In commemoration of the alliance of Lepanto – a Solemn High Mass at the historic church of Our Lady of Esperanza, the second Spanish-language church in New York City. Before the mass we will organize a tour of the wonderful collections of the Hispanic Society of America (located next door). See HERE for further information about the Hispanic Society.

On Saturday, March 14, Bishop Edward Scharfenberger of Albany celebrated mass in the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Albany. This is his first “Latin Mass” as bishop. Previous to his appointment, the bishop was the pastor of a parish where the Traditional Mass had been celebrated.

Photos courtesy of Mr. Arrys Ortanez:

https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/114411987331747554442/albums/6126245951154848113

Today, Sunday, March 15, Bishop James D. Conley, Bishop of the diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, celebrated Mass for Laetare Sunday at the Church of St. Agnes. On Saturday the Bishop had given a talk on “Beauty, Culture and the New Evangelization” for the Thomistic Institute and the Catholic Artists Society.

Photos courtesy of Arrys Ortanez

https://plus.google.com/photos/114411987331747554442/albums/6126523739660370689

These notes from David Hughes, choirmaster of St. Mary’s Church, Norwalk:

Tomorrow, March 15th is Laetare Sunday, when the liturgical rigors of Lent are relaxed ever so slightly, flowers appear, and the solo organ reappears briefly. The St. Mary’s Schola Cantorum will sing John Sheppard’s festive and masterful Missa Cantate at the 9:30 Solemn Mass, coupled with organ voluntaries of Bach (An Wasserflüssen Babylon and partitas on Ach, was soll ich Sünder machen?).

That same Sunday afternoon, March 15th, the St. Cecilia Society is pleased to present its second concert of the spring season. Flautist Sharon Levin and oboist Gerard Reuter join forces to bring to life some very fine repertoire by, among others, Telemann and Marcello. I had the pleasure of rehearsing with Sharon and Gerry both last week and this, and their musicianship is breathtakingly good. We’re really excited to be giving this concert, and sincerely hope that you will be able to join us! The concert is at 4:00, and a festive reception will follow. Information about the repertoire and the artists is available at stmarynorwalk.net/recitals.

Thursday, March 19th, is St. Joseph’s Day. This feast of the patron of the universal Church is a busy one at St. Mary’s. At 12:10 p.m., the students of Regina Pacis Academy will sing Mass (Novus Ordo), including English propers and the complete Latin Missa Dominator Deus (Mass XV). At 5:30 p.m., the students of the St. Cecilia and St. Gregory Scholas will once again join forces to sing Vespers for the feast. Then, at 7:00 p.m., the St. Cecilia Student Schola joins the St. Mary’s Schola Cantorum (the professional ensemble) to sing Solemn Mass. The ordinary is Padilla’s charming Missa Ego flos campi for double choir (the professionals sing choir 1, and the students choir 2), coupled with Palestrina’s motet Veritas mea and the plainsong hymn Te Joseph celebrant.

On Passion Sunday, March 22nd, the St. Mary’s Schola Cantorum sings Cristóbal de Morales’ dark and plangent Missa Aspice Domine (based on the motet “Regard, O Lord, how desolate lies the city”). On this first day of Passiontide, we will also sing Byrd’s mysterious and heartfelt piece Infelix ego, which sets the text that begins the Meditation on the Miserere which Girolamo Savonarola (!) wrote shortly before his death.

To celebrate Annunciation Day, Solemn Mass will be offered at 7:00 p.m. A number of volunteer men from the parish, and several seminarians from St. John Fisher in Stamford, will join the Schola Cantorum to sing the Missa Salve Regina by the twentieth-century French composer Jean Langlais. The St. Cecilia Student Schola will sing the propers, as well as Peter Philips’ Ave Maria and Victoria’s Ave Regina caelorum for double choir. This Mass should be especially beautiful, and, we hope, a worthy celebration in this parish church dedicated to Our Lady.

The students of Regina Pacis Academy sing the office of None approximately once a month. They will continue do so on the Thursday of Passion Week, March 26th, at 3:00 p.m.

On the 9:30 Solemn Mass on Palm Sunday, March 29th, many of the choirs of the parish (St. Mary’s Schola Cantorum, the St. Mary’s Choir, the Coro Hispano, the St. Cecilia Student Schola, the St. Gregory Student Schola, and the St. John the Baptist Choristers) join to sing Hosanna filio David! at Our Lord’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem. The combined choirs will sing motets of Palestrina, Jachet de Berchem, and the plainsong propers. The Schola Cantorum will render the rarely-performed Missa Videte manus meas of Hugh Aston (an English composer of the early to mid-sixteenth century), polyphonic turba responses from the Eton Choirbook, and (continuing the English theme) the Miserere of George Malcolm (master of music at Westminster Cathedral in the 1950s).
As always, the complete music lists for all Masses at St. Mary’s are available at stmarynorwalk.net/music. Stay tuned for an update on the services of Holy Week!

