25th Pilgrimage for Restoration in the footsteps of the martyrs to Our Blessed Lady’s Shrine at Auriesville, NY, 25-27 September — Friday to Sunday!

Journey through majestic Adirondack forests sanctified by the blood of martyrs. Traditional Roman Liturgy every day. Confession, counsel and teaching from priests of solid faith. Fellowship & fun. Shuttles & TLC for the weary. Organized by NCCL

Register by July 1 to receive a discount.

For more information and to register, go to https://pilgrimage-for-restoration.org

We received this letter from the St. Gregory Society:

We rejoice that after these long months of liturgical eclipse owing to the corona virus pandemic, regular public celebration of the Eucharist will resume in the Archdiocese of Hartford next weekend.  The Traditional Latin Masses at St. Stanislaus Church will resume with the First Friday Mass on July 3 at 8:00 am, and Sunday Mass at 2:00 pm on July 5.   

We include here the note from the Pastor regarding the reopening:

Dear Parishioners,

It is with great joy that I share with you the long-awaited news. Archbishop Blair has made the decision to open the churches for Sunday Masses next weekend, July 4th & 5th, with a limit of 100 people per Mass. If people are maintaining the six-foot distance between them, after marking off the pews, there are 60 single places in our church. Taking into account the fact that the people coming to Mass are often spouses and families who may sit together, it is apparent that in our situation, there is room for all. Masses will be celebrated according to the normal Sunday schedule. In addition to maintaining a six-foot distance, there is an obligation to wear a mask as soon as you enter the church. I am already filled with joy in anticipation of our meeting after such a long hiatus. I greet you cordially and assure you of my prayers. I look forward to when we will see each other again!!!

Fr. Tadeusz

Please visit this website for any updates regarding other precautions or scheduling.+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + + 
The Saint Gregory Society
P. O. Box 891
New Haven, CT 06504

Telephone: (203) 815.8955
On the web: http://saint-gregory.org

The results are in for Germanchurch, 2019: 400,000 fewer Catholics than in the previous year – 270,000 of that number represented those who offcially declared themselves no longer Catholic. It’s the worst result ever, a new low point after years of disastrous decline. Except for an increase of 8 permanent deacons, all other statistics are equally bad – the number of baptisms, first communions, marriages and even funerals is sinking too. 9.1% of German Catholics now attend Mass on Sunday. And all this after 55 years of Vatican II, 7 years of the “Francis Effect” and 1 year of the “Synodal Path.”

This time the German clerical establishment couldn’t conceal its shock. This time there was no scapegoat to blame. Until some very recent setbacks, hadn’t they been having things their own way under Francis – the Synodal Path, the Amazonian Synod, the takeover of the Knights of Malta? For the time being, of course, the German bishops’ only answer to the crisis is to “stay the course” of the Synodal Path: more agitation for married priests, women clergy, homosexual blessings and marriages and so on.

A more perceptive commentary in katholisch.de, the internet presence of the “German Catholic Church.” touches on more significant issues and problems. For example, that in the Coronavirus panic ( an event subsequent to the period covered by these reports), the popular perception was that the Church could be neither seen nor heard, even though those in the Church business thought they were doing a lot. And no more fantasies that downsizing is leaving a smaller but more healthy core – church atendance is declining among those who stay too. Those working in the German Church (mostly lay nowadays) describe losses not just at the edges, but in the center.

[P]erhaps the (Synodal Path) is only the latest edition (after the Council, Würzburg Synod, “discussion forums” and innumerable diocesan synods and dialogue processes) of the self-assuring of that small remnant for which the Church still matters. 

“I’ve read a lot of history in my life, and I think that aside from St. Paul, Jesus and the great religious prophets, Woodrow Wilson was the most admirable character I’ve ever encountered in history.“

So spoke Arthur Link, dedicated biographer of Wilson, according to Link’s NYT obituary. Professor Link’s work reflected a shift in the establishment American evaluation of Wilson from the initial harsh criticism of his “war to end war” in Europe to hagiography by 1975. For hadn’t Wilson been the quintessential American interventionsist – leading the campaign against Germany, the source of all evil, and “medieval” Catholic Austria, the “prison of nations,” as well? And wasn’t he the pure ideologue, the prophet of a new world order with America at its center, a John the Baptist to FDR’s Jesus Christ? The crowning glory was the naming of the Woodrow Wilson school at Princeton – although in retrospect it seems strange to name a school dealing with “public and international affairs” after someone who had, much to the applause of his new admirers, so utterly rejected traditional experience in these areas.

But alas! Princeton has now disowned its favorite son. For the great Wilson turns out to have been a racist!

Wilson’s segregationist policies make him an especially inappropriate namesake for a public policy school. When a university names a school of public policy for a political leader, it inevitably suggests that the honoree is a model for students who study at the school. This searing moment in American history has made clear that Wilson’s racism disqualifies him from that role. In a nation that continues to struggle with racism, this University and its school of public and international affairs must stand clearly and firmly for equality and justice. The School will now be known as “The Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.” Christopher L. Eisgruber, President of Princeton University (June 27, 2020)

So the patron saint of American interventionism is now an “unperson”; his statue figuratively tossed on the junk heap. But I find it so fitting that the great secular crusader now is anathematized by the warriors of a new cultural war. For is there not great continuity between his ideology and theirs?

Frs. Kachuba and Iannacone will be offering Low Masses every week from now on on Mondays and Thursdays at St. Pius X Church in Fairfield, CT at 7 pm.

Under the prior management of St Mary’s parish, a Columbus day procession to this nearby statue was an annual event. Above is a set of pictures from the 2009 procession. It features several prominent former members of the parish, living and deceased, clerical and lay (including the current pastor and his two predecessors).

Now the statue is summarily removed. The current pastor of St Mary’s says nothing. The bishop of Bridegeport says nothing. And the Knights of Columbus (will they be changing their name soon, along with their uniform?) say nothing as well. Even though they have all the big mouths of Cruxnow on their retainer.

Will Catholics finally wake up? Does this not tell you what the American establishment (of which the mayor of Norwalk, CT is a petty peon) actually thinks of you? You should have learned that lesson a long time ago – by 1973 (Roe v. Wade) at the latest. And the lessons about the “American Catholic Church” are too obvious to require commentary.

UPDATE:

A measure to protect the statue? Iconoclasts had that strategem figured out 1200 years ago when initiating an iconoclastic revival:

…(The emperor) Leo (V) determined to act on his own account, but he did so in a typically tortuous and underhand way. The scene chosen was the Chalke Gate of the palace where, eighty-eight years before, Leo III had pulled down the picture of the Saviour. This picture had been restored by Irene, but was now to be desecrated once more. On secret orders of the emperor, some guardsmen gathered at the porch and began to throw stones and mud at the image, uttering the most fearful imprecations. Out came the emperor: “We had better take that down,” he said, “lest the soldiery dishonor it.” And down it came.

Jenkins, Romilly, Byzantium: the Imperial Centuries A.D. 610-1071 at 134-135 (Random House, New York, 1966)

The Mass is at 7:00 PM.