There will be a low Mass at 6:15 pm , Friday the 25th at St. Francis Church, 1755 Stanley St, New Britain. CT.

More details on the Lepanto Conference: https://sthughofcluny.org/2019/01/lepanto-conference-speakers-announced.html

The new US edition of the Catholic Herald no sooner appeared than it triggered demands for the exclusion of one of its contributors. I myself did fault the inimitable Taki’s recent Catholic Herald piece for, among other things, his anomalous view that the recent NYT write-up on Princess Gloria of Thurn und Taxis  was favorable or at least fair to her. It certainly wasn’t – and the best proof of that is a follow-up article in which the NYT , based on the prior article’s supposed “findings of fact,” initiated the “shunning” of the princess. (Moynihan, Colin, “El Museo Del Barrio Drops Plans to Honor German Socialite,” NYT 1/10/2019.) You see, a fifth rate museum in New York – the “Museo del Barrio” which has its own lengthy history of administrative and other problems – disinvited Princess Gloria from a dinner at which she was to be honored after questions from “some” people and the NYT. 
Princess Gloria per the NYT is a “practicing Catholic” “nowadays,” “whose intimates include several figures who vigorously oppose the current Pope.” Among these  “archconservatives” of course are Cardinal Burke and Stephen K. Bannon. Never was the open support of the NYT and the rest of the western media establishment for Pope Francis  more blatantly on display. And of course we hear of what the princess is supposed to have said about AIDS in 2001…

To gauge the level of idiocy and political fanaticism that prevails at the Museo Del Barrio and the NYT consider this from the above-ref ended article:
“The museum’s fourth leader in seven years ….  said he wanted to explore subjects like immigration, exclusion and diversity, adding that museums sometimes “have to become platforms for political resistance.” … But the step to honor Princess Gloria was a step in the opposite direction…said Arlene Davila, a professor and author of a forthcoming book on Latinx Art. (Latinx is a gender neutral alternative to Latino or Latina).”

I’m sure Princess Gloria couldn’t care less what the Museo Del Barrio and its associates think of her. I would hope she and other Catholics  – especially after the events in Washington last weekend – would have the same disdain for the opinions of the NYT.

By Luc Perrin, translated by Fr, Richard Cipolla

I am submitting this reflection to the wisdom of the reader:  this idea has been running around in my head at least since the annus terribilis  of 2018.

There were various theological elements of Catholicism  that were the subject of  discussion before 2013, but it seems to me—some will disagree on this point, but this is not what I am talking about—that in these discussions the magisterium of Vatican II and the post-conciliar developments  until 2013 defended a hermeneutic of reform within a search for continuity, rejecting the hermeneutics of rupture in a direct and recurring manner (this is true for Paul VI, John Paul II, and Benedict XVI, who in his allocution of December 22, 2005 was the last to formalize this insistence on continuity.)

Once again, it is not on this question, which has been widely debated for forty years, that I await your reactions and thoughts.

The modern drift—we are no longer in the 16^thcentury and the Thirty Nine Articles that in a sense defined Anglicanism—of Anglicanism as it has become since the 1970s, seems to me to characterize the current hermeneutics of rupture in Rome.

The Anglican Communion in the West—not in Africa—has made the choice to align themselves in step with the dominant currents within Western modern liberalism:

–Debate concerning women in ordained ministry and the results of the debate: deacons (1987), then ministers (priestesses) in 1994 and then bishops (2014) for the Church of England. We know that this approach to the idea of women in ordained ministry has been constantly taken up by Catholic liberals since the 1980s.  It has been taken up at least for the first stage—women deacons—by the present Pontiff.

–Debate about homosexuality in the clergy: first for ministers, then for bishops. Starting from homosexual candidates for ministry who are leading chaste lives, the debate continued by  going on to consider those homosexuals who are living as a couple as candidates for Holy Orders.  This came mainly out of the Episcopal Church in the United States.  As far as local churches go, the accomplishment of the goal has been complete with homosexual men and women in all grades of ministry.

–An openly modernist approach—in a theological sense—to the reading and interpretation of Scripture. We have seen this approach within Catholicism among exegetical scholars for decades.

–A version of “Christianity” that has been dyed with secular stripes  as a contribution to the “values” (which exist only as temporary data in liberalism) of secular Western liberal cultures.

–A social doctrine that keeps traditional anti-liberalism in its formulations but which in practice is satisfied with the Thatcher-Reagan version of a “liberal” economy that has unfolded since the 1980s. Laudato Sì fits in well with this doctrinal continuity, but what we really have in practice is the McCarrick-Wuerl Papal Foundation.  The organs of social Catholicism have considerably weakened in the West. The demands of “social justice” are fought against in the USA by those in the most solid and orthodox Catholic circles. This is due to the fact that this “social justice” was “Anglicized” as well and is concerned with feminism, multiculturalism without breaks or measure, to the most far-fetched theories of gender (transgender hysteria in the US).  On this point, the reigning Pontiff has maintained ties with the classic social doctrine of the Church with his support for the national-communist regime of Venezuela and a mistrust of American hyper-liberalism.

