The Roman Forum - 35th Annual New York City Church History Program - 2026-2027

The Roman Forum

35th Annual New York City Church History Program

2026-2027

The Perennial Esoteric “Tradition,” Judaism, and Catholicism

Lecturer: Dr. John C. Rao

(D.Phil. Oxford, Chairman of the Roman Forum)

All Sessions Meet on Saturdays, at 2:30 PM

Wine & Cheese Reception.

Entrance Fee at door of $15.00

Shrine and Parish Church of the Holy Innocents

128 West 37th Street (Just West of Broadway), New York NY 10018

+   +   +   +   +

September 26: Esotericism, Gnosticism, and Judaism at the Beginning of Christianity

October 10: The Destruction of the Second Temple, Rabbinic Judaism, and Christianity

November 21: Talmudic Judaism

December 12: The Kabbalah

January 23: The Kabbalah & the Christian World Through the “Reuchlin War”

February 27: The Lurianic Kabbalah and the Politicization of its Message

March 13: Enlightenment Esotericism, Judaism, and Christianity

April 3: Christian Zionism

May 8: Current Dangers to the Faith from the Perennial Esoteric Tradition

+   +   +   +   +

For additional information visit The Roman Forum website.

Holy Mary, Co-Redemptrix & Mediatrix of All Graces

Fr. John Fullerton, the Society of Saint Pius X’s U.S. District Superior, is inviting all to participate in a Crusade of Reparation.

On November 4, 2025, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released Mater Populi Fidelis—a “Doctrinal Note on Some Marian Titles Regarding Mary’s Cooperation in the Work of Salvation.” The text teaches that “it is always inappropriate to use the title ‘Co-Redemptrix’ to define Mary’s cooperation” in the work of Salvation and that “special prudence is required when applying the term ‘Mediatrix’ to Mary.” In the words of the Society of Saint Pius X’s (SSPX) Superior General, Rev. Fr. Davide Pagliarani, “the denial of these truths is tantamount to dethroning the Most Blessed Virgin, and that wounds the Catholic soul in what is dearest to it.”

In response, the Superior General has called upon all priests affiliated with the SSPX to add an intention of reparation at all public Masses celebrated on November 16, 2025. Moreover, the Litany of the Blessed Virgin and the Stabat Mater will be sung or recited.

To continue this work of reparation, Fr. John Fullerton, the Society’s U.S. District Superior, is inviting all to participate in a Crusade of Reparation. This crusade will begin on Sunday, November 16, 2025, and conclude on January 11, 2026, which is the Feast of the Holy Family. It will consist of the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary added to the Rosary each day, with the following invocations:

Sacred Heart of Jesus – have mercy on us.

Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary – pray for us.

Our Lady Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of all graces – pray for us.  

Dignare me laudare te, Virgo sacrata. Da mihi virtutem contra hostes tuos.

(Vouchsafe that I may praise thee, O sacred Virgin. Give me strength against thine enemies.)

A copy of this Litany with the additional invocations is available here.

+ + + + +

Mons. Carlo Maria Viganò - Regarding the scandalous Doctrinal Note “Mater populi fidelis”

Transalpine Redemptorists - A Note on Our Lady’s Title of Coredemptrix

SSPX - Communiqué on the Doctrinal Note of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Mater Populi fidelis

Transalpine Redemptorists - Open Letter to the Catholic Bishops, Priests, Religious and Faithful from the General Chapter - Oct. 2025

An open letter from the Transalpine Redemptorists.

+ + + + +

Dear Catholic Soul,

We have just concluded our General Chapter where we considered our Congregation and its vocation in the Church and in the Diocese of Christchurch, New Zealand where the Bishop had decreed its expulsion.

The attached letter expresses the convictions of our Congregation.

This is not a task we embrace lightly. We have considered the array of possible punishments that the hierarchy may use against us – all mentally terrifying really, yet buttressed in the knowledge that the hierarchy has broken with the chain of command, which renders it human, and spiritually null. But when Our Lord’s honour is at stake, silence becomes a form of betrayal. We therefore take up this work with trembling hearts but with firm conviction, desiring only to defend the Holy Name of Jesus Christ and the purity of His Spouse, the Church.

