Pius XI On What Catholic Education Ought to Be, And What It Ought Not to Be (Public Education)

Lessons for Today: Why critical race theory and gender theory destroy education, and why even many classical education, liberal arts, and Great Books curricula are not Catholic enough.

In his encyclical on Catholic education, Divini illius magistri, published in 1929, Pope Pius XI told us what Catholic education should aim to do, and what it should not be.

First what it ought to be:

95. Christian education takes in the whole aggregate of human life, physical and spiritual, intellectual and moral, individual, domestic and social, not with a view of reducing it in any way, but in order to elevate, regulate and perfect it, in accordance with the example and teaching of Christ.

96. Hence the true Christian, product of Christian education, is the supernatural man who thinks, judges and acts constantly and consistently in accordance with right reason illumined by the supernatural light of the example and teaching of Christ; in other words, to use the current term, the true and finished man of character.

This means that whatever else appears in the curriculum, what makes the education Catholic is the formation that equips the student to be a good Christian. The goal is to equip the student to be free to seek union with God, and so be supernaturally transformed and informed by divine wisdom. Aside from knowledge of the content of the Faith, this means giving all that the student needs to actively participate in the sacramental life of the Church, and most especially the worship of God in the sacred liturgy. This would mean adequate catechesis prior to receiving the first sacraments, and continued mystagogical catechesis afterward. The deep study of Scripture would be an essential part of this, although it is often missing, even at Catholic schools.

 What it is not:

60. Hence every form of pedagogic naturalism which in any way excludes or weakens supernatural Christian formation in the teaching of youth, is false. Every method of education founded, wholly or in part, on the denial or forgetfulness of original sin and of grace, and relying on the sole powers of human nature, is unsound. Such, generally speaking, are those modern systems bearing various names which appeal to a pretended self-government and unrestrained freedom on the part of the child, and which diminish or even suppress the teacher's authority and action, attributing to the child an exclusive primacy of initiative, and an activity independent of any higher law, natural or divine, in the work of his education.

Catholic and non-Catholic classical schools:

Pius XI does not tell us that there is any requirement for a classical curriculum, a Great Books program, or a Liberal Arts program. These can be complementary to the Faith, but do not teach the Faith directly.

I am an advocate of such traditional curricula, but only if they are taught in such a way that students understand in clear simple terms how what they are learning relates to their participation in the sacramental life of the Church.

If the direct connection to the Faith is not made in such programs, or if they are taught at the expense of more essential subjects that impart a deepening knowledge and understanding of the content of the Faith, then they become, quite simply, alternative forms of pedagogical naturalism, to use Pius XI’s words. Their main value is that at least they are not directly undermining the Faith as public education generally does now.

Good public education?

Until very recently, most public education was based upon the ideas of the American educational reformer John Dewey (1859-1952). He denied the supernatural, so his theories also represent pedagogical naturalism. The main thrust of his thought is that students should be trained for work, and that the only verifiable truth is scientifically proven. This is a diminished understanding of truth and of the role of education, but not necessarily anti-Catholic. Catholic education, as Pius XI stated, can include giving people the skills to earn a living too, and I would argue that it should do so.

However, what Dewey didn’t appreciate is that the supernatural can, to use Pius XI’s words, elevate, regulate, and perfect our activities at work by ordering them to our ultimate end. So a Dewey curriculum will teach life skills, without equipping the student with the wisdom to develop them beyond what is taught and to do so well.

Nevertheless, provided the student is not indoctrinated with Dewey’s worldview and is allowed in addition to study and participate in the necessary aspects of the Faith, then in principle, an excellent Catholic education is still open to him. In many ways, one might argue, a Dewey-plus-Catholicism education would be preferable to a classical education that does not incorporate the Faith. The Catholic elements that are added to a Dewey curriculum might be provided by additional classes at school, through the words and examples of other members of the family, or through a formation at the local parish. This will not always be easy, but at least it is possible.

Jaques Maritain, who critiqued Dewey in his day, thought so. Where this older form of public education prevails within the context of a firm Christian or Catholic culture then a good public education is still available.

In principle.

In practice, however, this is rarely possible for long, given another contradiction inherent with the scientism of Dewey. The scientific method relies on fundamental assumptions, which will only withstand philosophical inquiry if bound to the principle of objective truth, which in turn is only preserved when anchored to the Christian faith. The scientific method grew directly out of the Christian understanding of reality and is inextricably tied to the Faith. When science is separated from Christianity philosophically, it is susceptible to distortion.

