Connecticut

St. Mary Church, Norwalk, CT, 12 noon Solemn Mass, organized by Regina Pacis Academy with blessing of candles and procession (Bring your own candles to be blessed). 7 PM Solemn Mass.

The Georgetown Oratory of the Sacred Heart, Redding, CT, 6 pm

Sts. Cyril and Methodius Oratory, Bridgeport, 6 pm procession and Solemn Mass, Fr. Carl McIntosh celebrant

St. Patrick Oratory, Waterbury, Candlelight procession and High Mass, 6 pm

New York

Holy Innocents Church, New York, 6 pm

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Harlem, New York, 7 pm

St. Josaphat, Bayside, Queens, 7 pm, blessing of candles, procession and High Mass.

St. Anthony of Padua Church, East Northport, Long Island, 6:30 pm Blessing of Candles, 7 pm Solemn Mass

St. Paul the Apostle, Yonkers, 12 noon

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

Holy Trinity Church, Poughkeepsie, 7 pm Missa Cantata

New Jersey

Our Lady of Sorrows, Jersey City, Candlelight procession and Mass 7:30 pm, bring you own candles to be blessed. Celebrant: Father John Anthony Boughton, Vicar General of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal.

Holy Trinity Church, 34 Maple Ave., Hackensack, Missa Cantata, 5 pm, Fr. John Perricone, Celebrant.

Our Lady of Fatima, Pequannock, 7 am, 9 am

St. Anthony of Padua, West Orange, 9 am low Mass; 7 pm distribution of candles, procession and high Mass

Sacred Heart Church, 149 S. Plainfield Ave., South Plainfield, Missa Cantata, 7 pm (Adoration from 6-7 pm)

Shrine Church of Blessed Sacrament, Raritan, 7 pm

St John the Baptist, Allentown, 7 pm blessing of candles, procession, solemn Mass

Eve of the Presentation (Feb. 1): St. John Vianney Church, Colonia, 7 pm, Holy Hour with readings from “Mystical City of God” the visions of Ven. Mary of Agreda, accompanied by sacred choral music

Jean-Baptiste Le Brun des Marettes

Edited and translated  by Gerhard Eger and Zachary Thomas

Foreword by Fr. Claude Barthe

396 pages

(Os Justi Press, Lincoln NE 2025)

 Os Justi Press offers us a new edition and translation of the Liturgical Travels of Jean-Baptists Le Brun des Marettes. It’s a unique journey through the Catholic Church of France as it existed in 1718. Thus, it describes the liturgical situation of France after the impact of the Protestant Reformation, of the Counter Reformation, of the Gallican and Jansenist controversies but before the simplifications made in the Church as reconstituted in  the wake of the French Revolution. This perspective is unique. I had previously written about the account of Wilhelm Wackenroder, a later German writer, who also described a liturgical visit at the end of the 18^th century to Bamberg, a Catholic diocese where the ancient rite still flourished. But that writer was a Protestant, completely unfamiliar with Catholic culture and the rituals the witnessed. Le Brun des Marettes, however, writes not only as a convinced Catholic but also as a representative Jansenist of that era. 

Now the author unfolds an amazing picture of the practices of the French Catholic Church in those days. For La Brun des Marettes liturgy is not just the celebration of mass, but also blessings, chanting of the divine offices and above all processions. Above all the ceremonies of Holy Week receive detailed treatment. Throughout Le Brun des Marettes provides many curious details. He claims, for example, that in one monastery in Poitiers, nuns formerly served as acolytes vested in surplice and maniple.  And we repeatedly read in Liturgical Travels of the employment of the rood screen, where it still existed,  for the chanting of the readings of the Mass. Le Brun des Marettes frequently enriches his discussion of the various liturgical uses he encounters by reference to the practices in Rome, Milan (the Ambrosian rite) and the Byzantine liturgy

Furthermore, the performance of these French liturgical rites was inextricably intertwined with the secular culture  – ecclesiastical ceremonies might be the occasion of the distribution of gifts or remuneration, the acknowledgement of feudal obligations or the administration of charity. Truly this is a perfect picture of integralism! 

The commenters in the New Liturgical Movement of some years past, who scrutinized and critiqued every detail of the ceremonies described or photographed on the pages of that blog, would find this book informative. Indeed, Shawn Tribe, the founding editor of that website, has contributed a very fine essay to this volume. Yet these amateur critics will find within nothing corresponding to their vision of a uniform, fixed, immutable set of rubrics governing everything. 