“Every one therefore that shall confess Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father Who is in Heaven. But he that shall deny Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father Who is in Heaven.”

(Matt. 10:32)

CONGREGATION OF THE SONS OF THE MOST HOLY REDEEMER

TRANSALPINE REDEMPTORISTS

Open Letter to the Catholic Bishops, Priests, Religious and Faithful

from the General Chapter

of the

Congregation of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer

Being held in Papa Stronsay, Scotland

St Therese of the Child Jesus, 3rd October – St Gerard Majella 16th October, 2025

Dear Faithful,

Live Jesus our love and Mary our hope!

It is with a heavy heart and great sadness that we write to you. What unites us is our great love for our Holy Mother, the Catholic Church and Bride of Jesus Christ, for whom the martyrs shed their blood and the saints gave their lives. It is this love that forces us to express a truth that is difficult, however essential. (Lk. 12: 4-9)

Just like you, we too have cherished great hope for many years. We believed it was possible to live as faithful children of the Tradition within the structures of the modern Church. We believed that the old and beautiful traditions of our Faith, in particular the Latin Mass of all times, would be rightfully returned to us. This gave us hope, especially during the time of Benedict XVI. We confidently expected that we would be able to freely practise the Faith of our Fathers in the Church. We didn’t know how wrong we were!

Through years of trials and experience we have come to the unfortunate conclusion that the Traditional Catholic Faith, the Faith of all times and of the saints, is incompatible with the new, modern Church, the fruit of the Second Vatican Council. They simply cannot coexist in one body.

Since we deeply cherish and honour the Traditional Latin Mass and cannot give up the Holy Mass of the centuries and of the saints, this new Church does not want us. Because of our fidelity, we have been considered stubborn, difficult and rebellious; stitched up and lied about in never-ending acrimony.

This letter appeals to all who sense that something is tremendously wrong in the Church or who think that the new Church and the unchanging Faith can peacefully coexist. Alas! Allow us to state the sad truth that our experience clearly shows this to be impossible. Surely this new Church would shock all the holy Popes who declared time and again that Religious Indifferentism is a very great evil, absolutely incompatible with the Catholic Faith.

We tell you, we will not be complicit by silence in this ongoing destruction of the Church. We must speak up at some time and what better time than now? After 17 years as a community within the structures of the Church, we have been continually isolated and harassed. More especially these last years the Bishop of Christchurch has made us to be as the offscouring or scum of the earth. By his numerous Decrees and recourse to Rome he has sought to expel our monks from the diocese. He wants to have fifteen local vocations perpetually exiled from their families and homeland. We tell you now, higher duty forbids it. So long as there is but one soul that asks us for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacraments or spiritual help, with God’s grace we will not desert it. The Good Shepherd urges us to lay down our lives for His sheep and keep the hungry wolf at bay. It is our duty in charity, in theology and by Canon Law.

Why? Because the chain of command has been broken. Authority in the Church is ministerial (serving Our Lord), not absolute (doing whatever it likes): it binds us because it is itself bound to Christ, to the deposit of the Faith, to the constant Magisterium. When a superior departs from his own obedience to Christ the King, his command is no longer the arm of Christ but the gesture of a man. (S.T., IIa IIæ, q. 104, a. 5) These churchmen disobey God. And then, having shattered the chain of God’s command they attempt to invoke religious obedience for matters that deplete the Church, and take away the Holy Mass. Tolle Missam, Tolle Ecclesiam – Take away the Mass, you destroy the Church (Luther). No! We must obey God before Man.

And therefore, cleaving with might and main to our deep communion with our Holy Mother the Church, our duty before our Lord Jesus Christ and towards souls demands that:

We repudiate Amoris Laetitia permitting Holy Communion to couples living in sin.

We repudiate Traditionis Custodes’ persecution of the Mass and Catholics.

We repudiate Fiducia Supplicans permitting the blessing of same-sex couples.

We repudiate “The Document on Human Fraternity” stating that God wills all religions.

We repudiate the false theology of “sister churches” and “partial communion”.

We repudiate the false shepherds who triumphantly processed the Pachamama idol in St Peter’s.

We repudiate Francis apologising for the heroic Catholic who threw that idol into the Tiber.

