Sunset

"The most influential American in Rome"

SEE DR. Ed Peter's article, First thoughts on Abp. Burke's promotion to the Signatura.

From what I've heard, this position is roughly equivalent to the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Farewell, Archbishop!

WE MUST NOW say farewell to Archbishop Burke, who today has been appointed by Pope Benedict XVI as Prefect of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, which is the highest judicial body in the Church.

Archbishop Burke, who is now likely to be named Cardinal, is well-suited for his new position; he is a noted expert in the Catholic Church's legal system, canon law, which is a development of ancient Roman civil law.

Archbishop Burke with his Knights of Columbus Honor Guard; photo taken on the Feast of Corpus Christi, 2007.

Having served the Archdiocese of Saint Louis since 2004, Burke has been a champion of orthodoxy and sacred tradition.  His accomplishments include the restoration of the liturgy, supporting the liturgical arts, and greatly increasing the number of candidates to the priesthood.  The secular media, however, hated him for his emphasis on orthodoxy, making him extremely unpopular with those who have little knowledge of the authentic teachings of the Catholic Church:  this promoted division within the Church as well as anti-Catholicism among those outside.

---

In 1968, the world changed.  In 1967, what was called the "Summer of Love" turned into the summer of hatred and revolution a year later.  In 1968, the encyclical Humanae Vitae of Pope Paul VI, reaffirming the perennial Christian teaching on human sexuality, was strongly rejected by many of those basking in the warm glow following the Second Vatican Council.

This led to the greatest crisis in the Church since the Reformation.  Heresy, now called 'dissent', came out into the open.  The Council was now reinterpreted by these dissenters under what is called the 'hermeneutic of rupture and discontinuity', which led to what is arguably a new religion under an old name, based on the principles of the Enlightenment with a bit of biblical window-dressing.

We all know the fallout from this heresy:

• Dissent from authoritative Church teachings.
  
• Ugly, iconoclastic liturgical art.
  
• Dramatic loss of vocations to the priesthood and religious life.
  
• Great decline of the Catholic laity.  The rise of 'cafeteria catholicism'.
  
• Scandalized laity due to misdeeds of the priesthood.
  
• Uncritical use of historical-critical biblical hermeneutics, leading to a marxist interpretation of scripture.
  
• Rejection of sacred tradition.  Secularization and destruction of sacred art.
  
• A loss of the beauty of the Church and a rejection of even the concept of truth.  Moral relativism and subjectivism rejected the pursuit of living a good life in favor of hedonism.
  
• Loss of popular devotion and confession, leading to widespread disrespect of the sacraments.
  
• Open Marxism and a shifting of the Church's social justice mission to heretical causes.
  
• Poor sacred music, simultaneously unmusical and of suspect theology. 
  
• Poor catechesis among the clergy and laity.
  
• Embracing of worldly trends.
  
• Catholics openly belonging to organizations antithetical to the Faith.
  
• Politicians openly supporting heresy with government funds, while still calling themselves Catholic.
  
• Interpretation of the Second Vatican Council based on the 'spirit' of the Council, not on the actual texts, this spirit not being the Holy Spirit.
• Dismissal of the Catholic philosophical and intellectual tradition.
  
• Ugly, formless liturgies.  Bad vestments.
  
• Emphasis on ecumenism with fringe religions, while practicing anti-ecumenism with Eastern Orthodoxy.

The pro-life movement, inspired by Humanae Vitae, remains the only positive outcome of this period.

One of the shining young stars of the Second Vatican Council, Joseph Ratzinger, upon seeing the revolution in the streets in 1968, realized that the Church was about suffer its worse crisis since the Reformation.  He saw that the Council must be interpreted in continuity with the entire history of the Church, and is continuing his mission as Pope Benedict XVI.

Archbishop Burke, in his leadership of the Archdiocese of Saint Louis, did much to correct the problems that started with the rejection of Humanae Vitae.

