( Holy Innocents Parish, New York City)

Immaculate Conception

414 East 14^th Street

The Catholic churches of New York offer so many unexpected sights to the inquisitive researcher! Walking toward the eastern end of 14th Street at First Avenue, you see on the north side of the street the phalanx of unprepossessing redbrick apartment buildings that is Stuyvesant Town. To the south is the so-called “East Village,” caught between a Bohemian, if decidedly mixed, past and a gentrified present and future. On the south side of 14^th Street rises a romantic, picturesque complex of Gothic-stye buildings executed in brick, including a tower, gables, gargoyles, projecting chapel and a rectory. It the church of Immaculate Conception Parish – a strange but enchanting vision amid the nondescript but fortunately modestly scaled structures that now surround it.

The parish of Immaculate Conception and its church are really the story of two different congregations and two different faiths. Archbishop Hughes founded Immaculate Conception parish in 1855:

“When the dogma of which the church (Immaculate Conception)is to be a memorial and a monument was proclaimed as an article of faith, I was but four or five feet distant from the Holy Father. Just at that moment I resolved on my return to New York to erect a church to commemorate the event.” (so Archbishop Hughes at an 1857 fair held to finance the construction of the parish.) 1)

But lots had already been acquired in 1853 for a new Catholic church here – Immaculate Conception was one of the wave of new parishes that were springing up all over the island. Dedicated in 1858, within twelve years the church had to be expanded and a school was established. Further extensive redecoration with new altars and windows took place in the early 1900’s. In its exterior appearance the old Immaculate Conception parish was a typical Victorian parish church of that day, with a facade in a kind of Italianate Gothic. We lack images of the interior but judging from the timetable above the overall effect was probably not too different from that of Holy Innocents parish today. The parish bounds included parts of the notorious “Gas House“ district (where Stuyvesant Town now stands), but the 19^th century congregation probably was representative of all kinds of income levels, much like old St. Ann’s parish not too far away. The Irish made up the majority of the parish; we read that in 1914 “the basement church for the Italians is in charge of Rev. Joseph A. DeMarco.” 2) The Italians of the vicinity would shortly get their own parish of Mary Help of Christians on East 12^th Street.

(Above) The old church of Immaculate Conception Parish.

Now in the 1890’s Grace Church, one of the main Episcopal churches of New York City, constructed an elaborate “chapel” at 414 East 14^th Street for those who could not afford pews at Grace. The complex also included a hospital, a garden within a courtyard, and even a water fountain on the street  (at a time when that might have been more than a welcome convenience on hot days). It was an “outreach program” (as one would call it in the conciliar church of today) to the Protestants of this poorer side of town. The whole was executed in a late Gothic or “Francis I” style” – intended to resemble that of the châteaux of the Loire, I suppose – but the overall layout resembles that of other “English country” Anglican parishes in New York. Renwick’s Grace Church provided the template: a church, often dominated by a spire or tower, surrounded in romantic disorder by a complex of buildings: a vicarage, schools, chapels, even here and there a cloister.  The formerly Anglican, now Catholic Church of St Thomas More on the Upper East Side is another, smaller-scaled example. 3) The New York Times, in an early review of doings on the Lower East Side, celebrated “Grace Chapel” (as it was known) as the most magnificent effort of ecclesiastical architecture to be found in the entire neighborhood.

As the twentieth century advanced the Catholic parish of Immaculate Conception fell on harder times as the neighborhood grew poorer. But then an extraordinary thing happened. In the 1940’s the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company launched a project to build a vast complex in the vicinity: Stuyvesant Town. It was destined to be the last hurrah of the middle class on the island of Manhattan. To build Stuyvesant Town a whole neighborhood had to be razed – including two old Catholic parishes. St. Mary Magdalene – bereft of its now embarrassing patron saint – later was reincarnated in the new St.Emeric parish. Immaculate Conception church also lay in the path of redevelopment. But in the case of this parish, the miraculous took place. Grace Chapel had been closed by 1943 because of the disappearance of Protestant population in the neighborhood. The entire complex was then acquired by the Archdiocese as the new home of Immaculate Conception parish.  So our parish in modern day Baghdad-on-the-Hudson was much more fortunate in its exchange of a new church for the old than was Aladdin’s wife in her dealings with the lamp merchant!