I am not referring here to the immoral application of the truths of science. This runs deeper. I am saying that the very capacity of natural science to discern truth, even within the materialistic parameters of the natural scientist, is diminished when the axiomatic truths that form the basis of the scientific method are cast adrift from Truth.

Science imparts an understanding of the natural world; it does not, and cannot, make us masters of it, despite what some might think, for no scientist can alter the natural order that he observes and turn it into the pattern of truth that he or his political masters would like it to be.

However, when separated from the Christian understanding of reality, which is the only one that is consistent with Truth, the scientist is free to assert anything he likes and alter the scientific theories to say what is required, regardless of objective truth. He does this by altering the premises of the scientific method, in accordance with his own, subjective worldview. This is the science of the bureaucrat, the leftist politician, the public health professional and the atheist materialist of any description.

Dewey was guilty of the heresy of scientism, which asserts that the only truths we can know are those that are scientifically verifiable. But this heresy, which is bad enough, leads inevitably to an even greater and more destructive one, that of what I will call, Scientist-ism.

Scientistism is the heresy that says that the truth is what the scientist says it is, regardless of what the science says. It is a form of argument from authority, that rests on a weak authority. Frustrated by the fact that science won’t behave as the Marxist theorists want, they strive to get science to tell them what they want to hear. Corrupt scientists who are controlled largely by government funding (for there is so much of it) assert that the false is true on behalf of their paymasters and call it science, in order to convince us of the truth of their assertion that black is white. Sound familiar?

This brings me to the worst form of education I have seen. This is worse than no formal education at all:

Bad public education

In the most recent iteration of public education, the curricula have been handed over to neo-Marxist theorists, and their ideas dominate public education today from K through to the university level. In the United States it is only relatively recently, as I understand it (I am not American and so I might be wrong), with the Supreme Court decision of Everson v. Board of Education (1947), that Christian prayer was removed from public schools. Regardless, as long as there is no Christian prayer in public schools, and Christianity is not taught by believers to believers or potential believers, then there is nothing to stop the vacuum being filled by any quasi-religious ideologies, provided it is not defined in law as a religion. This is precisely what Marxist ideology is. The goal of the modern manifestations of Marxist ideas, those that have developed since 1947 and are pushed by teachers’ unions, such as Critical Race Theory and Gender Theory, is to form people to be revolutionaries who will destroy every institution they participate in. It is remarkably good at doing this. The theories themselves are not studied directly in classes in public schools; this generally only happens in degree programs such as Gender Studies. Rather, they are assumed to be true, without this being stated explicitly, and then the whole curriculum is built upon its premises at all levels of education, so that each subject is distorted and reflects the Marxist narrative.

No subject, whether it is natural science, fine art, or humanities, is safe from being tainted by this evil. For example, good science that contradicts the Marxist narrative is ignored or condemned, while false science that confirms it is lauded as objective truth.

The moment any of this woke nonsense is tolerated in any form, it steadily works its way into every aspect of the curriculum like an ideological parasite eating away at its host. Teachers and students alike see themselves as victims who endlessly complain and compete with each other for greater victim status, demanding ever-greater concessions to what they demand, which inevitably promotes the Marxist narrative. The teachers are then, in turn, regarded as oppressors by the students. Eventually, all who dissent from their woke worldview will be hectored and chastised as oppressors and haters until they either conform or are removed.

Above: the familiar credo of the progressive left. On the face of it, few would disagree with the sentiments, but the words love, rights, science, kindness, women, and human are not used as a Christian would use them, so in fact, most of these slogans actually mean, in Marxist theory, the opposite of the common use of the word and run against common sense.

The Marxist theorists who developed these ideas and the methods by which they are applied in our schools were very clever. What is presented as the search for justice, and so appears relatively benign and hard to object to, is, in fact, an anti-Christian ideology. It is designed to create angry conflict, by encouraging in its adherents a false perception of oppression, injustice, and deep resentment about every aspect of society, and in every personal relationship in which they participate.

The end game here is not justice, but the creation of conflict, initially with the threat of violence, but ultimately leading to violence. The greater aim is the total destruction of Western values and the world order founded on them. Razing institutions of authentic justice and order to the ground is, they believe, necessary for a new, better order to come in. They never say exactly how the new society will be built or what it will look like. Never, has such an order been observed when they implement their methods, only the destruction and misery that this evil ideology asserts is the means by which the mythical utopia is achieved.