The world, of course, hates Christ and His Church, and the secular media has shown this hatred throughout Archbishop Burke's leadership of the Archdiocese.  Even this morning, a radio talk show host, nominally Catholic, reported that he is glad to see the Archbishop go: ironically, the host decried Burke harming relationships with various Liberal religious groups while not noticing that he himself was promoting hatred of the Church.  (Although this radio host is generally a decent enough fellow.) I can recall no positive news reportage of the Archbishop by the local mainstream media:  even when Burke strongly promoted immigrant rights (which presumably the media also supports) this was also reported negatively as being divisive among Catholics.  The media consistently employed a divide-and-conquer strategy, attacking either from the Left or the Right.

Liberal religion has thoroughly infected the Church in recent decades. By 'Liberal' I do not mean American-style political liberalism, for the politically right-wing 'health and wealth gospel' is just as much a part of Liberal religion as is the left-wing 'social gospel', and is equally erroneous.  This religion emphasizes the human will, deprecates God's grace, and is essentially Pelagian; it interprets scripture variously according to need, and ultimately sees it as a human-made, and not a divinely inspired text. It deprecates sacred tradition, authority, and reason, in favor of feelings and the autonomous will.  Now as a skeptical religion, one would think that an adherent, full of doubt, would withdraw from society to avoid doing harm; rather, these are quite activist!  We see this in Archbishop Burke's excommunications and admonitions of the past several years.  The media has portrayed conflict with the Archdiocese's former Polish parish as being all about money and control.  While this is partially true, that church has in recent years become an advocate of active homosexual lifestyles and heresy:  those who remember fondly a traditional, immigrant Polish parish ought to know that this is no longer the case.

Liberal religion is metaphysically incapable of being incarnated into its own material institution, for it is a void in Being, and is not a part of Being itself.  At best, in can only subvert existing institutions, and we see this with recent admonitions regarding another parish of the Archdiocese, which was cooperating too closely with a women's ordination group, and Liberal congregations of nominally-different-but-really-the-same religions.  Parishioners there have spread rumors of schism, we shall see what happens.

For years we have been told that there is a priest shortage, and that we must re-imagine the Church and have more lay leadership.  However, this shortage is now known to have been manufactured:  many young men of orthodox leanings were denied entrance into the seminaries.  But Archbishop Burke has corrected this, with a great increase in vocations.

Burke has been a great promoter of the liturgical arts, sponsoring a notable new Shrine in Wisconsin which is opening next month (he says that he will still be present for its opening), as well as a beautiful new Shrine to the Sacred Heart in the Cathedral.  He also strongly supports the old Latin Mass and its sacred music.

HIGH MODERNISM at the Christ the King Chapel of the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows, in Belleville, Illinois, dating from the year 1960.

St. Francis de Sales Oratory Wins “Golden Brick Award”

Renovation efforts at St. Francis de Sales Oratory have now received public recognition with reception of the annual “Golden Brick Award” bestowed by the DeSales Community Housing Corporation. The Corporation, which spun off from St. Francis de Sales parish as a separate legal entity decades ago, gives the award to people and/or projects that have contributed positively to the Tower Grove East and Fox Park neighborhoods. Nominees may include businesses, institutions, or even individuals that have demonstrated a commitment towards improving the neighborhoods.

 

The project which won the award for the Oratory this year was the renovation of the vesting sacristy in the church building, a renovation which resulted in the replication of a chapel built by St. Louis King of France. Although this represents just one project out of many in the restoration of St. Francis de Sales church and rectory, it was considered significant, especially since the sacristy project was involved in a Papal award, the “Bene Merenti,” recently given to Abbe Alexander Willweber of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest.