(Above) The picturesque fountain.

As ever, the exterior of Immaculate Conception presents a handsome face to East 14^th Street. Unfortunately the quaint water fountain remains dry – as seems to have been the case for decades. Indeed there is netting over it now. Over the late-Gothic arch leading into the church is a statue of the Virgin taken from the old Immaculate Conception Church.

The interior is impressive – high, light and airy – with a splendid wooden ceiling. Immaculate Conception is one of the “bright” as opposed to the “dark,” Gothic churches of the city. Other than the ceiling, the most impressive decorative feature is the series of exceptional “Protestant” windows, celebrating figures of the Old and New Testaments, including some female personages hardly ever depicted in Catholic churches.

(Above) The Redeemer surrounded by Sarah, Deborah, Elizabeth and Salome.

(Above and below) The “Protestant” windows from the 1890’s

Aesthetically speaking, Immaculate Conception and St. Thomas More – both 19th century Anglican structures – were the two most successful Catholic churches created by Cardinal Spellman in Manhattan. It is hard to get a sense today for the initial Catholic decorative scheme of the 1940’s – this parish underwent an early “conciliar” house cleaning in the 1960’s. But the original decor seems to have been restrained – already influenced by the Liturgical Movement. In general, while since 1943 the Roman Catholic Church has added very little of aesthetic value to this church, it has been, except for one outrageous modern mural facing the main stained glass window, nowhere near as destructive as elsewhere.

(Above and below) Catholic contributions. Below, the recently restored high altar.

You can wander into the former garden, now a kind of cloister. There you can admire the unfinished walls of the church  – those that do not face the street. The school is still there – and for the first time in decades sisters are active here again, from the new European congregation “Das Werk.”

(Above) The sides of the church facing the inner courtyard, executed in plain brick.

Immaculate Conception has remained an active parish with a functioning school up to the present day, buoyed by the ongoing stability of Stuyvesant Town. It has lived through the vicissitudes of the rest of the neighborhood, however; its southern surroundings in particular by the late 1970’s took a radical turn for the worse, only to rebound- at least economically – under the recent gentrification wave. Its neighboring parish to the south, Mary Help of Christians was a victim of this resurgence, recently closed and sold by the Archdiocese to a developer of luxury condominiums. But since this parish was technically merged into Immaculate Conception, that parish’s congregation – and at least some of the money from the sale of its church – ended up in Immaculate Conception parish.

Over the years the maintenance of the parish complex – the roof, the windows – has been an ongoing effort. The high altar was recently reconfigured under Cardinal Egan. And a new chapel of Mary Help of Christians has been just opened in the basement. It’s Novus Ordo 2014-style:a stark modernistic auditorium adorned with traditional decorative furnishings – some taken, as is so often the case, from another destroyed church. Elsewhre in Immaculate conception church, the most recent restoration campaign eliminated a huge Lourdes grotto, but restored the original baptistery.

(Above) The new “lower church” of Mary Help of Christians – named after the closed parish merged into immaculate Conception.

(Above) The old Lourdes shrine and (below) its recently installed successor.

So Immaculate Conception parish perseveres having endured some of the the most amazing twists of fortune – favorable and unfavorable – of any church in the city! Despite it all, for the foreseeable future this parish remains committed to its mission in this part of the city. As one of the last and biggest disasters generated by the pre-2008 real estate bubble, Stuyvesant Town was sold to a financial group which wanted to upgrade the property. Elsewhere in the city such gentrification has not necessarily been a blessing to the local Catholic parish. In the wake of the crash, however, the new purchaser became insolvent. So an element of uncertainty remains over the future of this complex – which in this case may be beneficial for Immaculate Conception parish.

The parish has a very informative website.

