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Alice von Hildebrand died on January 14. I would like to offer a few remarks on her connections with the traditionalist Catholic movement both in the areas of morality and liturgy.
Certainly when I first encountered her in the 1980’s at conferences and lectures she did not appear to me to show any traditionalist liturgical sympathies. I associated her with organizations such as Opus Dei and CUF (Catholics United for the Faith) which were and are anything but traditionalist. Her interests also seemed to be more on questions of personal morality and ethics rather than liturgy. For example, at a memorable conference sponsored by Opus Dei she and Christopher Derrick squared off on issues related to the nature of marriage. Her highly romantic views contrasted with his realism; her apotheosis of marital love with his satisfaction at having been able to “muddle through” his many years of marriage.
She had been for many years a professor at Hunter College. Strange, how many Catholic writers and intellectuals in those years ended up at non-Catholic institutions (Dietrich von Hildebrand himself at Fordham was a noteworthy exception). Alice von Hildebrand took retirement in 1984 – I heard at that time this was an action initiated by the university, prompted by several prominent conversions among her students. Alice von Hildebrand in a memoir published in 2014 confirmed incidents related to conversions but made no causal connection between them and her voluntary decision to retire. 1) Thus, her secular academic career has some similarities with that of John Senior at the University of Kansas.
Alice von Hildebrand devoted much of her efforts over the years to preserving the memory of her husband Dietrich von Hildebrand. Now, Dietrich von Hildebrand was, among other things, an early and outspoken critic of tendencies within the Catholic Church that erupted into a virtual civil war after the Second Vatican Council. For example, he – together with his wife – wrote a critique of the views contained in the novel Kranz der Engel of Gertrude von Le Fort. This 1946 novel was a very early example of Catholic situation ethics such as that later canonized in Amoris Laetitia.2)
Dietrich von Hildebrand was also an early critic of aberrations in Catholic liturgy, morality and theology in the 1960s. One of his main works in this area was the famous Trojan Horse in the City Of God (1967) which received praise from noted intellectuals but induced fits of rage among members of the Church establishment. For example, the German writer Ida Goerres, outwardly conformist yet privately critical of post-Vatican II developments, was motivated to write a negative review of this book (which I have yet to find!)
But Dietrich von Hildebrand did not limit himself to the role of commentator. For example, he was involved early in the organization of a chapter of Una Voce in the United States. He was one of the early contributors to Triumph magazine. And Roger McCaffrey provides the very important information that Vincent Miceli SJ celebrated a traditional Latin Mass in the home of Dietrich and Alice von Hildebrand in the mid 1970s. At that time the traditional Mass was an affair of the catacombs! 3)
Alice von Hildebrand adopted a less public role on these issues – yet she was not inactive either. In 1993 Roman Catholic Books published The Charitable Anathema, a collection of Dietrich von Hildebrand’s essays on, among other things, liturgical issues. I believe many of these forceful writings appeared first in Triumph magazine. Alice von Hildebrand held the copyright to these works. We read here:
Thus I hope and pray that the Tridentine mass will not be abolished but will continue to be celebrated side by side with the new Ordo. Furthermore, I hope and pray that in the course of time, its superiority, from the pastoral as well as the doctrinal standpoint, will be recognized by the Holy See, and that in the future the Tridentine mass will be reinstated as the official liturgy of the holy Mass in the Western Church. 4)
Roger McCaffrey also informs us that Alice von Hildebrand helped to organize traditional Masses in Westchester county . 5)
In 2002 I returned to the New York area. For years we attended Sacred Heart parish in the town of Port Chester on the Connecticut border, where an ”indult” traditional mass was celebrated each Sunday. Alice von Hildebrand was a regular member of the congregation. It was a low Mass; the priest was rather eccentric (to put it mildly) and I don’t recall if that parish had any music at all. But I think that humble service suited Alice von Hildebrand fine.
In 2014 Alice von Hildebrand organized a traditional Requiem in memory of her husband. Her own Requiem also will be in the traditional rite. Let us offer prayers for the repose of her soul. Her funeral arrangements: link
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A Solemn Potifical mass was celebratedby Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco at St. Anthony of Padua Oratory (ICRSS) in West Orange, NJ. The Mass was organized by the American Delegation of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St. George.