In case you haven’t heard – a “final” decision was reached last month to close the “Our Lady of Good Counsel Academy.” It has resided at its quaint White Plains campus since 1896. An elementary school also run by the Sisters of Divine Compassion was able to relocate to a closed Catholic parochial school in the nearby town of Valhalla. The announced reasons for the closing are the obvious ones; the Sisters of Divine Compassion has a dwindling number of aging sisters requiring care and almost no new members.

I should mention my daughter graduated from this school five years ago. At that time, only a few sisters still remained involved with the school  and their average age was not unsurprisingly high. The philosophy of  Good Counsel Academy was that of your standard middle-of-the-road to progressive Catholic educational institution. At my daughter’s graduation I recall there was much said regarding empowering women; almost nothing on “God” or “Christ.” Thus,  the fate of this school seems to me entirely predictable. It is a shame, though, for all the faculty, parents and students involved – many of the latter coming from poorer circumstances. It is also a tragedy for White Plains to lose a landmarked site like this campus.

The attitude of these sisters was somewhat different only 20 years ago.  Pace had acquired in the 1970’s a college that the sisters also previously conducted on another part of their campus and now wanted to close it because of lack of enrollment.   The sisters challenged that change of purpose. At the time, The New York Times reported, Pace university used reasoning much like that of the Catholic Church today:

What is more, officials at the university have questioned why the sisters — who are close neighbors of Pace on property off one of the main thoroughfares in this city — are holding fast to values that may no longer be relevant.

”You can’t freeze time,” ”and you can’t live in the past,” said Stephen Brodsky, a lawyer for the university. ”There are changing patterns of enrollment to consider now and monetary concerns to factor in.”

And Pace made this nasty but true point:

Defending its position to decide policy on the basis of financial needs, the university also argues in its legal papers that the sisters were motivated by similar concerns when they transformed the Catholic College for Women, in a series of steps from 1955 to 1971, into a nonsectarian, co-educational institution. Pace has claimed that the nuns did so in part because they wanted to be eligible for state educational funds.

So wee see that the fate of the high school and the loss of the White Plains campus were, in a sense, already foreshadowed and preprogrammed by the policies adopted in the first years after the Council. And the representative of the sisters herself told the New York Times that the sisters were part of ”a vanishing breed” — there were only 124 nuns in the order (in 1997) compared with 224 in the peak days. Things have not improved in the last 20 years.

And the Archdiocese? Catholic New York reported on the closing, referencing statements of Cardinal Dolan and the Sisters of Divine Compassion. The whole reads more like a lawyer’s brief than the words of a religious organization. It is reiterated that the high school is totally separate from the Archdiocese and the decision to close was taken solely by the sisters. But then the Archdiocese magnanimously tried to find an alternative locations, none of which worked out (obviously because only six to nine months were available to find a solution, given the actions by taken the sisters).

“At this point the archdiocese has done all that has been asked to assist this private school in remaining open.” (Cardinal Dolan)

Naturally the committee of parents and others which had been desperately fighting to save the school has a somewhat different view of the matter….

We should conclude by noting that the Vatican, under Pope Francis, has recently specifically endorsed the orders of American sisters – like the Sisters of Divine Compassion – with only a verbal slap on the wrist.

The following churches are planning traditional Masses on upcoming feast days:

St. Joseph Day, Thursday, March 19

St. Mary Church, Greenwich, CT, 7:30 pm. The traditional blessing of pastries will follow mass.

St. Mary Church, Norwalk, CT, Solemn Mass, 7 pm

Passion Sunday, March 22

Holy Name of Jesus Church, Brooklyn, Missa Cantata, 5 pm

St. Theresa Church, Trumbull, CT, Missa Cantata, 2:30 pm, Fr. Shawn Cutler celebrant, reception to follow in the gym.

The Feast of the Annunciation, Wednesday, March 25

St. Mary Church, Norwalk, CT, Solemn Mass 7 pm.

These events may be of interest to our readers:

Saturday, March 14, 7:30 pm, Catholic Artists Art of the Beautiful Series: His Excellency Bishop James D. Conley of the Diocese of Lincoln, NE will be the final speaker. Bishop Conley will address Beauty, Culture, and the New Evangelization. The Catholic Center at NYU, 238 Thompson Street, Manhattan. Sponsored by the Catholic Artists Society. For more information see https://sthughofcluny.org/2015/02/the-art-of-the-beautiful-bishop-conley-to-speak.html

n.b.  Bishop Conley will be offering the 11:00 Extraordinary Form Mass at St. Agnes Church, Manhattan on Sunday, March 15 at 11 am.