1) Shea, John Gilmary, The Catholic Churches of New York City at 371-72 ( Lawrence G. Goulding & Co., New York 1878)

2) The Catholic Church in the United States of America, Vol. 3 at 336 (Catholic Editing Company, New York 1914)

3) Gray, Christopher, “Streetscapes/The Immaculate Conception Church on East 14th; A Protestant Complex Converted to Catholicism” (The New York Times, July 26, 1998) at http://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/26/realestate/streetscapes-immaculate-conception-church-east-14th-protestant-complex-converted.html

St.  Mary’s, Norwalk, CT, Solemn High Mass,  5:30 PM

Missa Inter vestibulum (Francisco Guerrero, 1528-1599)
Antiphon at the blessing of ashes: Exaudi nos, Domine (plainsong, mode vii)
Antiphon at the imposition of ashes: Immutemur (plainsong, mode i)
Antiphon at the imposition of ashes: Juxta vestibulum (plainsong, mode iv)
Motet at the imposition of ashes: Emendemus in melius (William Byrd, 1540-1623)
Gregorian Mass of Ash Wednesday: Misereris omnium
Motet at the Offertory: Inter vestibulum (Cristóbal de Morales, c.1500-1553)
Motet at the Communion: Ne irascaris Domine (Byrd)

The St. Mary’s Schola Cantorum

St. Stanislaus Church, New Haven, CT; 5 pm

Holy Innocents, New York, NY, 8:00 AM; 6:00 PM

St. Anthony’s Church,  Bronx, NY,  10:00 am

Immaculate Conception, Sleepy Hollow, NY, 5 pm

St. Anthony of Padua Church, Jersey City, NJ, Missa Cantata, 5:30 p.m. 

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Newark, NJ,  Missa Cantata, 7 pm, (Msgr. Ambrosio, celebrant)

St. Catherine Laboure, Middletown, NJ, 12 noon.

St. Anthony of Padua Oratory, West Orange, NJ, 9 am; Missa Cantata 7 pm 

Our Lady of Fatima Chapel, Pequannock, NJ, 7 am; 8 am; 12 noon; 7 pm

The St. Cecilia Society of St. Mary Church, Norwalk, CT,  has announced the first installment of this season’s concert series, a recital by James Wetzel, the organist of St. Agnes on 43rd Street in Manhattan. The concert will feature works of Bach, Mendelssohn and Franck and take place this Sunday, Feb. 22 at 4 pm. in St. Mary’s Church. General Admission: $15 / Students: $10. A festive reception will follow the recital.

Pittsburgh-born James D. Wetzel has been the Organist and Choirmaster of the Church of Saint Agnes in Manhattan since 2010, directing one of the most respected Catholic music programs in the nation. The church’s professional Schola Cantorum sings for over 120 liturgies annually, including the weekly Tridentine Latin Mass. James is the Assistant Conductor and accompanist for the Greenwich Choral Society in Connecticut, accompanist for the New Choral Society in Scarsdale, New York, and holds a post as Assisting Organist at the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine where he formerly served as Organ Scholar for two years under Bruce Neswick. Also, he is an adjunct lecturer at Hunter College where he directs the Chamber Singers and teaches organ.

Mr. Wetzel is also active as an organist and continuo player; recent highlights include performing at the Berkshire Choral Festival, with the American Symphony Orchestra in Carnegie Hall and with the American Classical Orchestra in Alice Tully Hall. He is a board member of the New York City Chapter of the American Guild of Organists and the Catholic Artists Society, is music advisor to the New York Purgatorial Society, and is a member of the Saint Wilfred’s Club for Organists in Manhattan.

Mr. Wetzel earned a bachelor’s degree in organ performance from The Juilliard School where he studied with Paul Jacobs and was the first person ever to graduate with a master’s degree and a post-graduate professional studies certificate in choral conducting from Manhattan School of Music under Kent Tritle. He also studied privately with Donald K. Fellows and Robert Page. Additionally, James spend a year studying Early Christianity and Apologetics at Columbia University.

The other concerts in the series:

Sunday, March 15th
4:00 P.M.
Sharon Levin, flute
Gerard Reuter, oboe
David Hughes, piano
works of Telemann, Marcello, and Quantz

+

Wednesday, April 1st
8:00 P.M.
Tenebræ
The St. Mary’s Schola Cantorum
The St. Mary’s Student Schola

+

Sunday, May 17th
4:00 P.M.
Charlotte Dobbs, soprano
David Hughes, piano
works of Karg-Elert, Copland, and Hughes

(Above and below) In the “upper church” the great window of the Second Coming – with a commemoration of St. Etheldreda(Audrey)

One of the few medieval London churches to survive the Great Fire of London… Returned to Catholic hands in the 19th century.

And now the “lower church” or “crypt” has become a venue for parties: a dinner of the International Bar Association last Monday amid the statues of the past.