 

When the Institute was first given the administration of St. Francis de Sales as an oratory three years ago, both the church and rectory—as well as adjoining schools and convent—were in serious states of disrepair. However, the church now displays most of its former glory as the “Cathedral of South St. Louis,” and the rectory has undergone a thorough renovation. Although the adjoining school and convent buildings still await major updating, the work so far has greatly contributed to a general renaissance in the area. Indeed, the Fox Park Neighborhood Association regards the Oratory campus as the “anchor” of the neighborhood.

 

Fr. Karl W. Lenhardt, Rector of the Oratory, Vice Provincial of the Institute, and Episcopal Delegate for the Implementation of the Motu Proprio,Summorum Pontificum, in the Archdiocese of St. Louis will receive the Golden Brick Award on Wednesday evening, July 9, at 5:30pm in a presentation ceremony at the Tower Grove Abbey (2336 Tennessee).

Photo courtesy of the Oratory.

Photo of Corpus Christi Church, in Shiloh, Illinois.

THIS IS Corpus Christi Church, in Shiloh, Illinois.



Click here for an interior photo.

Annual Novena to Saint Ann

THE ANNUAL NOVENA to Saint Ann, grandmother of Jesus, will be held at Visitation/Saint Ann Shrine, in Saint Louis, Missouri, from July 18^th through July 26^th. Masses at 6 am, 11 am, and 6 pm (Sunday Mass at 9:30 am only). The church is now undergoing renovations to be completed by the Novena.

Address:
4515 Evans Avenue
St. Louis MO 63113

Do Your Own D@!# Research!

A READER ASKS:

"Please tell me where in any public school cirricula it says students ought to use drugs????? Please be very specific! As a Catholic who spent 8 years on a public school board in a community where ther is no Catholic High School I want to see a very detailed response...."

What am I? A reference clerk in a library? Your graduate student? Do your own research! Hehehehe....! 

But this research is quite easy.  Just look up "values clarification".  These educational programs are experientially-based and inculcate in students the absolute centrality of autonomous moral choice.  While being superficially intellectual, with endless dreary scientific-rationalistic descriptions of drug use and sexual behavior, oftentimes these programs use emotionalism to push a student into a particular direction, such as showing the horrors of botched back-alley abortions.   Also, let's not forget that teens usually think of themselves as being bulletproof: to them, bad consequences are for other people; so there is only an upside to this new knowledge of sexual techniques and pharmaceuticals.

The biggest values-clarification program is most likely Drug Abuse Resistance Education, or D.A.R.E., which does not tell students not to use drugs, but rather that each student must make an informed, autonomous moral choice, and be consistent with his following through on his choice, while respecting and dialoging with those who have made other choices.

I said:

"The fact that some people use recreational drugs has led to experiential-based public school curricula telling students that they ought to use these drugs if they so choose."

Objectively speaking, recreationally using illegal drugs is either morally good, morally evil, or morally neutral.  D.A.R.E specifically states that they do not portray drug use and violence as morally evil.  As they specifically disclaim that these are moral evils, the only other choices are that teen drugs, sex, and violence are either morally neutral or morally good.  If a student makes the autonomous choice that smoking crack cocaine is morally good, then to be fully consistent with this belief, in the absence of a higher moral good, he ought to do so, otherwise he is not truly following his newly-malformed conscience.

Jesus and the prophets preached morality, and not values clarification.   These kind of autonomous moral choices contradict the Church's teaching on the formation of the conscience. And instead of dialoging with those who think evil is good, rather we ought to avoid the persons, places, and occasions of sin.

Please note that none of this ought to be taken to indicate that I think that I am morally superior to anyone else, nor that I myself live a moral life.  I'm preaching to myself here.  Alas, I'm a sinner and make all of the usual lazy excuses why I'm not a saint.

Photo of Tabernacle

Tabernacle, at Christ the King Chapel, at the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows, in Belleville, Illinois.

Photo of Epiphany of Our Lord Church

Epiphany of Our Lord, in Saint Louis, Missouri

Flooding

Taken last week.

More Photos of Our Lady of Sorrows Church at Dusk

Our Lady of Sorrows Church.