We repudiate the scourge of religious indifference in New Zealand and throughout the Church.

We repudiate the New Zealand Bishops’ acts of closing churches, and denying the sacraments in cowardly submission to the Covid-19 oppression.

We repudiate the Bishop of Christchurch receiving his ashes on Ash Wednesday from the Anglican bishop of Christchurch.

We repudiate the corruption of children, and scandal given to the innocent through evil catechetical programs.

We repudiate Francis teaching that all religions are as different languages, and asking “Is my God more important than yours?”

We repudiate the silence of those bishops who failed to speak out against that betrayal of the Faith.

We repudiate the Synodal Church as distinct from the Divinely constituted Catholic Church.

We repudiate the ongoing destruction and humiliation of our Holy Mother the Church.

We repudiate those who attack or undermine the Church in her dogma, morals, sacraments, or discipline with a new cult of man.

To all who read this: How long will all this nonsense go on?

Whatever may be the cost to us, with the Apostle we must say: Anathema!

“But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach a gospel to you besides that which we have preached to you, let him be anathema. As we said before, so now I say again: If any one preach to you a gospel, besides that which you have received, let him be anathema.” (Gal. 1:8-9)

Do not remain silent! Defend the Faith of our Fathers!

“Although all nations obey King Antiochus, so as to depart every man from the law of his father and consent to his commandments: I and my sons and my brethren will obey the law of our fathers.” (1 Maccabees 2:19-20)

“On the contrary, it is written (Acts 5:29): We ought to obey God rather than men. Now sometimes the things commanded by a superior are against God. Therefore, superiors are not to be obeyed in all things.” — St. Thomas Aquinas (S.T., IIa IIæ, q. 104, a. 5)

Expecta Dominum, Viriliter Age et Confortetur cor tuum.

Expect the Lord, do manfully, and let thy heart take courage. (Ps 26:14)

Gaude, Maria Virgo… Rejoice, O Virgin Mary; thou alone hast crushed all heresies in the whole world.

Signatures:

Fr Michael Mary. F.SS.R.

Fr Anthony Mary, F.SS.R.

Br Nicodemus Mary, F.SS.R.

Br Paul Mary, F.SS.R.

Br Dominic Mary, F.SS.R.

Fr Magdala Maria, F.SS.R.

Fr Martin Mary, F.SS.R.

Br Xavier Maria, F.SS.R.

Br Alfonso Maria, F.SS.R.

Fr Seelos Maria, F.SS.R.

Fr Celestine Maria, F.SS.R.

Br Raphael Maria, F.SS.R.

Br Maksymilian Maria, F.SS.R.

Br Charles-Marie, F.SS.R.

Br Damasus Maria, F.SS.R.

Br Bogumił Maria, F.SS.R.

Br Francisco Maria, F.SS.R.

Br Ernest Maria, F.SS.R.

Br Hyacinth Maria, F.SS.R.

Br Gabriel Maria, F.SS.R.

Br Dysmas

Br George Marie

Br Ignatius Maria

Br Aloysius Maria

Br Zacchaeus Maria

Br Gerardo

Br William

+ + + + +

Source.

PDF version.

LifeSiteNews article.

Statement by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò regarding the religious community of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer.

Annual Blessed Karl Mass - McLean, VA - 20 October 2025

Traditional Latin High Mass in Honor of Blessed Karl of Austria

Monday, 20 October 2025, 8:00 PM

St. John the Beloved Church

6420 Linway Terrace

McLean, Virginia 22101

Reception following Mass.

Please spread the word.  During the reign of Pope Leo XIV, and of Michael F. Burbidge, Bishop of Arlington, the organizers of this Catholic Mass at a Catholic church are forbidden to advertise or promote it.

Cardinal Burke to offer Pontifical Mass in St. Peter's Basilica for Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage, 25 October 2025

It has been announced by Coetus Internationalis Summorum Pontificum that Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke will offer a Traditional Latin Solemn Pontifical Mass at the Altar of the Chair of St. Peter in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome on Saturday, 25 October 2025, for the 14th annual Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage.

Additional information can be found at the Messainlatino website here, and at the Coetus Internationalis Summorum Pontificum website.