From the Facebook Page of the event:

 

As a basilica, (Old. St. Patrick’s Cathedral) observes with special care a number of feasts: one of them is the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, Apostle. This year, to celebrate the bicentennial of the founding of the basilica, the Schola will sing a Renaissance Vespers on Sunday, February 22 at 4:00 PM. The music includes:

Prelude: Toccata in the 8th Tone – Paolo Quagliati (c. 1555-1628)
Domine ad adjuvandum – Lodovico Grossi da Viadana (c. 1560-1627)
Dixit Dominus – Alessandro Grandi (1586-1630)
Confitebor tibi – Maurizio Cazzati (1616-1678)
Beatus Vir – Alternatim Chant
Laudate Pueri – Giacomo Finetti (? – 1630)
Memento Domine David – Felice Anerio (1560-1614)
Magnificat – Lodovico Grossi da Viadana (c. 1560-1627)
Postlude: Toccata – Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-1667)

The Schola will be supported by continuo played on organ and theorbo, making for a unique and gorgeous sound.

There will be a Missa Cantata in honor of Our Lady of Lourdes on Wednesday, February 11th at 7:30 in the evening at St. Mary Church, 178 Greenwich Ave., Greenwich, CT

 

Missa Cantata in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite celebrated on February 3rd in the Princeton University Chapel by Fr. Carlos Hamel of the Fraternity of St. Joseph the Guardian (yet another remarkable initiative of the diocese of Frejus-Toulon), assisted by Br. Gerhard ( recent graduate of Princeton) and followed by a blessing of the throats. The mass was sponsored by the Aquinas Institute (the Catholic Campus Ministry at Princeton University). The photos are from the Facebook page of the Aquinas Institute.

This was not the first Traditional Mass in the chapel. We do not know if Catholic masses were ever celebrated here in the pre-conciliar days. We were, however, able to find in our archives pictures of at least one nuptial Traditional mass celebrated in the chapel – in July 1989(above and below). That mass, however, was not connected with the Aquinas Institute but was under the jurisdiction of St. Paul’s (the parish church of Princeton). Readers may note that the celebrant of the mass is a certain well-known Catholic leader in the Traditionalist and pro-life causes…

 

(Readers may recall the case of the “Bishop of Bling” who had been forced to resign in March 2014 after an unprecedented campaign against him both in the German-language media and in the German Church. A glance at the German  Wikipedia article on Bishop Tebartz-van Elst gives an idea of the real sources of the conflict. Even though the following essay of May 2014 is very specific to the German situation, recent events have made it more relevant than ever. First, even without a diocese, Bishop Tebartz-van Elst is still hounded by the German press and Church – he recently had to cancel a minor speaking engagement because of their hostility. Second, cost overruns far in excess of the Limburg situation have recently been reported for building projects in other German dioceses – with no reaction from either the press or the Vatican. Third, since the publication of Mr. Mosebach’s essay a pattern has emerged of Pope Francis working hand in hand with local hierarchies to force out conservative prelates – one thinks of further examples in Paraguay, France and Italy. Finally, we have here a case study of the close collaboration between the media and the progressive Catholic establishment – a relationship that of course has blossomed in unheard-of luxuriance under Pope Francis. 

I understand that Mr Mosebach gave a magnificent reading of his essay – my translation can hardly do justice to it. Let me add just a couple of notes. The diocese of Limburg includes the city of Frankfurt (the home of Martin Mosebach) and has the reputation of being one of the most liberal in Germany. Mr Mosebach names neither the newspaper nor the author of the article but a German language internet search will speedily reveal both. “Liberal”, as is usually the case outside the United States, does not mean “progressive” or left-wing, but rather “classic” (economic) liberalism, tending even in the direction of libertarianism. (SC))

 

Bishop Tebartz-van Elst and the Press

 

By Martin Mosebach

 

Is the case of the Bishop of Limburg, Franz Peter Tebartz-van Elst, really already closed? Just look at the plain facts: the German Bishops’ conference had established a commission of investigation to determine how the explosion of costs occurred in the construction of the Bishop’s residence that had been commissioned by the Limburg cathedral chapter. It gave the bishop a great deal of the responsibility for the misguided planning. Another share was borne by the cathedral chapter, which had failed in its duty of supervision. The vicar general was also not spared blame.

