conducted by Fr. Perricone at St. Vincent Ferrer Church last week is available via YouTube: link

Stained glass window, part of a series on the life of St. Patrick, in St. Patrick’s Parish and Oratory in Waterbury, CT

With the cancellation of public Masses in many dioceses in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey, we suggest this  traditional Mass for the Feast of St. Patrick, which will be live-streamed from Paris today at 2 pm Eastern Daylight Time (7 pm in Paris).   Go to Youtube.

We will try to post announcements about live-streamed traditional Masses here.  We need help from our readers.  Please send us information.

We also have news from the Jersey City Latin Mass community that the St. Patrick’s Day Mass there is still on. You may want to check about it before going.  email contact:  latinmassjc@gmail.com

Here is the announcement posted yesterday:

5:30 PM, Tuesday, March 17, 2020
Assumption Church, Jersey City, NJ
Fr. John Perricone, Celebrant

We regret the confusion surrounding this liturgy. The recommended statewide curfew has prevented the New Jersey Catholic Chorale from singing at the Mass. As a result, this may be a Low Mass. This will depend on who is available to make the Mass. Given the uncertainty these days, this may be the Last Latin Rite Mass said in Jersey City for an extended period. In addition to the Memorial for St. Patrick, the collects for the Votive Mass in time of Pestilence will be prayed and special prayers for deliverance from the Coronavirus will be said after Holy Mass. 

Let us invoke the intercession of St. Patrick today!

(Above) St Charles Borromeo leading a procession in time of plague (window in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, New York). The inscription reads: “Bonus pastor dat vitam pro ovibus.”

Times of epidemics and plagues are often associated with the heroic deeds and miraculous interventions of bishops, priests and saints, commemorated down the ages in liturgy, art and tradition. Does not the angel atop the Castel Sant Angelo in Rome derive its origin from a procession organized by Pope St. Gregory the Great which culminated in a miraculous appearance of St Michael? In 16th century Milan, the archbishop, St Charles Borromeo, led the city both in spiritual and temporal matters when a plague threatened to overwhelm society. In Palermo, in the 17th century. St Rosalia miraculously intervened to bring an end to a plague and ever after has been the chief patron of that city. In the 18th century, Tiepolo painted one of his greatest masterpieces,  depicting the early Christian martyr St Thecla interceding for the liberation of the city of Este from the great plague of 1630(the Metropolitan Museum of Art has a preliminary oil sketch).

The angel  atop the Castel Sant Angelo in Rome, sheathing his sword.

(Above) St. Rosalia, carried in procession, saving Palermo from the plague (18th century Mexico); (below) St Rosalia (image in the saint’s grotto, Palermo)

(Above)  “Saint Thecla interceding with the Eternal Father for the Liberation of the city of Este from the Plague of 1630” by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. (Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

In our days the reaction of the clergy has been entirely different. In
Italy and specifically in Rome, the pope, the bishops and the priests have taken to their heels, suspending all masses and even closing all churches (I read today, however, that they may be having second thoughts about the latter step). This bishops of the rest of Western Europe – especially Austria – are beginning to fall in line with these actions. And we are seeing the first repercussions on these shores. 55 years of the Council have left an entirely secular episcopate, incapable of offering any kind of spiritual leadership but ready only to take direction from the secular authorities. The legacy of these days in the minds of the faithful will be a disastrous one for the Church.