Its power to persuade derives from the fact that it provides a quasi-religious narrative about our lives and our destinies, indulging us in our grievances and resentments and allowing us to blame others for our woes. The false premises of this Marxist narrative are accepted on faith, at the same deep level that we accept the truths of the Faith in our hearts.

Once the desired conflict within an educational institution has been created, the goal is to destroy the capacity of the institution to offer any decent education, as we would understand the word. Instead, students are formed as miserable, bitter, and angry leftist political agitators on a mission to destroy Western society. They go on to cause trouble in every aspect of society in which they participate to an end: greater misery for themselves and those they engage with.

The only way to stop this spread is to stand up to it at first sight and not tolerate it in any form. Otherwise, once it gets a toehold, it will spread like cancer in any institution. This is why Christians must be clear that at every level of life, they refuse the various manifestations of these modern Marxist ideas and the organizations that promote them, whether it is modern Democratic Socialists, teachers’ unions, or the progressives in the Democrat Party who espouse such theories, Black Lives Matter, Jane’s Revenge, or Antifa.

If educational institutions try to accommodate or work with these ideas, they will eventually be destroyed, and being a classical, Great Books, or liberal arts school, or even a Catholic school, is no protection against this effect once these ideas are present.

It takes courage to stand up to it. Verbal abuse, threats of violence, and ultimately the use of it are part of the armory of the left. I pray for God’s grace daily that I will have the courage if needed.

Those who want to be involved in authentic Catholic education might consider taking the Master of Education in Catholic School Administration at Pontifex University - www.Pontifex.University, which has been designed by Fr Peter Stravinskas of the Catholic Education Foundation

Rite by Rote

Why learning of the texts of the liturgy will transform worship, improve singing, improve art, and renew the culture.

In some ways, I am the product of the new-model education that became trendy in the 1970s and which sought to throw out all tradition. The emphasis on experiential learning meant that I had very little formal training in grammar and punctuation - I once managed to talk my way into a job at the Sunday Times as a sub-editor without knowing how to use speech marks. If you think that my work is full of typos now, you should have seen it before Grammarly told me my errors! And I can’t recite a line of Shelley or Shakespeare to save my life, let alone offer you a coherent exegesis of the text. (I even had to look up “exegesis” on the internet prior to writing this paragraph, as I wasn’t sure if I was using the right word.)

As we were going through this educational revolution, many - including my parents - were critical of the trend and argued for the re-introduction of the traditional methods, most simply characterized by the “three R’s - reading, writing and ’rithmetic.” At the time, I was glad to avoid such horrors (as I saw them), but I have to say that now I am not so sure that my 1970s-style education by osmosis given was a good thing. In fact, I am going to suggest that we not only promote all three of those Rs, but also introduce a fourth, one that I hated even more when I was a teenager - Rote.

The purpose of a great books education is to give us familiarity with certain key texts that characterize the culture and so form us to participate in it. Collectively, they form our story, in which, it is hoped, our own personal stories will participate. The more familiar we are with the story of our nation and our people, the more likely we are to be contributors to and conservers of it.

This aspect of education - inculturation by storytelling - is as old as culture itself. The Greeks had the Iliad and Odyssey, the Romans had the Aeneid, and the Israelites had Sacred Scripture, which itself tells us of this principle of inculturation; the story of the Israelites is to be retold to successive generations in order to preserve their faith. At different junctures, it describes how this was done in order to redirect a straying people; for example, we see Moses, Joshua, and Samuel in the Old Testament, and Stephen and Peter in the New, doing just this.

As Christians, we are Israelites by adoption, and any education that doesn’t focus on the Bible, or does not make it a central part of the education, is not Christian. In our case, we need both the Old Testament, the original Scripture, as referred to by St Paul in his letters, for example, and the addition to this, the inspired Scripture of the New Testament (including Paul’s letters). It is the latter that connects us to the former, bringing the Gentiles into Israel through Christ, which completes the story of salvation for all humanity. I am all for learning other classical texts that typically make up the Great Books curriculum too; they represent good supporting material, but I would say that they are not absolutely necessary. However, an education that has classical texts but little or no Scripture is a waste of time.

You can’t become a doctor by taking the course in a pre-med program, no matter how thoroughly you know the material. Studying Dante, Beowulf or even Greek philosophy is not a bad thing, but it is wrong to place these at the center of our education or to see them as absolutely necessary. The study of salvation history, on the other hand, ought to be mandatory. I don’t regret at all having had little or no exposure to classical texts in my education. I find literature, and poetry especially, incredibly dull. But I do wish I had learned the value of Scripture.