 

What only became clear later was that the bishop had already offered his resignation to the pope in October 2013, which the Holy Father, after reading the report of the commission, then accepted. It is worth keeping this nuance in mind. The bishop was not reprimanded and no ecclesiastical penalty was imposed on him. That was obviously because, after evaluating the circumstances, that had been found inappropriate. The resignation was accepted because the bishop “in the situation that has arisen can longer exercise his office of bishop.” This was the report’s sober and completely accurate conclusion in the face of the wave of contempt and hate that poured upon the bishop from clerical circles and from the “professional Catholics” of the lay organizations. The “Tebartz case” had dominated the headlines of most newspapers in those months when Syria was ablaze, the European currency was threatening to collapse and Christians were undergoing persecution in so many lands. Priests of the diocese of Limburg had refused to pray for the bishop in the canon of the mass, many people (how many really?) are supposed to have left the Church and the bishop was threatened with physical violence. In a word, the odium plebis of which canon law speaks as a reason for the impossibility of exercising the office of bishop, existed without any doubt and would also have existed if the investigation of the bishop had acquitted him of any responsibility.

 

We have to stress this fact. It was known both to the pope and to the Congregation for Bishops in Rome when they passed over the cathedral chapter when appointing the administrator during the vacancy and named an administrator without the participation of the chapter. Whether a cathedral chapter that had so emphatically fostered the emergence of this odium plebis even before clarification of the facts should participate at all in the appointment of a new bishop is regrettably only a theoretical question for canon lawyers.

 

I would like to direct my attention not to the guilt, the negligence, the clumsiness or the idiosyncrasies of the unfortunate Bishop – there is something here of all of this- but to the way in which the press had seized upon this case before the facts had been clearly determined. And I intend not to analyze the whole mass of articles that appeared on this topic but just a single one. It can, however, claim to be unique and to have founded a new era in the newspaper in which it was permitted to appear. That paper is a “newspaper of record,” in the language of the news business, which still enjoys among the majority of its readers the reputation of trustworthiness – to the extent that the press, in its essence, can ever be trustworthy. (Karl Krauss, as is well known, disputed that fundamentally, adducing  arguments that are hard to refute.)

 

The newspaper of which I speak has a reputation of being “liberal-conservative.” However, the paper takes a broad view of these concepts; it places great value on the fact that in its pages voices are able to speak that depart from the main line of the editorial staff. At least that’s how it was for a long time; those who didn’t like this newspaper often mocked it just for this effort to achieve balance. They accused it of being “gray” but it was a honorable gray that those readers appreciated who didn’t want to be entertained by a newspaper but to be instructed by it in order to form their own opinion. It did happen now and then that this newspaper engaged in real battles, that it tried to throw its political presence onto the scales – but this was rare.

 

All the more astonishing, then, was a series of articles that dealt with the question of whether the participation of the German bishops in the state pregnancy consultation process might make abortions possible.  There were two Catholic authors on the editorial staff who fought passionately against the German Catholic Church remaining in this system of consultation – and with success. And after the publication of a major essay of Robert Spaemann against consequentialist ethics the discussion of this question was over. The defeated forces in the German episcopacy remained quiet – but were determined never to suffer such a thing ever again.

 

First, the malicious concept of “culture pages Catholicism” was launched to deny spiritual seriousness to the writing laymen who had been otherwise so eagerly courted. But this was just the initial skirmish. Soon, behind the scenes, matters were arranged so that one could no longer speak of “culture pages Catholicism” which dissented from the ruling milieu of the official sphere of the Church. The tone of the newspaper when the subject of the Church came up had clearly changed; not just in the arguments but also in the mood.

 

Now, it is indeed the case that the interest in ecclesiastical questions among the “liberal,” economically oriented bourgeoisie (which still represented a certain percentage of the subscribers to this newspaper) had become most attenuated. That the articles became more and more polemic, that they offered more and more scope to resentments against the traditional Church – was probably registered by the greater part of the reading public only with a shrug of the shoulders.

 

That was going to change in the case of the Limburg bishop. Gradually it became clear to a greater circle of readers, which in any case clearly exceeded the percentage of interested Catholics, that this newspaper had resolutely bid farewell to a reporting style concerned with objectivity. It had made the financial carelessness of this cleric into a grand affair, which in the language and persecuting zeal followed the examples of the witch hunts against Minister Guttenberg and his fake doctoral degree or President Wulff and his Wuestenrot cottage.