Photo of Our Lady of Sorrows Church, in Saint Louis, Missouri

A Practical Joke on Me

Taken while I was napping after my family's Birthday and Father's Day party last Sunday.

Anniversary Mass for the Canons Regular of the New Jerusalem

THE CANONS REGULAR of the New Jerusalem will celebrate the sixth anniversary of their founding, at the Norbertine Community of Saint Michael's Abbey in Silverado, California, on Saturday, June 21^st, 2008, at 10:00 at the Abbey Church of the Assumption.  This will be a Solemn High Mass according to the Missale Romanum of 1962.  The Very Rev. Dom Daniel Augustine, C.R.N.J., celebrant; the Very Rev. Hugh Barbour, O. Praem., homilist.

Saint Michael's Abbey
19292 El Toro Road
Silverado, California 92676

I Hope All Dads

had a very happy Fathers' Day!

Photo of Saint James the Greater Church, in Saint Louis, Missouri

Celtic Cross

Celtic cross monument at Saint James the Greater Church. Modeled after ancient Irish crosses, this also includes Greek letters of the name Jesus Christ, as well as Alpha and Omega: beginning and end. At the base, obscured by vegetation, it reads "OUR PRIESTS". Surrounding the cross are bricks inscribed with names of church patrons and memorials.

Although technically in the Clayton neighborhood of the City of Saint Louis (as distinguished from the City of Clayton in Saint Louis County), this neighborhood is almost universally called 'Dogtown'. The church is the focal point of an annual Saint Patrick's Day parade.

Cupola at the School Sisters of Notre Dame

Cupola of a building at the School Sisters of Notre Dame, in Lemay, Missouri.

Photo of Saint Bernadette Church, in Lemay, Missouri

Saint Bernadette Church, in Lemay, Missouri.

Photo of Fatima Garden

At Saint George's Church, in Affton (Gardenville), Missouri.

"Is Google Making Us Stupid?"

TECHNOLOGY IS a two-edged sword which simultaneously multiplies our effort while changing the person who uses it.  See the article:  Is Google Making Us Stupid? 

The advantages of having immediate access to such an incredibly rich store of information are many, and they’ve been widely described and duly applauded. “The perfect recall of silicon memory,” Wired’s Clive Thompson has written, “can be an enormous boon to thinking.” But that boon comes at a price. As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

If you use mechanical transportation exclusively, your muscles grow soft, and if you use electronic information retrieval — like Google — exclusively, your brain goes soft too.

This article refers to Marshall McLuhan (1911-1980), a professor of English, a convert to the Catholic Faith who read his way into the Church via G.K. Chesterton, and who taught for a while at Saint Louis University.  Now, McLuhan was quite a bit more critical of the media than supposed: his "global village", formed by ubiquitous international electronic communications, is largely negative in his view because it has the potential to facilitate totalitarianism.

Now McLuhan says that technology is morally neutral, but we should be very well aware of its dangers, like the possibility of a buzz-saw cutting off fingers.  Technology is morally neutral, so it is us who are the moral agents, and morality comes down to individual virtue.  If the Google technology is causing us, for example, to weaken our memory and attention span — both virtues —  then we are using the technology incorrectly; it is a vice. And providers of technology have a far greater moral responsibility than mere users.

Lately I've been taking Latin classes, which as the professor says, "is a cruel language".  But this difficult subject has really been exercising many of my long-disused mental muscles, which amazingly, has changed other parts of my life for the better.

---

Marshall McLuhan had a great devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary and attended the Traditional Latin Mass, and no doubt saw how the medium of the liturgical reform in the 1960s influenced its message of God's graces.  McLuhans's tight coupling between medium and message should get the attention of Catholics:  we ought to be quite familiar with outward material signs (the medium) both indicating and giving something internal (the message), for it is analogous to the sacraments.  For a sacrament to be valid, both the correct outward form and matter of the sacrament must be observed, or in other words, we must use correctly the technology of the media.  However, sacraments must "be administered with the right intention and received with the right dispositions" (Baltimore Catechism), which corresponds to the right moral use of the media. While the graces of the sacraments are supernatural gifts, the messages of the communication media are likewise of spiritual nature, being ultimately intellectual.  But the messages of the media are too often not truth, goodness, and beauty, wherein lies a great danger.