Cardinals Burke and Sarah Back Global Push for First Saturday Devotion at 100 Years

At the centenary of Our Lady’s 1925 request at Pontevedra, Spain, Cardinals Raymond Burke and Robert Sarah highlight the need for reparation to her Immaculate Heart.

Edward Pentin

Sep 01, 2025

Cardinals Raymond Burke and Robert Sarah are among senior prelates urging greater participation in the First Saturday Devotion and are backing an initiative that originated in France, aimed at encouraging the faithful to take part.

The Marian devotion, which is centered on making reparation for offenses and blasphemies against Mary’s Immaculate Heart that include denying her perpetual virginity or the Immaculate Conception, promises two immense graces for those who participate with true devotion and repentance: Our Lady’s assistance at the hour of death with all the graces necessary for salvation, and peace on earth.

The 100th anniversary of the devotion is Dec. 10, 2025. To mark its centenary, the “Alliance of the First Saturdays of Fatima” — a French-based global federation of Catholic groups whose mission is to promote and spread the devotion — launched the “First Saturdays of Fatima Jubilee 2025” on Jan. 4, 2025.

Read the rest at Edward Pentin’s Substack.

Additional information at 1st Saturdays of Fatima Jubilee 2025.

Habemus Papam - Leo XIV

V. Let us pray for our Sovereign Pontiff, Pope Leo XIV.

R. May the Lord preserve him; and give him life;

and make him blessed upon the earth;

and deliver him not up to the will of his enemies.

[Ps 40:3]

Our Father. Hail Mary. Glory be.

O God, the Shepherd and Ruler of all the faithful, look with favor upon Thy servant, Leo XIV, whom Thou hast been pleased to appoint pastor over Thy Church: grant him, we beseech Thee, that by word and example, he may be of profit to those over whom he has been placed, and together with the flock committed to his care, attain unto life everlasting. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Roman Forum Comes to Aliquippa - Weekend Lenten Conference, 4-6 April 2025

THE ROMAN FORUM

COMES TO ALIQUIPPA

Weekend Lenten Conference Presented by

Dr. John Rao

Director of The Roman Forum

The Last Crusade:

Proclaiming Christ the King, the Lord of History

Conference Schedule:

First Friday, 4 April 2025, St. Titus Church

952 Franklin Ave, Aliquippa PA 15001

6:15pm Confessions, 6:30pm Rosary, 7pm Latin Mass;

Conference after Mass – Cost $40/person

First Saturday, 5 April 2025, St. George Byzantine Catholic Church

1001 Clinton St, Aliquippa PA 15001

7:30-8am Confessions,

8:15am Akathist (Byz Marian Service),

9am Divine Liturgy

Conference & Lenten Breakfast after Divine Liturgy – Cost $45/person

Passion Sunday, 6 April 2025, St. Titus Church

952 Franklin Ave, Aliquippa PA 15001

1:15pm Confessions, 1:30pm Rosary, 2pm Latin Mass;

Conference after Mass – Cost $40/person

Sponsored By:

Knights of Columbus

Woodlawn Council 2161

+ + + + +

Photos and a brief report on the conference can be found here.

National Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage in Washington, DC - 17 September 2022

From our friends at the Society of St. Hugh of Cluny:

Dear Friends,

Please consider making plans to attend this event in Washington and Arlington,  to show our support for our friends in the Washington area and to protest  recent cancellations of  the Traditional Mass:

Join us on Saturday September 17, 2022 at 9 AM for the National Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage. 

We will mark the 15th anniversary of Benedict XVI’s liberation of the Traditional Latin Mass, and make a public act of sorrow/support of what we will be losing as the Diocese of Arlington and Archdiocese of Washington, D.C. impose devastating new restrictions on the celebration of the TLM. 

The Arlington Diocese restrictions go into effect on September 8, while the Washington Archdiocese’s draconian implementation of the papal decree starts 13 days later on the 21st.

The pilgrimage will begin at 9 AM on Saturday, September 17 at the Cathedral of Saint Thomas More in Arlington, VA, will end when we reach St. Matthew’s Cathedral in DC, and should take about two hours. 