 

Finally, a year ago, on June 24, 2013, appeared an article on page 3 of this publication; in a very prominent place and covering the whole page. This essay was, up till then, without precedent. I would like to dedicate myself to it in detail – reluctantly, so painfully embarrassing is this text.

 

Let me sum up one more time: this article was written before the report of the commission was published. There was a strong opposition movement in the diocese against the bishop. For those not involved, however, its accusations were not really understandable. The bishop was supposed to have spread among his subordinates an atmosphere of paralyzing fear. He was supposed to be “cold.” His residence which, nota bene, would also be that of his successors (it’s not a private home) would be possibly three times as expensive as had first been planned – instead of 3 million euro, the cost was now estimated at 9 million. He was supposed to be “resistant to advice” – ominous words that everyone could so interpret the way he wanted. For example, it could mean that the bishop was not ready without further ado to let himself be manipulated by his own organization. For those knowledgeable of the situation many things speak for this supposition. Tebartz-van Elst had dared to cancel a darling project of his predecessor: the establishment of parishes led no longer by priests, but by laymen, which contradicted canon law. And Tebartz-van Elst did this against the emphatic “advice” of exactly these laymen and of priests intoxicated by a new ecclesiology.

 

But you would find in our essay not a single line on this very serious conflict, which affected the future of the entire Church – even though this was the foundation of the dissension between the bishop and his synod council, his priest councils and the other post conciliar, abundantly inserted Soviets. As we shall see, this essay involved nothing as pedestrian as “information” – maybe “literature” is the more appropriate term. For our article, whose beginning is so “atmospherically dense” (to use the language of a book review), has as its objective nothing less than to condemn a man to civil death before the pronunciation of the verdict.

 

“Limburg, June 23. It is cold on Easter Sunday – so cold that just the view of of the windswept square before the Limburg cathedral chills the few bystanders who have wandered here in the evening twilight. The show that will be offered to them a few minutes before 5 o’clock is also not conducive to warming their hearts. As if led by a ghostly hand, a phalanx of clergymen and ministers strides silently around the cathedral, and disappears shortly afterwards into the building. “Grand Entrance” – the man who formed the end of the procession had summarily commanded this to his aghast cathedral chapter. In Rome there’s disarmament, in Limburg rearmament. The cold pierces to the very marrow.”

 

We can see that a mighty shaman is at work here, whose heart’s desire can even chill the cosmos. We hear that journalists shouldn’t describe complex incidents from the perspective of an insider in order that the clueless reader can follow him. Our author therefore is making efforts to describe the Easter liturgy, of which he is the witness, from the perspective of religious ignorance, which he probably correctly imputes to the majority of his readers. And so he hopes to get a laugh, when he presents the Catholic liturgy as a gloomy, dismal spectacle. But here perhaps is a case of overshooting the mark – for a “Grand Entrance” for pontifical vespers on Easter Sunday is a matter of course that doesn’t need to be “summarily ordered.” By the way, the same is true for every parish church on this greatest feast day of the Church. Incidentally, every Sunday High Mass has to begin with this same “Grand Entrance” which represents the royal entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, that paradoxical beginning of the Passion, which at the same time points beyond the suffering and prefigures the second coming.

 

Is a simple journalist expected to know that? Not every one, but certainly this one, since he had studied theology, taken final vows and had been ordained deacon, before he gave up the clerical state. Given his formation, he would have been eminently qualified to explain the treasure of the rituals of the Church to an unknowing public – even though his knowledge of the languages of the Bible is so shaky that he didn’t know what a phalanx is. But it would have been a shame to drop the comical, combative seasoning in describing a procession that was led not by a ghostly hand but by a crucifix.

 

“Five years after (Tebartz) taking office no unity can be sensed. The tensions, on the other hand, are all the greater.”