For the liturgical diversity described by Le Brun des Marettes is the product not just of the conflicts of the two centuries preceding his own era but, in some respects, dates back to late Roman times. It is all the result of organic development, not of dictates from centralized authority. More recent influences on the national and international level had been incorporated into the existing local tradition.

Nor will the Vatican and the Catholic Church establishment find in this book support for their current certitudes. For, contrary to what Pope Francis and his acolytes claimed, after the Council of Trent Pius V did not repudiate all prior uses and establish liturgical uniformity throughout the Western Catholic Church. Total liturgical uniformity had never been implemented even in the Western Church. This book demonstrates that , contrary to Cardinal Roche’s recent assertions, while diversity existed and development was possible, all was regulated by the exact performance of  historic tradition – there was no formless flux of change.

Of course, this situation described in Liturgical Travels depended on the existence of many subordinate institutions within the Catholic Church: monasteries, collegiate churches and above all the cathedral chapters of canons, all richly chronicled in this book. The canons of the cathedrals were the guardians of the local liturgies. This liturgical diversity disappeared largely because the institutions described in this book also has been swept away or radically transformed after 1789. Later, such cathedral chapters seemed completely alien to the Catholic clergy themselves:

We (in the United States in 1930 – SC) have attained to our full ecclesiastical stature. Prelates, robed for ceremony, should adorn our more solemn religious functions. The Roman purple is now necessary to give character and color to our Pontifical occasions. The stately cathedral demands the purple stall. We have not and let it be devoutly hoped that we never will have, cathedral canons, but we have and we should have a growing number of monsignori  – men who have led distinction to religion in their own parishes and who are intellectually as well as ecclesiastically an ornament to the church. 1)

Now Le Brun des Marettes is a Jansenist. Our author writes particularly complimentary descriptions of certain Jansenist monasteries. This tendency also is evident in his consistent advocacy of simplicity and of returning to supposedly ancient practices. So, he commends those churches where the altar remains bare prior to the Mass and refers to the famous discussion of the purpose of candles in Catholic services – are they symbolic or do they merely provide illumination? Thus, our author touches on topics that many years later were taken up by a more extreme generation of Jansenists and then by the liturgical movement in the 20th century. Indeed, they reflect a radical change in the spiritual outlook of Westen Man. 

However, Le Brun des Marettes is in no way an early representative of the culture of Vatican II. In true Jansenist manner, he repeatedly advocates, not the relaxation of norms,  but a return to earlier,  more severe forms of devotion and penance. Above all throughout the book our author constantly returns to the exact performance of rite. The variety within the French church may have been great, but everything in every individual church was precisely governed by law and custom, not by the exercise of flexibility or creativity. 

Now our author is by no means perfect. His selection of churches is unsystematic,  with some (notably Rouen) receiving far more attention than others. There’s a fair degree of repetition. At times it is unclear whether a particular ritual described by Le Brun des Marettes was actually being practiced in the author’s day  – or whether it was something he had found in an early manuscript. The author helpfully describes now and then architecture, inscriptions and monuments, often Roman, but in not in any methodical manner. And obviously some of his conclusions have been overtaken by liturgical scholarship in the last 300 years. 

Nevertheless, I found this book a clear and interesting read – also thanks to the translator. This edition is supplied with notes that are a great aid both to one familiar with the liturgy and to the reader completely unfamiliar with the topic. Furthermore, there are helpful introductions and essays included in this edition. Some valuable illustrations dating back to the 19th and 18th centuries complete the presentation.

I see Liturgical Travels as being of greatest interest to the Catholic traditionalist who has long personal experience of participating, as celebrant, minister or member of the congregation,  in the celebration of the traditional rite – especially in the solemn Mass and vespers. In Liturgical Travels he will find a multitude of insights into the practices with which the has become familiar. Indeed, the presentation of the many alternatives found in this book will only increase his appreciation of his rite. Those who have the good fortune to be able to participate in Sarum use or Dominican liturgies will be especially grateful to this book– for these alternative liturgical uses have survived to the present day and indeed have points of resemblance to the liturgies of the French cathedrals described in Liturgical Travels. 

1. Duggan, Thomas S., The Catholic Church in Connecticut, at 203 (The States History Company, New York City, 1930). The author was vicar general of the Hartford, CT, archdiocese.

Father Claude Barthe has written a response (Tradilibéralisme et catholicisme intégral) to a polemical review of his recent book on the seven sacraments.1) The review in question (Abbé Barthe : une position ecclésiale intenable) appeared in the magazine La Nef. The author, Fr. Laurent Spriet, if I am understanding the facts correctly, is an alumnus of the Fraternity of St. Peter and for years has been active in trying to sustain the cause of the traditional mass within the “established“ Catholic Church of France. He speaks of a “love” for the traditional forms of the sacraments. Yet, Fr. Spriet repeatedly accuses Fr. Barthe, among other charges, of fomenting disobedience to “legitimate authority” by finding inadequacies in the revised sacramental rituals. For obedience to authority is for La Nef the ultimate criterion of Catholicity. 

