Thursday, August 15 is the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a holy day of obligation. The following churches in the area will offer the Traditional Mass.

Connecticut

St. Mary Church, Norwalk, 8 am; 7 pm

Sacred Heart Oratory, Georgetown, 6 pm Missa Cantata

Sts. Cyril and Methodius Oratory, Bridgeport, 7:45 am low Mass; 6 pm high Mass followed by outdoor Marian procession and traditional blessing of herbs

St. Patrick Oratory, Waterbury, 8 am low Mass, 6 pm High Mass followed by veneration of the relic of Blessed Michael McGivney

St. Martha Church, Enfield, 7 pm

New York

Holy Innocents Church, New York, NY, 8 am, 6 pm

Our Lady of Mt Carmel, New York, NY, 7 am low Mass; 7:45 am low Mass; 9:30 am to noon, adoration of the Blessed Sacrament; 7 pm Missa Cantata

St. Josaphat, Queens (Bayside), 7 pm Missa Cantata, blessing of flowers and procession

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

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

St. Paul the Apostle, Yonkers, 12 noon

Annunciation Church, Crestwood, 7 pm Missa Cantata

Immaculate Conception , Sleepy Hollow, 7 pm low Mass

Sacred Heart Church, Esopus, 11:30 am

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

Holy Trinity Church, Poughkeepsie, 7 pm Missa Cantata

New Jersey

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

St. Anthony Oratory, West Orange, 9 am, 7 pm

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

Corpus Christi Church, South River, 7 pm Missa Cantata.

The Annual Three Hearts Pilgrimage is scheduled for October 10-12 in Oklahoma. Deadline for registration is September 29. Please see this link to register and for more information: https://www.threeheartspilgrimage.org

From the organizer’s website:

Each October, the annual Three Hearts Pilgrimage guides thousands of participants through a rigorous terrain for 35 miles over 2 days  to their destination – the Benedictine monastery, Clear Creek Abbey. 

The 2023 sacrificial walk of reparation had over 2000 pilgrims from 43 states walk a 2-day journey that culminated in a Pontifical High Mass offered by His Eminence Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke. 

We welcome you to join us in 2024 and discover how one can find beauty in great sacrifice! Join us in seeking all that is Good, True, and Beautiful!

To register go to this link.

I recently heard that erstwhile Catholic writer Michael Warren Davis has joined the Orthodox Church. Now over the years I have had to take issue with articles by Davis that touched on Catholic traditionalism. I disputed Davis’s self-identification as a reactionary, even a “trad.”   For in these writings Davis took aim at Catholics of the past and present ( Triumph magazine, Joe Sobran, ordinary traditionalists in the pews) while displaying great understanding for secular and ecclesiastical  establishments (National Review, Archbishop Gregory,  Pope Francis).  1)

I also had a mixed reaction to Davis’s very latest article, a review of a book on the Jesuits.   Davis there takes some clever shots at the Jesuit order and the current papal regime. Yet he leads off with a serious misinterpretation of Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited and his review features several startling errors (the latter,  of course, not necessarily Davis’s fault). A more substantial problem for the reader is the difficulty of separating Davis’s own views from those of the author of the book being reviewed. 2)

On YouTube Davis is now claiming he came to Catholicism from “theistic Luciferian Satanism.” And after Latin Rite Catholicism. he seems to have joined briefly the Melkite Catholic community before finally turning to Orthodoxy. Obviously, Davis is a man who unfortunately has experienced significant vicissitudes in his spiritual life. I hope he can find a degree of peace in Orthodoxy. On YouTube he does read a statement which makes a presentation of Orthodoxy more positive than those of some other Orthodox converts from Catholicism. 3)

Of course, Orthodoxy is not without its own issues. Certain representatives of major Orthodox churches in the United States, for example,  want to import into Orthodoxy features of Vatican II Catholicism and even of modern secular society. Outside the United States,  political issues wrack the Orthodoxy world(e.g., the ongoing ecclesiastical conflict in Ukraine).  Davis, however, seems to be well aware of those problems.4)

Is the conversion of Davis not another example of the crackup of conservative Catholicism? For despite his “trad” pretensions,  Davis really represented the conservative tendency within Catholicism: advocating aspects of traditional Catholic morality, faith and liturgy while simultaneously showing reverence for the hierarchy and the papacy. Under the current pope,  this balancing act became increasingly unsustainable. As the old song goes: ”Something’s got to give.”   

Undoubtedly,  many more Catholics are considering the step Michael Warren Davis has now taken.   The “fault” for this, however,  resides squarely with the pope, the Catholic hierarchy and the clergy. It is their outrageous and scandalous conduct that motivates some faithful to seek in Orthodoxy respect for Christian tradition, a reverent and beautiful liturgy and, above all, a focus on the spiritual, on the union of the individual and the community with God.  The Eastern Orthodox Church, which Davis has joined,  is not necessarily the answer  – much more should be said on this subject, pro and con. Orthodoxy will always remain an attraction for a minority. Yet,  at some point, on some issue and in some way we all may be forced to decide between loyalty to the clerical establishment or to the truth. And it is the leadership of Roman Catholic Church which has created such a situation  – making distinctly possible for everyone a previously unimaginable choice.

1. See, in sthughofcluny.org, , “Sobranistas without Sobran” (2/21/18); Sediziose Voci (6/14/21): Papal without a Pope: Recent Manifestations of Conservative Catholicism (10/21/22).
2. Davis, Michael Warren, “Jesuit Plots” at 55 The American Conservative (July/August 2024).
3. Barrel Aged Faith,  “Satanist to Orthodox Christian” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFnYUkfgSmk (accessed 7/12/2024);“Why this Catholic Writer became Orthodox” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6jdGZH1HRQ (accessed 7/12/2024). For a book by another convert to the Eastern Church see “Orthodoxy?” at sthughofcluny.org (2/28/23)
4. Davis, Michael Warren, “The CIA’s Man in Constantinople” (The American Conservative, 4/23/24).