Modern religion often dismisses the need of having any intermediaries between ourself and God, whether either material or other persons.  Obviously this kind of thinking led to many liturgical reforms in the past few decades. But this opinion possibly leads to a kind of blindness to the consequences of intermediaries such as the media and other technologies.  

Photos at Saint Mary's High School, in Saint Louis, Missouri

Saint Mary's High School in Saint Louis, Missouri, dates from 1931 and is run by the Society of Mary (Marianists).



Saint Joseph Chapel.




Statue of the Virgin, donated by the Class of 1955.

Yet Another Cat Photo

And another:

An Unusual Cloud Formation

Photographed today. It looks like a running man with an axe holding a rooster.

Iambic Pentameter

O My! the Artists' Talent I do Lack;
If Only Drawing Were a Gift of Mine -
Some Comic Strips would I prepare for All;
With Robots, Bishops, Talking Cats, and Laughs.

Pro Patria

THE BEST REASON for patriotism is love; a man ought not just support his country for the reasons that it is good or superior, but because it is his, because it is familiar, because it is home, despite its faults. This form of love, affection, or what the Greek philosophers called storge, is not the highest form of love, but it still is good.  Someone who is patriotic in such a way will naturally think that other peoples also love their homeland for the same reason, and can honestly praise a foreign land for its virtues without hating his own land for its faults.  Such a man just wants to be left alone in his beloved but imperfect home, and is willing to let others alone, too.

In the Middle Ages, war was typically a personal matter between kings, being fought by those with a personal loyalty to their superior.  Civilians had little or nothing to do with these wars, and so Christian charity towards noncombatants usually prevailed, and in Europe, this attitude mostly existed until the end of the First World War.  Mass national democracy changed this attitude: the enemy was no longer a single individual, but an entire undifferentiated peoples.  This also changed the definition of patriotism:  no longer would you love your country simply because it is yours.

See the article Dehumanizing the Enemy; Mass democracy, mass warfare, mass barbarism by Andrew Cusack.

The increase of popular power... meant that war now had to be “sold” to the masses in order to ensure their support and prevent domestic unrest. Reasons for war that may have been convincing enough for the upper echelons may not have been convincing enough for the masses to whom they had partly abdicated their authority. The simple war of A versus B was replaced with [that] of a war between Good and Evil. The result of this demagogic shift in concept was for humanity to be restricted to our own side and the enemy to be downgraded to subhuman status.

Patriotism then was conditioned on the belief that one's own country was good and not merely the fact that it was one's own.  More dangerously, this led to the belief that those who were patriotic to a bad country were defective.  The vast increase in democracy between the World Wars, which led to the change in the definition of patriotism, inevitably led to a new kind of warfare:

The very apotheosis of this dehumanization, however, was during the Second World War. The Nazis (partly inspired by American eugenicists) attempted to create a science of determining which men were humans and which were subhuman. In the disgusting process, millions of not only the conquered but even their own German citizens were helplessly slaughtered in consequence, while the citizens of London and other cities were forced to brave the Blitz. The Anglo-American response was scarcely any better. The RAF Bomber Command employed scientists to determine how best to inflict harm upon the enemy populace, not the enemy armies. The result was the firebombing of large urban centers, including purely residential districts, with the directed aim of creating firestorms powerful enough to suck the air from basement raid shelters, thus suffocating innocent women and children in their only protected place.

Although improvements in weaponry and a weak spirit of charity has greatly reduced civilian casualties in some recent warfare, the false new definition of patriotism has remained. Nowadays, some claim that a person must accept national political decisions in order to be patriotic, while others condition their patriotism on national virtue.