For updates, we now have an instagram, twitter, and Facebook page (all of which can be found @tlmpilgrimage on the respective apps), and we now have a website being tlmpilgrimage.com. 

Please share, as we want this to be as large as possible for such an occasion.

Visit their website:

sthughofcluny.org

Pilgrimage to Madeira with Bishop Athanasius Schneider

Join Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Canon Jean-Marie Moreau of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, and  Suzanne Pearson, Delegate of the Emperor Karl League of Prayer, on pilgrimage to Madeira Island to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the death of Blessed Karl of Austria.

4-11 August 2022

Visit sites from Blessed Karl's life & pray at Blessed Karl's tomb.

For complete travel itinerary visit Sacred Heart Tours.  Additional information at the Emperor Karl League of Prayer website.

 

The novels of Joris-Karl Huysmans – Prophetic Parallels?

I had the great good fortune when I was just sixteen years old of quitting a boarding school in England and finding myself at the University of Fribourg in Switzerland studying French Literature under a brilliant teacher Robert Benoit Cherix – a convert from Protestantism to Catholicism. One series of lectures he gave was on French Catholic Literature in the 19^th century starting with Chateaubriand. Reading a selection of the recommended books the one that impressed me most was "A Vau l'Eau" (Downstream) by Joris-Karl Huysmans which struck me as the most depressing book I had ever read. It is the story of a lowly civil servant trying and failing to find a decent meal in the restaurants of Paris which leads him to total despair.

Huysmans began as a follower of the Naturalist Movement led by Emile Zola. Novels depicting people whose lives were bound and limited by generally awful social conditions. Huysmans followed Zola's example with 'Marthe' the story of a prostitute.; 'Les Soeurs Vatard' about the unhappy love affairs of two sisters and 'En Menage' about failing marriages. However Huysmans gradually fell out with Naturalism and he wrote that it had ended in a cul-de-sac. He saw the characters in these novels as merely cardboard cut-outs without souls. There was no grace which would enable them to do other than to respond to impulses and instincts in their social setting. “A Vau l'Eau” was the beginning of a reaction in that the conclusion for the hero is utter despair – there is no way out. Zola believed in Positivism and Progress. Huysmans did not.

His next and most famous novel was “A Rebours” (variously translated as 'Against Nature'). Here the hero is not a poor civil servant but a rich aristocrat who sets out on a life of seeking every sensual pleasure imaginable. “A Rebours” became a manual for decadence influencing Oscar Wilde and others. Indeed to-day many still regard it as such dismissing all of Huysmans later work. In a later edition of “A Rebours” Huysmans writes in the Preface that each chapter of “A Rebours” entailed deep research into particular sensual specialities such as smell or taste or painting or sculpture. As a disciple of Schopenhauer and an atheist he was constantly surprised by what his researches told him about art and the Catholic Church. How could such a religion 'invented for children' have inspired such glorious works of art? He states that the seeds of his later novels can be found in the chapters of “A Rebours”.

His next novel “En Rade” (“Laid up”) is a curious mixture of dreams, one about visiting the moon, and an account of living in a decaying Chateau amidst a rural scene which he describes with brutal realism and disgust. Huysmans never liked the countryside. There is a particularly gruesome description of the death of a cat. Huysmans was beginning to sense that there was more to life than Zola's 'realism'.

There followed four final novels brought together as “Le Roman de Durtal”. Durtal is Huysmans himself. His interest in dreams in “En Rade” leads to an interest in the life of the spirit with an examination of Satanism in late 19^th century France. The centre piece of this first Durtal novel “La-Bas” (“Down there”) is a biography of Gilles de Raiz, a follower of Joan of Arc, who having lost his fortune hopes to recover it by appeasing Satan with appalling acts of paedophilia. Court records of his eventual trial say that he murdered some 200 children although it might have been considerably more. The reality of Satanic phenomena haunted Huysmans for the rest of his life. Satan has used paedophilia with devastating effect for the Church in our own day.