The Mass commemorated the external solemnity of St Anthony Abbot, the principal minor patron of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St. George. Archbishop Cordileone referred in his sermon to this saint, one of the earliest Christian monks, and to the relevance for the present age of his search for spiritual perfection.
I should mention that St. Anthony the Abbot is the subject of the most famous German painting, the Isenheim Altar by Matthias Grunewald, located in Colmar. (Above) St Anthony ignoring the assault of the devil. (below) St Anthony conversing with St Paul, regarded as the first Christian hermit.
(Below) The famous Temptation of St Anthony from the Isenheim Altar. A parable for today: just as things appear hopeless, divine assistance appears (upper left hand corner of the picture)
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RIP Dr. Alice von Hildebrand
http://www.hildebrandproject.org/about/alice-von-hildebrand
Please remember her in your prayers.
The schedule of funeral arrangements for Dr. von Hildebrand has been changed and finalized. The schedule is as follows:
Friday, January 21: Wake at Fred McGrath Funeral Home, 20 Cedar
Street, Bronxville, 3:00 PM to 6:00 PM
Saturday, January 22: Solemn High Requiem Mass at Church of the Holy Family, 83 Clove Road, New Rochelle, NY, at 9:30 AM, with burial to follow at Mount Calvary Cemetery, 575 Hillside Ave (Route 100), White Plains.
Father Gerald Murrary will be the celebrant of the Mass, with Father
Sean Connolly and Father Jon Tveit as the deacon and subdeacon. (We have confirmed that, yes, this is a Traditional Mass)
The Church of St. Marguerite Bourgeoys in Brookfield, CT will have its first Solemn High Mass ever since the founding of the parish in 1982 on Wednesday, January 12, 2022 at 6:30 pm, the patronal feast day. The music will be provided by David Hughes, David Indyk and the Viri Galilaei.
Convivium to follow in the parish hall.
St. Marguerite Bourgeoys (1620-1700) was Virgin & Foundress of the Congregation de Notre Dame.
The church address: 138 Candlewood Lake Road, Brookfield, CT
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Jan
…on art from the Catholic world in New York City.
New York is fortunate in having two museums focused almost entirely on art of Catholic cultures and eras. The Cloisters, of course, is dedicated to the art of medieval Euroope. The Hispanic Society of America concerns itself with the arts of Spain and of the Spanish-speaking world. Both were founded by non-Catholics: Archer Huntington (The Hispanic Society) and John D. Rockefeller (The Cloisters). But both men acknowledged the essential link between the Catholic faith and the arts of these cultures. Indeed, Archer Huntington went so far as to finance the construction of a Catholic church as part of his Audubon Terrace project. For how could one understand Spanish art without an understanding of the Catholic faith?
Of course such “European,” “Catholic” art is not uncontroversial in the United States today. The predominantly religious art on display at the museum of the Hispanic Society or the Cloisters thus becomes somewhat of an embarrassment to progressive administrators. For example, I noted that the curators of the Cloisters currently feel the need of providing the Bury St. Edmunds Cross, one of the late Thomas Hoving’s “blockbuster” acquisitions in the 1960’s, with the following tendentious description:
But among the Latin inscriptions are several insidious invectives against Jews, a sobering testament to the pernicious presence of anti-Jewish sentiment in medieval Europe. While the words on this particular cross would have been known only to a community of English churchmen, such hateful attitudes permeated society and led to waves of unconscionable persecution of Jews, from London to York. In Bury Saint Edmunds, the Suffolk town with which this cross has often been associated, scores of Jewish residents were killed, and the survivors expelled in 1189, about the time this cross was carved. A century later, in 1290, Edward I expelled all Jews from England. 1)
(The “anti-Jewish” nature of these inscriptions is in fact disputed.)