 

Tensions – an ominous word – now how could they have arisen? What are the two poles between which tensions exist in the diocese of Limburg? The reader learns nothing about this. But there would have been much to report from the recent history of the diocese in which, in the last five decades, anti-Roman sentiments have been nurtured. Of Bishop Kamphaus, the predecessor of Tebartz, we only read, trivializing, that he “stood up to Pope John Paul II longer than all the other German bishops in the battle against leaving the legal pregnancy consultations and he yet only had to offer his resignation at the age of 75.” That is incomplete. After Kamphaus, as expected, had not followed up on his threat to resign, the pope had punished the bishop by relieving him of responsibility for the matter of the consultations. In such a diocese the transition to a shepherd loyal to Rome really cannot happen without tensions – but only informed readers could suspect that. Further down in the text we read:

 

“The shepherd must have the smell of the sheep, the new pope Francis had to hammer home in Rome to the bishops and cardinals at the beginning of Holy Week. In Limburg it’s rather the scent of finest leather. A black limousine polished to a mirror finish stands before the entrance to the episcopal residence; a tanned man in his middle 50s with a lot of gel in his hair doesn’t depart from the side of the bishop. In the cathedral, the clouds from not one but two censers literally take away the breath of the believers.”

 

Isn’t it amazing that our author obviously believes he can with class envy arouse emotions against the bishop among his solidly bourgeois readers? It is, once again, atmosphere, only atmosphere – but it becomes ever more poisonous. The rather embarrassing words of the pope may express the experiences of South America, where aftershave is a little inappropriate for a pastor serving in the slums of São Paulo. But the real problem of a diocese like Limburg (well known, of course, to our author) is that it is a church of the wealthy which long ago lost all connection to its own poor  – not those in exotic regions. Now the Church and the faithful of the Rhine-Main region do smell of the finest leather – to take up again the specific comparison of our author. The limousine of the bishop is rented, like every other Episcopal vehicle in Germany, at a favorable rate, which might have been known to the author. But “polished to a mirror finish“: does that not awaken associations of luxury, power and control?

 

 

One sees the slave who not only washes the auto but, down on his knees, polishes it. But it is no slave but a tanned man in his mid-50s with a lot of gel in his hair. And he not only polishes the bishop’s auto but he never departs from his side. And never from the side of the author as well, who knows what a valuable trump the figure of this man can be in this article devoid of substance. He lets him wander through the article four times until the thick smoke of suspicion, insinuation and innocent hints (The backstairs gossip always closes her defamatory comments with “I didn’t say anything!”) has solidified to calumny. Calumny, which, to be sure, can’t be contested: you can hear our author mockingly remark: “You don’t after all have to concern yourself with it.” This expression fits perfectly in his style. To continue:

 

“’Crazy Bambi!’ somebody shouted to Tebartz-van Elst soon afterwards.”

Haven’t nasty references to bodily features – in this case to the very large eyes of the bishop – long been taboo in political articles? Comments on the appearance of the chancellor (Merkel), for example, would never have made it past the crosschecking editor. But in that case, of course, one would have had to deal with real power, while open season had been declared for a long time on the bishop. Even though there was insufficient damning material available, the holes in the argumentation could be smeared over with a lot of gel. What stays or rather sticks in the reader’s mind is this: obviously, unheard of things must exist against the bishop – yet they remain unidentifiable.

 

The construction site on the cathedral mount “was transformed into a forest of plans”, once again an unhappy image but not a concrete accusation that could provide substance for the conclusion that: “expectation turned into disappointment; strangeness changed swiftly into mutual distrust.” The observation is, of course, very damaging that the bishop has a “need for soulless pomp”  in the liturgy as is the suggestion that the faithful had asthma attacks because of the quantity of incense. All clichés from anti-Catholic polemics since Luther’s time – how comforting it is that our author can so soulfully write against them. Joking aside, the complaint about soullessness is always most suspicious – it’s almost always evidence of sentimentality and mendacity.

 

And, apropos mendacity, Max Scheler’s observation is unforgettable: “whoever is mendacious doesn’t need to lie anymore.” Yes, our author tells the truth when he complains that the bishop had acquired, (scandalously – the expression is at the tip of his tongue) – “a new Madonna” for the Cathedral. There may be churches in which there are so many images of the Madonna that another one is not exactly necessary, but the Limburg Cathedral was distinguished from all of other cathedrals in Germany in that there was not a single image of the Madonna for the faithful to venerate.  The predecessor of Bishop Tebartz had found Marian presence to be superfluous. That Tebartz had now, after decades, created in his church once again a home for the Beata, is something that he could have made emphatically public. He didn’t do so, presumably out of tact towards his predecessor. But such discretion remains unrewarded in the realm of the media, which are entirely occupied with shouting out loud or gossiping to death.