“En Route” follows and is the story of Durtal's return to the Church. One evening he enters Saint-Sulpice in Paris during the Octave of All Saints when the darkness hides what he calls the hideous nave. “There he could soil his soul without being seen; he was at home”. He recounts how he hears the unctuous speech, and the greasiness of his accent of a well-fed priest pouring out the commonest of platitudes to his listeners and Durtal is filled with disgust. Suddenly though the organ starts and he hears the De Profundis. At first it calls to his pessimism but eventually he is thunderstruck by it. “What music so ample or so sorrowful or so tender that it might be, was worth the solemnities of the Magnificat, the august words of the Lauda Sion, the enthusiasms of the Salva Regina, the distress of the Miserere and of the Stabat, the ever powerful majesty of the Te Deum”. For Durtal the real proof of Catholicism lay in the art it had produced. There follows a long discussion of sacred music based on his research which had started with “A Rebours”. To-day Cardinal Aupetit has clamped down on such traditional liturgy in Paris. You are more likely to hear sacred music on Classic FM than in any church. Ave Verum Corpus seems to be a popular request at the moment. How many realise it is an assertion of the Real Presence in which so many Catholics no longer believe?

Durtal prefers the text of the Dies Irae to that of the De Profundis. Benedict XVI explains in his book “Eschatology Death and Eternal Life” in 1977 how “In the Dies Irae … we hear only of the fear of judgement, which contemplates the End under the appearances of horror and of threat to the soul's salvation.” This was not acceptable to most of his fellow theologians who no longer believed in the existence of the soul or indeed salvation. Benedict wrote that in opposing this “I took up a position which was sharply opposed to the post-conciliar consensus of a seeming majority of Catholic theologians”. Benedict continues “Indeed, the Missal of Paul VI dared to speak of the soul here and there, and that in timorous fashion, otherwise avoiding all mention of it , The soul has been deleted where possible. As for the German rite of burial, it has, so far as I can see, obliterated it altogether.”

In listening to sacred music Huysmans/Durtal suddenly realises that he believes. The rest of En Route is the story of his gradual recovery of the practice of the faith seeking out good liturgy in various Churches; it is a veritable “Good Music Guide” to the Paris of his time. He finds a spiritual director who directs him to orders of monks and nuns and the best plainchant in a Convent of Benedictine nuns in the Rue Monsieur. A convent later to be associated with Gabriel Marcel, Claudel, Maritain, Mauriac etc.

Huysmans/Durtal struggles with his sexual life and the devil. The description of this is graphic to say the least which led many Catholics to say that it was not a book for their daughters and to doubt his sincerity. Eventually his spiritual director sends him to stay in a Trappist monastery where he makes his confession. In fact Huysman's penance was one decade of the Rosary but he was not sure he had got it right and thought he was supposed to say ten complete rosaries. Later explaining to his confessor that he done this, rather badly and grudgingly, he was told that his confusion was merely a stratagem of the Devil to discourage him.

The next book La Catedrale is essantially a guide to Chartres Cathedral describing every statue with great erudition but at the same time a humorous description of his domestic life with his housekeeper and priest friends,

His final book is “L'Oblat”. Huysmans/Durtal had already visited Solesmes and admired the work of Dom Gueranger and his revival of plainchant. However he found the monastery too regimented for him and he realises that he was not suited to the life of a monk. Instead his ambition was to found a group of Benedictine Oblates made up of artists – writers, sculptors, illuminators, composers etc. He therefore buys a house next to what in reality was the Benedictine Monastery at Liguge near Poitiers a daughter house of Solesmes. Huysmans places his fictional version as being near Dijon in Burgundy describing the life of the Monastery and the liturgy in great detail.

Huysmans becomes an oblate but his ambition to create a group of artists fails. One of his fellow oblates is more strict than the monks while his niece wears the day's liturgical colours as ribbons in her hair and at the same time is extremely fond of her food. Being in Burgundy they discuss whether Gevrey-Chambertin should only be used as communion wine or whether it should be drunk at table. They decide on the latter. Despite his dislike of rural life Huysmans/Durtal does see this as his final destination but gradually the shadow of the anti-clerical and free-mason government of Waldeck-Rousseau begins to overshadow everything with its desire to control and limit all religious life.