–The last point: the more apparent than real favor given to a Kasperite view of ecclesiology. According to this view, doctrine can vary, as in the Anglican Disunion, from one continent to another, from one episcopal conference to another, from one diocese to another.  There would no longer be variations considered as “pastoral” but rather doctrinal readings that imply divergent pastoral practice. Cardinal Kasper criticized African prelates at the 2014 Synod, telling them that they should not meddle in European affairs.  So good at bringing Kasper’s understanding of the Church into the bright daylight! 

In the end it would be one more stage in the grand compromise between the Faith and Modernity through the loss of savor of the evangelical salt, a weakening which is leading and will lead to a situation of the Anglican type: desertion of the churches, an abundance of “vocations” in the most heterodox sectors ( feminists and homo-clergy), the progressive dissolution of the Church’s social influence, and a more and more marked institutional disintegration between one region and another.

There are differences. I do not say that there is a strict equivalence, but it seems to me that the current neo-Catholicism goes in this direction.

What do you think?

Fr. Cipolla replies:

Professor Luc Perrin asks for responses to his piece published on Le Forum Catholique on the similarity of where Anglicanism has gone theologically and the path being followed by the Catholic Church today.  I must confess that I have more than a little interest in the question he poses, since I am a former Episcopal priest who became Catholic and was ordained a Catholic priest 35 years ago.  Without going through too many autobiographical details, I must say that I became a Catholic because of a conclusion, after years of theological study and thought,  that the only valid claim in the West to be the Church of Jesus Christ that is continuous with her founding by Christ is the Catholic Church.  My mentors in this journey were the Church Fathers and Blessed John Henry Newman.  It was Newman above all who made me understand the relationship between intellectual assent and faith. It was also he who prevented me from the excesses of converts with respect to unhealthy zeal for all things deemed Catholic in the mold of Fr. Faber. It was also he who inoculated me against the disease of hyperpapalism.

I recall while I was still an Episcopal priest going to ecumenical talks between Anglicans and Catholics and being amazed at the opinions of Catholic priests about the nature of the Church and the ministry of the Church.  So it gave me great pause in the late 70s and early 80s to hear Catholic priests espouse theological opinions that were precisely why I left Anglicanism. My final break with Anglicanism came with the “illegal” ordination of three women as priests and the ensuing failure of the Anglican hierarchy to condemn this act, which is against the clear Tradition of the Church.

And so my response to Perrin’s request for commentary is that I believe there is truth in his observation that the Catholic Church seems to be following the Anglican trajectory in rejecting Tradition as has been understood by the Church until now and instead embracing a liberal, quasi-gnostic understanding of the Church that in the end is incompatible with the Catholic faith.  I recently published an article on the Commission appointed by the Pope to investigate the possibility of ordaining women deacons. That the Pope appointed this Commission without reference to the International Theological Commission of 2002 which studied quite thoroughly the office of deacon in the Church shows quite clearly that in these matters what has been said in the past either in a quasi-official form or even by a Pope has no relevance to what the liberal gnostics think should happen in the Church to bring it up to date with the world. The Pope now has the report of the Commission, and we shall see what he decides about women deacons.  I ended that piece I wrote with the cautious warning that once women are ordained as deacons, there is nothing to stop the ordination of women priests in an age where sexuality has no innate meaning.  

Perrin’s other points have validity.  I remember during my studies for the Anglican priesthood  being exposed to Rahner’s “Anonymous Christianity”, and to Kung’s writings on the Church that were in some ways beyond what any Protestant could believe, and to Catholic Scripture scholars who neglected to remind the Catholic reader that the Bible is the Word of God and instead tried to outdo Bultmann in his reductionism. Commentary on the social Gospel in the Catholic Church is now mostly a watered- down version of Catholic teaching in the hope that the world will approve. But the world is much more intelligent than many Catholic bishops and rejects this embarrassing attempt to denature the difficult message of Jesus Christ and which message is directly contrary to the thought processes and “life-styles” of those who inhabit this post-modern age.  

Cardinal Newman predicted in his Biglietto speech over a century ago the infection even of the Church with “liberalism”, in the modern sense, which would cause great damage within the Church.  This indeed has happened. It happened, and it is ongoing, and is being abetted by the present Pontiff and his Court in Rome and beyond, those who would happily fully Anglicanize the Church (or worse) tomorrow if they had that power.  There are sparks of hope in this situation. One lies in the fact that many of these clerics are approaching eighty years of age, and God will take them soon, as he will me.  Second, their disciples are so mired in the sexual scandals of the clergy, including themselves in the hierarchy, that their real power is reaching the vanishing point.  Third, many young clergy and laity have discovered Catholic Tradition in the Traditional Roman Mass and will never look back to the post-conciliar past 55 years as anything normative.