 

As a laicized monk and deacon, our author should have been able to convey understanding for the fact that the bishop took out of the museum liturgical objects and gave back to them their original function – that which their pious donors had intended.  Sacred objects really have no business in a museum; they belong in the sacristy where they of course can also be viewed when they’re not being used. But our author knows already how to give the ugly monkey a little more sugar: “(Tebartz took) from the stores of the diocesan museum a platter so big it’s fit for a turkey, as the bowl for the lavabo.”

 

The bishop is supposed to be no longer welcome in the parishes “because on his pilgrimages to the Holy Land he preferred the presence of his chauffeur to that of his clergy, and enjoyed himself in the first rows of seats while the flock of pilgrims had to remain in the back by themselves.” How do you luxuriate in an airplane seat with a plastic tray of shrink-wrapped rolls before you? How do you have an exchange of views with the pilgrim group in an airplane?  Our author twists the facts like the hysterical women that kill their husbands in the popular plays of Yazmina Reza. And so on and so forth. And when the meager facts have been totally used up, that tanned fellow sneaks by like the white elephant in the Rilke poem. “I haven’t said a thing”, that’s the motto of the prying concierge that could most appropriately serve as the title of our author’s article.

 

What stones must have rolled away from the heart of our author when the report of the commission indeed found partial responsibility of the bishop for the disorder in his diocese and the pope accepted the resignation request! Where would he have stood if the investigation had found no questionable conduct? Indeed, for a while that appeared to be the case. But we shouldn’t be worried about a journalist like our author. Such people basically don’t take seriously what they’ve written – their contempt for man begins basically with themselves and the superficiality of their actions.

 

An evil press – evil times, evil customs – so could one lament. But it is not that simple. When I protested about this article to the editor of the newspaper he answered with superior irony that, as a Protestant, he observed “with interest developments in German Catholicism”. At first I was irritated at the man’s undisguised gloating – but then I recognized that he was right. No, this article – and the many other things that have been written by our author and many other Catholic journalists in other respectable newspapers – is only in part a problem of the press and its anti-clerical conventions. It is above all a problem of the Catholic Church in Germany and her undiminished readiness, even when exhausted and weak, to tear herself apart and engage in internecine civil war right up to annihilation.

 

Our author is after all less a representative of a newspaper for the intelligentsia, than an unofficial spokesman of powerful forces in the German Church, which provide him with information and designate which dignitaries are to be knocked off. After all, before Bishop Tebartz, it was no less than Pope Benedict, that “god-awful theologian,” in the words of our author. The forty years that have passed since the Second Vatican Council have transformed the German church into a snake pit, inhabited by weak, fearful but extremely vicious snakes. The disastrous system of the Episcopal conference and its almighty bureaucracy ensure that no strong personality has a chance anymore to become a bishop. Even those apparently not totally feeble are held on the shortest of leashes. After the “case” of Bishop Tebartz, it may be interesting to see who of the German prelates succeeds to the Limburg diocese. I will refrain from speculating about the necessary character qualifications. I am not qualified to make prognoses for the future.

 

At the present time I don’t see how the German Church can do justice to its real reason for existence: to reveal to men the supernatural presence of God, give access to the sacraments and witness to the reality of the Incarnation and Redemption. In comparison to this our concerns about a malevolent anti-clerical press are nothing more than the annoyance of a swarm of gnats.  Despite our regrets about the disappearance of quality journalism we cannot forget that the Church has tasks other than coming to terms with the newspapers.

 

(The following is not by Martin Mosebach – SC)

NOTE: We give here the text, which Martin Mosebach presented on May 1, 2014 in Bonn. He had been invited by the Institute for Social Sciences Walberberg which dedicated its annual day dedicated to the ethics of media to the theme: “Expectations of Quality Journalism in Times of Scandal.” Also participating in this symposium in the Hotel Bristol before 250 attendees was the journalist Günter von Lojewski, formerly Intendant of the Station Free Berlin and Martin Lohmann, editor-in-chief of the private tv station K-TV. The names of the newspaper and of the editor were deliberately not mentioned by Mr. Mosebach but can be easily discovered.

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