If we were Protestant, the discussion would stop there, but we’re not. The liturgy itself is a living-out of the story of salvation, a drama in which we are participants. The study of salvation history in Scripture prepares us for the worship of God in which our formation as Christians is more profound. The Bible is dependent upon the liturgy for its true meaning - it was written to be proclaimed in a liturgical context (as well as studied outside it), and contains much of the blueprint for it.

Jean Danielou’s book The Bible and the Liturgy explains this well, to quote from the summary of the book written by the publisher:

The Bible and the Liturgy illuminates, better than has ever before been done, the vital and meaningful bond between Bible and liturgy. Father Daniélou aims at bringing clearly before his reader’s minds the fact that the Church’s liturgical rites and feasts are intended, not only to transmit the grace of the sacraments but to instruct the faithful in their meaning as well as the meaning of the whole Christian life. It is through the sacraments in their role as signs that we learn. So that their value will be appreciated, Daniélou attempts to help us rediscover the significance of these rites so that the sacraments may once again be thought of as the prolongation of the great works of God in the Old Testament and the New.

The deepest participation in the liturgy will come from an intimate awareness of the texts, as well as a deep understanding of their meaning and through them, how to engage, body, soul, and spirit with the dynamic exchange of love that is taking place. This is where rote learning comes in.

The more we know and understand the texts and can sing those parts we are required to without having our noses buried in a book, the more we can engage authentically with what is happening. It will allow us, for example, to engage with art. Furthermore, we are likely now to require art that speaks of all the liturgical activity going on, and it is this that will stimulate the reestablishment of an authentic schema of liturgical art in our churches, one that actually nourishes our prayer. This, in turn, could become a powerful driving force for cultural change, for it is the forms and styles that are intimately connected with authentic worship that will drive this.

For those who wish to learn to pray with sacred art, especially in the context of worship, freeing ourselves up to look at the art in the church or icon corner will help; knowing and understanding the texts and their chants, gives us the ability to sing along, so that we are less reliant on the missal and the psalter that will do this. I am not expecting memorization of the whole text of the liturgy, but we should start somewhere if we haven’t already. The more we can do this, starting with those that are repeated most often, I suggest, the freer we will be.

Authentic liturgical art induces right prayer when we take the trouble to look at it during our worship. Currently, in my observation, (thinking now of the pious and orthodox) there is very little engagement with art beyond devotional prayer, and so it becomes too much an internalized, introspective cerebral activity. This contemplative aspect should be there too, make no mistake, but it should not dominate to the degree that it does. I had these same thoughts in mind with previous postings about Baroque art in the Latin Mass and the placement of choirs in the church.

In my opinion, the damage to our culture and our faith through this lack of engagement of the whole person cannot be underestimated. The prospects of cultural renewal are greatly diminished without it, and in my reading of history, this may well have been what caused the dislocation between the culture of faith and contemporary culture that Benedict XVI describes as taking place in the early 19th century, in his book the Spirit of the Liturgy.

I am currently attempting to put this into practice myself. Rote learning is a very difficult process for me - especially as I am now in my late 50s - but I am doing my best. I sing repeatedly the texts of the liturgy so that I can look at my icon corner as I do so. I have set myself the target of learning by heart  the chants of oft-repeated liturgical passages, the hymns, psalms, canticles, prayers and so on.

For a man to start doing this in his late 50s is a difficult task. If I had been given the chance in my first 10 years of life, the riches that it would have given me would have been great. Still, I am where I am...back to the Gloria and the Benedictus!

Scala Foundation - Playing a Crucial Role in the Evangelization of the Culture and Breaking the Mould of Education

Attend the spring conference: Art, the Sacred, and the Common Good, at Princeton, NJ, April 30th, 2022. Free to register and attend.

I want to highlight the work of Margarita Suarez Mooney who is the founder and CEO of the SCALA Foundation (named from the Latin word for ladder). The Scala Foundation’s mission is to renew American culture by restoring beauty and wisdom to the liberal arts. Scala’s seminars, reading groups, conferences, summer programs, and online resources help educators and culture creators engage the millennia-old tradition of liberal arts education and its power to form virtuous, purpose-driven citizens, form young leaders who are pivotal agents of cultural renewal, and build communities of like-minded cultural entrepreneurs and magnify their impact.

Some may remember that I recently spoke on the Scala webinar, listen here. She has also invited me to be on a panel for the SCALA 2022 conference - Art, the Sacred, and the Common Good - in Princeton NJ this April, which is free to attend.