Sunday, March 15 at 4 pm at St. Mary Church, Norwalk, flutist Sharon Levin will perform with oboist Gerard Reuter and David Hughes at the piano in a concert of Telemann, Marcello, Quantz, Corrette and Gaubert. Admission is $15, $10 for students. A festive reception will follow the recital.  Information

Wednesday, March 18, 6:30 pm: Father Joseph Koterski, S.J. will offer the Catholic Artists Society Lenten recollection at the Church of the Holy Trinity on Manhattan’s upper west side. A reception will follow. All welcome! The church address is 213 West 82nd Street, between Amsterdam and Broadway.

Friday, March 20, 8:30 am to 6:00 pm: The Monuments Conservancy will present its 25th Annual Symposium at the New York Marriott East Side, 525 Lexington Avenue, to discuss the life and legacy of architect Patrick Charles Keely. OPEN FREE TO PUBLIC. TO RESERVE A SEAT CALL 212-764-5645 x10 OR E-MAIL SYMPOSIUM@NATIONALSCULPTURE.ORG. more Information: https://sthughofcluny.org/2015/02/symposium-on-patrick-charles-keely.html

Window from the Bailica of St. John the Evangelist, Stamford

St. Mary Church in Norwalk, CT will offer a solemn Mass for the feast of the Annunciation on Wednesday, March 25 at 7 pm.
To celebrate Annunciation Day, a number of volunteer men from the parish, and several seminarians from St. John Fisher in Stamford, will join the Schola Cantorum to sing the Missa Salve Regina by the twentieth-century French composer Jean Langlais. The St. Cecilia Student Schola will sing the propers, as well as Peter Philips’ Ave Maria and Victoria’s Ave Regina caelorum for double choir. This Mass should be especially beautiful, and, we hope, a worthy celebration in this parish church dedicated to Our Lady.

Amazing words on Pope Francis from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. While John Allen, on the occasion of the second anniversary of Bergoglio’s election, still writes of the “Miracle Francis” and expounds on the latter’s “mystical experiences,” the leading German language newspaper suddenly takes a decidedly more critical view. Author Markus Günter writes, for example:

It’s the Last Straw

… The unprecedented wave of sympathy which the Pope triggered immediately upon taking office two years ago is now slowly receding. Some experienced a rude awakening when he admonished Catholics not to behave like “rabbits.” For others a border was crossed when he said he would answer anyone who would insult his mother with a “punch in the nose.”…. The spokesman of the Vatican and bishops throughout the world made a genuine effort to explain that which was hardly explainable, that the Pope had not meant it ‘thus’ but in a totally different way…. But, on the side, even the faithful apologists of the Pope lost for the first time their patience: does this have to be so? Does he think at all about the effect of his words? ….For the first time a new opinion took hold: it’s the last straw…. Among the American bishops the expression “loose cannon” has been circulating for a long time when the subject of Francis came up.

and:

Those who should know (the causes of Francis’ behaviour), have appeared for a long time now extremely discouraged. To be sure, a certain learning curve is visible, but the essence of the problem cannot be changed: Francis does not allow anyone to tell him what he has to do or not do. The free, spontaneous, often unreflected word – which he has not carefully tested on the scales – simply corresponds to his character. He is most content when he can simply speak out loud without the need to respect liturgical rubrics or diplomatic practices. Every external constraint – the papal vestments, the apartments of the Apostolic palace, prepared speeches, or the strict ritual of the Vatican – is basically distasteful to him.

and:

Between the Pope and his subordinates the final rupture came on this day ( that of the Pope’s Christmas address to the Curia). Even today it is a mystery why nobody had explained to the Pope the obvious fact: after a Christmas address of this kind no boss could count on the full support of his subordinates.

And much much more.

Of course all this has been obvious for many months now, but for the first time that I am aware one of the major media of the world has pointed out that the emperor has no clothes. Lovers of conspiracy theories will undoubtedly speculate what has led the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung to break the code of omertà. The “FAZ” has shown in recent years willingness to work hand in glove with the German bishops’ conference. Could this extraordinarily frank article be the journalistic equivalent of Cardinal Marx’s address a few weeks ago which talked of the German church going its own path? Could it represent a second shot across the bow of team Francis, given them a foretaste of what will come if the Bishop of Rome can’t deliver what the German church expects at the upcoming synod?