Huysmans/Durtal wonders whether Leo XIII could not do more to oppose these developments but obviously the political influence of the Papacy had weakened after the loss of the Papal States. Waldeck-Rousseau, a Catholic in the same mould as Biden or Pelosi, disgusts him. Certain clerics are ambivalent; particularly the Bishop of Dijon who appoints a rough and poorly educated diocesan priest to the Parish previously ministered to by the monks. The Bishop decrees that the monks must hand over their Abbey Church every Sunday to this priest who promptly abolishes the use of plainchant and introduces awful modern hymns. Further the monks were forbidden to hear the confessions of the parishioners even those of the oblates. The latter take the train to Dijon and just happen to meet a monk there. Huysmans recounts the ensuing rows with great humour. To-day the present Bishop of Dijon, anticipating Traditionis Custodes by a month, has expelled the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter from his Diocese.

Eventually though the monks are obliged to abandon the Monastery for the third time in just over a century under the “Loi des Associations” of 1905. The monks move to Belgium. Durtal's idyll comes to an end and he returns to Paris. The “Loi des Associations” is still in existence and makes a mockery of the French state's pretensions to Liberte, Egalite et Fraternite. Recently there has been a move to have it challenged before the European Court of Human Rights.

Earlier in En Route Huysmans makes a reference to Saint Lydwine de Schiedam and eventually he wrote her biography. Huysmans's pessimism led him to the consideration of the problem of suffering and he eventually found the answer in the life of Saint Lydwine namely in the mystical theory of substitution; the idea that the suffering of an innocent person can expiate the sins of others and can bring them to virtue. He discusses it in detail in L'Oblat. St Lydwine, born the same year that St Catherine of Siena died, had a skating accident when young and suffered for the rest of her life from what some now believe was multiple sclerosis. Huysmans himself contracted cancer of the jaw and suffered for many years until it killed him. Robert Baldicks's excellent biography gives a very graphic account of his suffering. This mystical theory of dolorism, has its origins in Luke Chapter 2 and Simeon's prophecy to Our Lady that a sword would pierce her heart.

To-day some in the Church regard dolorism as being some sort of aberration. Feminists regard being told “to offer it up” as an example of how women are oppressed. The nineteenth century Comtesse de Segur, author of books for children including “Les Malheurs de Sophie” comes in for a lot of flack as a proponent of dolorism. An order of nuns in France, whose work was the care of the elderly which inevitably involves witnessing much suffering, were suspected of harbouring excessively traditional ideas and they received a visitation at the behest of their Bishop. A criticism of the sisters was that their work day was broken up by prayer. 'Hache' literally axed or chopped up, was the word used for describing how the day was interrupted by prayer. Even stranger was the accusation that the sisters entertained a 'sweetened' version of St Luke's account of the Presentation with undue emphasis on the sword that was to pierce the heart of Our Lady. This was dolorism in the eyes of the visitors and the idea of offering up suffering in expiation of sin was not acceptable. The report was largely withdrawn subsequently but the heavy hand of Cardinal Joao de Braz, of the Congregation for Institutes for the Consecrated Life, was such as to lead the sisters to ask to be released from their vows rather than accept a modernising tutelage. One can only fear for other traditional orders now put under Cardinal Joao de Braz by Traditionis Custodes.

One of the problems in reading Huysmans is his very ornate language; some of his vocabulary is possibly invented or at least unique to him. He is worth the effort particularly if you are interested in sacred art but overall he is probably the most interesting and greatest French novelist of the nineteenth century.

Institute of the Good Shepherd Expelled from Curitiba, Brazil

Communiqué from the Superior of the District of Latin America

Brasília/DF, December 20, 2021

1. We inform you of the existence of an extrajudicial decree by His Excellency, Dom José Antônio Peruzzo, Archbishop of Curitiba, prohibiting the exercise of all priestly ministry to the Reverend Father Thiago Bonifácio, IBP, in the territory of that same Archdiocese. We consider the decree invalid and null according to canon law and natural law. The due canonical suspensive appeal of the decree was filed.

2. We assure the faithful of our apostolate in Curitiba that they will not be abandoned by the Instituto Bom Pastor.

We remain faithful to the Catholic Church, the Holy Father, and the Catholic hierarchy. The Good Shepherd does not abandon his sheep.

Father Daniel Pinheiro, IBP Superior of the District of Latin America

Source.