In his review, for example,  Fr. Spriet refers to the authority of the pope over the “forms” of the sacraments as opposed to an unchanging doctrinal “core” (quoting approvingly an allocution of Pius XII!)  But this understanding  – which essentially renders form meaningless – has been absolutely fundamental to Catholic liberalism. According to Fr. Spriet, whether one follows the old or new rites is an option or preference. So ultramontane absolutism and Catholic post-conciliar liberalism find here common ground. Indeed, Fr. Spriet proceeds to hold traditionalists responsible for Traditionis Custodes. Accordingly,  Fr. Barthe qualifies the writers of La Nef as tradiliberals.

We would be tempted to interpret this debate as an altercation between traditionalists and conservatives. But this perspective is too American. For the Catholic Conservatives of this country are in their majority adherents of the Novus Ordo liturgy and of the other Vatican II changes. Their activity is focused generally on public policy issues  – especially pro-life work. La Nef, in contrast, while endeavoring to maintain ties with the clerical establishment, has featured articles favorable to the traditional mass. It also offers sharper criticism of contemporary society than is generally found today in conservative publications in America. What does unite La Nef with the American Catholic Conservatives is reverence for the papacy and the institutional Church. 2)

For both La Nef and the Conservative Catholics try to reconcile respect and even reverence for elements of Catholic tradition with unconditional obedience to ecclesiastical authority. Both tendencies find themselves in an extreme crisis prompted by the policies of Pope Francis and, up till now, those of Pope Leo. But that does not at all mean that the Tradiliberals or the Conservative Catholics are going away. Indeed, as the La Nef review of Fr. Barth’s book demonstrates,  attacks on traditionalism by conservatives and even by those within the traditionalist movement have in fact multiplied over the last year. 

1. Barthe, Claude, Les sept sacrements d’hier à aujourd’hui: Bref examen critique des nouveaux rituels (Preface by Bishop Athanasius Schneider) (Contretemps Ed, 2025).
2.  The only American writer I can think of who regularly attacked traditionalists while asserting that he was one himself was Michael Warren Davis (who is now Eastern Orthodox).

On January 22 at 7 pm, the New York Purgatorial Society will sponsor a sung Requiem Mass (Dominican Rite) at St. Vincent Ferrer Church in New York City. Fr. Leo Camurati will be the celebrant.

Featuring joyful lovesongs to Jesus and Mary from Loutna Česká (The Czech Lute), a masterpiece from 1653 by Adam Václav Michna, along with 17th-century Italian works by Legrenzi, Agostini and others.

Marisa Karchin and Elizabeth Weaver, sopranos

Lydia Becker and Ryan Cheng, baroque violins

Nathan Francisco, baroque cello

Amanda Beranek, triple harp

Charles Weaver, theorbo

Dr. Charles Weaver, music director at Regina Pacis Academy and St. Mary’s Church, Norwalk, will present a lecture on St. Hildegard. The lecture will be preceded by a demonstration class in Gregorian chant with the Regina Pacis middle school schola. The class will begin at 1:15 pm and the lecture at 2 pm.

RSVP: Please call the school if you plan to attend: (203) 642-4501.

Beginning Sunday, February 8th, Father John Perricone will begin celebrating the Traditional Latin Mass at Holy Trinity, 34 Maple Avenue in Hackensack on Sundays at 12:30 PM. He will also celebrate a Latin Mass at Holy Trinity for the Feast of the Presentation, February 2, 2026,  at 7:00 PM.

The last regularly scheduled Mass that Fr. Perricone will be celebrating at Our Lady of Sorrows in Jersey City will be on Sunday, February 1, 2026 at 9 am. There will be a festive convivium honoring Fr. Perricone after the Mass.

After this Mass,  the Latin Mass Community of Jersey City will continue at the same place and the same time–Our Lady of Sorrows at 9 am. There will be  with a rotation of priests as had been the case before Fr. Perricone became the principal priest. Music will continue to be provided by Cantantes in Cordibus under the direction of Simone Ferraresi. 

Yesterday, Regina Pacis Academy had a beautiful Solemn Mass for the Feast of the Epiphany for the school community at St. Mary’s Church in Norwalk.

Distribution of the Epiphany chalk.