Undoubtedly also inspired by a felt need to provide a more “nuanced” view of the middle ages is the current exhibition: Spain 1000-1200: Art at the Frontiers of Faith. As Max Hollein, director of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, writes:
(This Exhibition) celebrates the artistic exchange among Christians, Muslims and Jews in the medieval Iberian peninsula….Art at the Frontiers of Faith brings Islamic and Jewish works into the space (of the Fuenteduena chapel) for the first time, with the goal of telling a more nuanced story about Spain’s dynamic, interconnected past. (F)or the past thirty years, these exhibitions (of the Met) have led the way in exploring the intersections of medieval Iberia’s different faith traditions. Al-Andalus: the Art of Islamic Spain presented a diverse array of Iberian artworks….Art at the Frontiers of Faith continues this important work, bringing greater awareness of the global scope of the European Middle Ages to the Cloisters. 2)
The exhibition Art At the Frontiers of the Faith was for me somewhat disappointing. It is rather small, and mostly consists of exhibits already at the Met or at the Cloisters. Despite the praise the exhibition heaps upon the Islamic world, the majority of the items displayed are from the Christian side (which is understandable given Moslem iconoclasm). I am not sure the exhibition sucessfully makes the case for a fluid cultural interaction among three “traditions.” For it seems clear just from the exhibition itself that the art of Christian Spain – which provides the bulk of the works being shown – is influenced even more by French, Italian and even Byzantine art than by local Moslem culture. Of course the period covered by this exhibition was actually an era of intensified conflict between Christians and Moslems, not of peaceful coexistence. It was a time during which Spanish Christian art and culture were attaining their first maturity by drawing on the resources of the Christian world of which the Spanish kingdoms were an integral part. That is not to deny that some fine individual exhibits are on view – just that it will take more to demonstrate the alleged existence of significant mutual artistic enrichment between the Christians and Moslem worlds during this period.
The Hispanic Society of America has an easier time of it with its exhibition Gilded Figures: Wood and Clay Made Flesh. The museum of the Society unfortunately remains closed. Nevertheless, a limited selection of its holdings – painted sculptures from Spain and the Americas – is now on display in the current exhibition. When seen in the context of the Society’s entire collection, the polychromed sculptures from 1500 to 1800 are often overloooked in favor of the paintings by Velasquez, Goya etc. But in this very nicely arranged and illuminated exhibition these gilded works can be examined in isolation and the extraordinary versatility and expressiveness of these artists better appreciated. Many unique images can be seen – like the Four Fates of Man. The descriptions accompanying the exhibits honestly describe the religious foundations of this exuberant art.
Yet as Holland Cotter of The New York Times perceptively writes regarding a similar display of Spanish baroque art works :
(To serve as exhibits in a show – SC), however, they had to be stripped of their social, political and spiritual values. They were made “modern,” museumized. You still need to visit the great churches of Spain or Mexico or the Philippines to see and feel how these images were meant to work as devotional objects. And to fully understand this art, to be true to it, and to all religious art (which is, after all, the bulk of surviving art before the 20th century) you need to keep this need in mind.3)
Art at the Frontiers of Faith closes on February 13. Gilded Figures: Wood and Clay Made Flesh closes on January 9(!).
The Hispanic Society of America.
His Grace, Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone will be celebrating a Pontifical Mass on Sunday, January 16, 2022 at 11 am at St. Anthony of Padua Oratory in West Orange, NJ. The Mass is being organized by the American Delegation of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St. George.
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The annual Women’s Retreat conducted by Fr. John Perricone, sponsored by Agnus Dei Knights of Columbus is scheduled for the weekend of March 25-27, 2022 at the Seminary of the Immaculate Conception in Huntington, L.I. We are taking reservations at this time. The retreat is open to all Women 18 years and older. Feel free to pass this along to all family, friends and fellow parishioners.
There are two options:
1. $250 – Single room with private bathroom
2. $125 – No room; drive in daily
All meals are included for either option.
To register: Mail your check made out to AGNUS DEI COUNCIL to:Dan Marengo, 1468 Kennellworth Place, Bronx, NY 10465
Also, with your check, please include your phone number, mailing address and email in case you need to be contacted.
If you cannot pay in full, you can send in a partial payment to register – but you must pay in full no later than MARCH 11. No exceptions.