The focus of Scala is in creating creative communities at a local level that are able to contribute to Catholic education locally and to the culture through the creation of art, music, literature etc (eg she organizes writers' workshops).

It occurs to me that Scala is offering programs that complement formal online education, such as that offered by www.Pontifex.University, where I work, and when the two approaches to student formation are combined offer a genuine opportunity. The zoom revolution that has happened as a result of Covid has opened up people’s minds to the idea of online education.

The advantages of this are that high-quality and standardized educational material can be delivered at a fraction of the cost of the traditional on-campus experience. However, I am conscious that providing community of learning - so important in education - is the weakness of online education and while things are improving, it is clear that Facebook pages and chatrooms don't fill the gap. This is where Scala comes in. They are guiding educators and artistic creatives who can contribute to a culture of beauty to form communities locally.

I am encouraging our Pontifex students to attend and participate the conferences and events and meet each other, (and me if they are interested!) so that they might be inspired to start to form communities with each other locally under Scala's guidance. It is these local communities, it occurs to me, which might be portals for grace and love that can transform the culture.

First Issue of Sophia Press’ Benedictus (August 2021) Now Available

A surprise greeted me in my mailbox last week on July 7 (an auspicious date, to be sure): the first-ever full issue of Benedictus, the new daily Latin Mass companion published by Sophia Institute Press. This issue covers the whole month of August. Readers may recall that this initiative was announced at NLM on February 10.

My hopes were already high, given the short sample that was mailed out during Lent and the detailed advertising, but I have to say that the first issue exceeds all my expectations. It is an absolutely gorgeous publication. I will share now some photos along with brief comments. (If any of the images are blurry, that’s the fault of my bucket-o’-bolts camera; make due allowances.)

For the sake of scale (it’s a compact book that would fit in a purse or a jacket pocket, but not a pants pocket; a bit larger than Magnificat):

The two-tone artwork (black and gold) with gray shading is more elegant by far than anything I’ve seen in a missallette like this; the layout is handsome, the font easy on the eye; the meditations and features are exquisitely chosen from traditional sources, which will be one of the great benefits Benedictus bestows on its users.

First, for the layout of the Order of Mass, which is repeated with full Propers and Ordinary for each Sunday and Holy Day (so, no page turns in those cases):

 

 

 

Continue Reading this Article. . .

A New PK-12 Catholic Classical Academy in San Francisco

Stella Maris Academy, a new school in San Francisco, California, that offers a Catholic classical education, will open in the fall; see their website here: stellamarissf.org. Applications for admission are currently being accepted for the 2021-22 school year. Applicants for kindergarten must be five years of ago on or before September 1st, 2021. Younger students will be considered for PK and TK programs. The initial focus is on the years up to second grade, but classes in other years will be offered in addition if sufficient numbers of students apply.

Under the guidance of the newly appointed Head of School, Gavin Colvert Ph.D, the school is connected to Star of the Sea Catholic Church, a beacon of orthodoxy and beautiful liturgy in the city, offering both the TLM and Novus Ordo Masses. For more information on the curriculum, write to admissions@stellamaris.org or call 1 415-745 2474. It is, in my opinion, through the communities founded on the pillars of the family, the school and the parish that hope for evangelization will emerge. San Franscisco and the Bay Area needs such projects to succeed, so I encourage support for this noble and worthy project. I ask people to consider supporting this project in any way they can. The address is 4420 Geary Blvd, San Francisco, CA 94118; website: www.stellamarissf.org; general enquiries: 1 415-751-0450.

T

Using Sacred Art to Form Children to Resist the Lure of the Internet

I recently attended a wonderful presentation promoting the creation of K-12 schools on a Catholic model of classical education. In this particular example, there was a core curriculum based upon a modern interpretation of the first three liberal arts, the ‘Trivium’ (logic, rhetoric, grammar), and the reading of Great Books.

A lot of the sidebar chat in the (Zoom) forum focused on the detrimental effect of the internet on education, and of the use of cell phones and tablets on children’s psychological development. Particular worries were the effects of social media and the addictive allure of subversive imagery. It was suggested that the answer was to remove such devices from children in school, even if it meant sacrificing access to good educational tools that the internet might also provide. The argument being made was that traditional classroom pedagogy is the best form of education, and that a good Catholic education would form students in virtue so that as adults, they would be better able and more inclined to choose well and resist temptation.

As I was listening to the discussion, it occurred to me there is another traditional and focused way to form students’ power to choose images well, by using sacred art. If used well, I thought, perhaps it might allow us to give students greater freedom, earlier and without worry.