Love that conditions itself on the behavior of others is not love at all.  Imagine a child, who tells a parent that he does not love him unless get gets an expensive toy, or a parent who will only love a child if she is good.  Telling others that they don't love you unless they do something is manipulation and most likely sinful; you can't force someone to love you.

Even someone who is not patriotic, who hates her country as an abused child hates her family, ought to realize that others may not share her opinion.  But sometimes they will use national merit as a condition of their own patriotism, which as we have seen, isn't patriotism at all.  This leads such a person to the dangerous belief that those who are patriotic to an unworthy country are sub-human, which has many terrible consequences.

Only the Fittest Ought to Survive

AN EXCEPTIONALLY ANNOYING contemporary irrationality is the confusion between "is" and "ought", where the fact of something's existence is twisted into public policy.

The trend seems to have started in dictionaries, which were originally designed to promote good usage of language by including citations from well-known authorities on the subject.  However, some critics, of good intention or not, thought that actual word-usage was important enough for inclusion in these reference books, despite the fact that a particular usage may be considered incorrect; this was coupled by calls to eliminate old definitions which are no longer in use. However, since dictionaries themselves are often seen as being authoritative, this led to the reference books becoming quickly outdated, while also encouraging a verbal free-for-all. Following this, media style guides have likewise gotten looser over the years, emphasizing ephemera instead of a solid linguistic foundation.  Use of language in the contemporary media is atrocious, and it seems that editors are asleep on the job, or more likely have been fired due to budget cuts.  So the fact that some people use language poorly (and I am one of them) has led to the policy of poor language use on a wide scale.

The fact that some people use recreational drugs has led to experiential-based public school curricula telling students that they ought to use these drugs if they so choose.  The fact of infidelity has led to the policy of infidelity with loose divorce laws.

Likewise consider the fact that sick and disabled animals in nature are not likely to survive long:  "survival of the fittest" is the evolutionary creed.   This fact has now been twisted into the public policy that only the fittest must survive.  See the article:  Drug company supplies cancer drug Oregon Health Plan won't.  

...After her oncologist prescribed a cancer drug that could slow the cancer growth and extend her life, Wagner was notified that the Oregon Health Plan wouldn’t cover it.
It would cover comfort and care, including, if she chose, doctor-assisted suicide.

Get used to hearing stories like this.

The goal of equality leads to rationing, as we see in mens' college sports, the economic difficulties of single-earner families, and now in healthcare.

A more traditional solution would be charging on a sliding-scale, which the pharmaceutical company seems to understand.  The wealthy would get gold-plated and diamond-encrusted hospital rooms, charged at an outrageous rate and an equally enormous profit, while the poor pay whatever they can, even if a very small amount.  It isn't equality in an economic sense, but it all works out in the end; isn't that the kind of equality that really matters?  Transportation has long recognized the sliding scale, with first-class passengers providing nearly pure profit, and enabling inexpensive coach fares.  Please note that all of the passengers, first or last class, get from point A to point B, which is a far greater equality than what would occur if there were rationing.

Photo of Narthex at Saint Francis Borgia Church

Painting in the narthex of Saint Francis Borgia Church, in Washington, Missouri.

AD GLORIAM SS. TRINITATIS.

AD HONOR. B.M.V. ET D. FRANC. BORGIÆ

CURA MODERATORIS HUJUS PAROECIAE P.MART.SEISL.S.J.

MUNIFICENTIA PAROCHIANORUM

HOC TEMPLUM INCEPTUM MDCCCLXVI.

PERFECTUM EST MDCCCLXIX.

A rough translation (corrections welcome):

To the glory of the Holy Trinity.

To the honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Don Francis of Borgia

guardians of this parish's pastor, Martin Seisl, Society of Jesus.

With priests' generosity

this church was started 1866.

Completed 1869.