Whether these thoughts have the wisdom that Perrin asks for in his request to ponder his suggestion that the Catholic Church is being Anglicanized I cannot say.  But the conversation should be had. 

At St. Augustine Cathedral in Brdigeport CT this evening: Solemn Mass of Peace. Fr. Michael Novajosky was the celebrant, Fr. Greg Markey the deacon and Fr. Richard Cipolla was the subdeacon.

We received word that this evening’s Solemn Mass of Peace at St. Augustine Cathedral in Bridgeport, CT (7 pm) will be live-streamed on the cathedral’s website:

https://www.thecathedralparish.org

This is a historic event—the first Traditional Mass at the Cathedral since Vatican II. We urge you to attend!

With great sorrow we must inform you that the demise of St. Michael’s Russian Catholic Chapel may be imminent. Sunday, February 3, may see the celebration of the chapel’s last divine liturgy. The community of the chapel reportedly is facing “eviction” in a dispute with its “landlord” (Old St Patrick’s Cathedral and the New York Archdiocese) over an increase in rent and other financial disputes. It is unclear at this point whether the dispute can be resolved or whether the Archdiocese will provide a new home for the St. Michael’s community if it isn’t. We hope to provide you with further information – hopefully from all parties – as soon as it is available.

Apparently, Old St Patrick’s Cathedral and the Archdiocese are treating the matter as an exclusively financial negotiation with some kind of unrelated business party. This, for a chapel that has functioned in the same location under Archdiocesan authority since 1936. A chapel that has introduced so many to the Eastern liturgy ( I attended St. Michael’s regularly through the 1980’s.) At that time it was the best place in New York for a Catholic to get a glimpse of what a Traditional liturgy actually is – that it has little or nothing to do with the size of the congregation, the splendor of the church’s architecture and decoration, the quality of the music, the beauty of the vestments etc. Rather, the celebration of the liturgy in its completeness, the immersion in the form of the rite – these are decisive. And St. Michaels’ was always well-known among both Catholics and Orthodox for its uncompromising and almost unique dedication to the fullness of the Eastern Orthodox or Byzantine liturgy and ritual. That’s why so many distinguished priests and scholars – and at least one Patriarch – have attended liturgies at St. Michael’s or celebrated there themselves. And as for the laity – we should mention one member of the congregation in the early 1980’s, then a very old lady who had been a lady-in-waiting to the last Empress of Russia…

We hope and pray that this small but influential chapel – still very much alive – may be saved.

This evening a journey through single-digit temperatures to St. Mary Church in Greenwich was rewarded by a beautiful Solemn Mass to celebrate the Feast of St. Agnes. Pastor Fr. Cyprian LaPastina was the celebrant.

(We need to catch up on a number of news stories – some exasperating, some tragic – which speak volumes about the current state of Catholicism. )

I have now received my first two issues of The Catholic Herald (US edition). It is an offshoot of the UK publication, and is very professionally produced. I have often written about the lack in the US of a Catholic periodical of stature that can serve as a common rallying point – a kind of Catholic National Review ( or at least the National Review as it existed up to the 1970’s) or even a revived Triumph. The Catholic Herald aspires to fill that gap, as a journal of both news and opinion – and it’s offered in hard copy!

The Herald‘s introduction to the US has seen its ups and downs. Last year a lavish lunch celebrating the launch of the magazine, combined with other festivities, earned the fledgling publication favorable mention on “Page Six” of the New York Post – surely a unique accolade in the world of Catholic publishing! The response of the Catholic “dark side” was not long in coming. An inept blogger and “theologian” (who I now see also has been a contributor to the UK edition of the magazine) rushed out with all kinds of scurrilous “facts” about figures associated with the Herald and the publications’s alleged connections with (gasp!) Steve Bannon. As would be expected, however, a Catholic “apostle of mercy” does not feel the need to verify her information or sources – resulting in the untimely collapse of her grand indictment.

Yet some of this stuck, since the Herald just featured an article attacking one of its own contributors for alleged “anti-Semitism” and praising the New York Times. I had expressed great fears that this kind of thing would happen given the previously published views of the editor of the US edition (“Sobranistas without Sobran”). It is a most difficult task to practice honest reporting while remaining in the good graces of the ecclesiastical and secular establishment, to champion Catholicism while trying to emphasize the positive sides of Church and society. Several magazines over the decades have attempted this feat and have failed – or at least have had to radically adjust their course. As for the Catholic Herald (US edition), it is too early to tell what the outcome will be – whether the forceful writing and strong opinions often encountered in the UK edition will ultimately be able make it across the pond. But I wish the Herald well and will be reading each new issue with interest!

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski will be speaking at St. Mary’s Church, Norwalk, CT on Thursday, February 14. The event will begin with Vespers and Benediction in the church at 5:30 pm. 
Afterwards, Kwasniewski will speak in the church hall on “Poets, Lovers, Children, Madmen—and Worshipers: Why We Repeat Ourselves in the Liturgy”
This event sponsored by our Society.