Correction:

To the glory of the Most Holy Trinity, in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of St. Francis Borgia, under the care of this parish's pastor, Father Martin Seisl S.J., thanks to the generosity of the parishioners, this church was started on 1866 and completed on 1869.

"Archbishop Raymond L. Burke Confers Papal Medal"

From Saint Francis de Sales Oratory:

Last Monday, June 2, His Grace The Most Reverend Raymond L. Burke, Archbishop of Saint Louis conferred the Papal Medal “Bene Merenti” on Abbé Alexander Willwebber of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest for his restoration work on several historic Catholic churches here in the United States.  This award is given by the Holy Father himself for outstanding good works for the Church.

Abbé Willwebber has been the artistic consultant for several restoration projects entrusted to the Institute of Christ the King all over the world and in the USA, like St. Mary’s Oratory in Wasau, Wisconsin, the Shrine of Christ the King Sovereign Priest in Chicago, Illinois, Old St. Patrick’s Oratory in Kansas City, Missouri, and St. Francis de Sales Oratory here in St. Louis, Missouri. While each of these edifices were designed in a different style—St. Mary’s in American Neo-Gothic, the Christ the King Shrine according to early Baroque churches in Rome, and St. Francis de Sales in German Gothic—the work of Abbé Willwebber has enabled each of the churches to recapture its original beauty.

A fine example of Abbé Willwebber’s work is the newly restored North Sacristy of the Institute’s Oratory here in St. Louis.  The sacristy, which is the vesting area for the priest before he celebrates Mass, has been restored to resemble a chapel built for St. Louis of France, the patron saint of our city. 

Archbishop Burke conferred the medal in a short ceremony in St. Francis de Sales’ Rectory at 7:00 p.m., followed by reception for the guest of honor and for Very Rev. Msgr. Gilles Wach, Prior General of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest; Very Rev. Msgr. R. Michael Schmitz, U.S. Provincial of the Institute, Chicago Illinois; Rev. Father Michael Wiener, Episcopal Delegate of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, Oakland California;  Rev. Father Karl W. Lenhardt, Rector of St. Francis de Sales Oratory, Vice Provincial and Episcopal Delegate of the Motu Proprio, Summorum Pontificum for the Archdiocese of St. Louis; Rev. Father William Avis, Vicar of  the Oratory of St. Francis de Sales; and several candidates of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest. 


Father Avis, Msgr. Brier, Msgr. Wach, His Grace, Msgr. Schmitz, Abbé Alexander, Father Lenhardt


His Grace, Msgr. Schmitz, Abbé Alexander, Father Lenhardt


Abbé Alexander, His Grace

Photos and text courtesy of the Oratory.

Photo taken last night during the Our Mother of Perpetutal Help devotion at Saint Francis de Sales Oratory.

Photos of Saint Matthew the Apostle Church, in Saint Louis, Missouri

HERE ARE PHOTOS of Saint Matthew the Apostle Church, in Saint Louis, Missouri.  The church is about four road miles northwest of the Old Cathedral, in The Ville neighborhood.

The distinctive three towers of the church.

The parish was founded in 1893, and the cornerstone of the current church was laid in 1906. Priests of the Society of Jesus have pastored this church since 1959.

The nave after the end of Mass.  This is a fairly small-sized church by City standards, but has nice detail throughout.  The Altar of Sacrifice is now located in the center of the transept, but apparently most of the original liturgical furnishings have been retained.



The tabernacle, below a crucifix and the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and above a depiction of the Last Supper, is in the old high altar.

The stained glass windows here are excellent, but due to negligence on my part, I failed to photograph them.



Address:

2715 North Sarah Street
Saint Louis, Missouri  63113

The Cathedral by Candlelight

A photo taken after the Corpus Christi procession. The Cathedral Basilica was lit by many candles, as well as by subtle indirect lighting.

Blurry people appear at the bottom of the photo due to the long exposure time.