Boys particularly respond to visual stimulation, and are therefore more likely to succumb to visual temptation. If students are formed to love the highest form of art, this is what their mind’s eye will be attracted to, and these are the images that will occupy idle imaginations. People are susceptible to the allure of what is bad if they are ignorant or not sufficiently attached to what is good, and so don’t have the full freedom to choose. My thought is that one factor in the wave of addiction to disordered imagery is insufficient exposure to beautiful imagery. There is a prejudice in modern Catholic education, it appears to me, that only book-learning is authentic education. Although lip-service will be paid to the goals of exposure to the good, the true and the beautiful, often, education involves the study of philosophical ideas and literary culture in such a way that other aspects of the culture, which are just as important, are neglected.

If there is a concession to a broader vision, a departure from Great Books as an object of study is more likely to focus on sacred music than sacred art. In my experience, art is still seen as a secondary facet of education - a bit of recreation that punctuates the serious business of “authentic” intellectual formation. I think that the Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, and the martyrs who died defending the principle of the veneration of holy images, would be dismayed at how little attention is paid to the formation of an appreciation of visual beauty through the study of art and artworks in our students today. I am not criticizing what is done already, all this is good, but I am suggesting that more ought to be done.

The three most powerful ways to acquaint people with good art in general education are also fundamental to the training of artists: 

– The first is to instruct students to draw and paint sacred art. Anyone can be taught to draw and paint at a basic and satisfying level, so this activity should not be limited to only those with artistic talent. The focus can be on any of the traditions of sacred art: iconographic, Gothic, or Baroque traditions in figurative art, and on geometric and patterned art.

– The second is a mystagogical catechesis that teaches students to engage with sacred art when worshiping God in the context of both the Mass and the Divine Office. The absence of this engagement with imagery in the worship of God today, even amongst pious Catholics, is striking. We must work on getting people’s noses out of their Missals and with heads up and facing East, once again addressing Jesus Christ and the Saints through images in the church.  

– The third aspect of the training is an inculturation that teaches the students about the history and content of the art they are looking at.   

Developing the habit of praying daily with sacred art is the most important discipline of the three. 

The importance of the study of good imagery in the way described has long been understood. Artists particularly will comment on its value in the formation of artists. It was assumed that artists who painted sacred art were particularly anxious that they should be exposed only to the highest art if they wished to paint works of the highest quality. Peter Paul Rubens, for example, writing in the 17th century, stresses how important it is to choose the right imagery and not to cloud the memory and the imagination with poor quality images:

“To some painters, the imitation of the antique statues has been extremely useful, and to others pernicious, even to the ruin of their art. I conclude, however, that in order to attain the highest perfection in painting it is necessary to understand the antiques, nay to be so thoroughly possessed of the knowledge that it may diffuse itself everywhere...It is certain, however, that as the finest statues are extremely beneficial, so the bad are not only useless but even pernicious. For beginners learn from them I know not what that is crude, liney, stiff, and of harsh anatomy.” (Peter Paul Rubens, from his essay De Imitatione Statuorum as reproduced in the book, Baroque by John Rupert Martin )

It should be understood that the pursuit of art to a Christian end was seen at this time as an aspect of virtue, one that would elevate the artist’s soul as much as those of his audience; and furthermore, that the study of great art was as important to the artist’s soul as the development of his skill.

As a principle of education, the more we focus on a love of the good, the less the risk to our immortal souls when exposed to what is bad. Given the internet’s particular threat to the immortal souls of young people today, it is time to focus on a concentrated exposure to good images as the best defense against this. If the memory and the imagination are not populated with images of the highest order, then images of the lowest quality will be sucked into the vacuum as an occupying force.

This might then open the way to greater use of the good that the internet can offer in education.

A New Master of Education Program in Catholic School Administration

A New Program With a Curriculum Designed by Fr Peter Stravinskas, President of the Catholic Education Foundation

Pontifex University is now accepting students for a new program, designed by the director, Fr Peter Stravinskas, who is President of the Catholic Education Foundation; it will enable administrators to permeate the school curriculum with Catholic moral values and teaching, and so form the students with a Catholic worldview.

An interview with Fr Stravinskas about the program is published in Catholic World Report. In it he states:

The rationale for this program is simple: The Church in the United States needs Catholic schools today more than ever. The indispensability of the school underlies the conviction of the Church Universal as enunciated in Gravissimum Educationis, various documents of the Congregation for Catholic Education, as well as in the statements of the Popes and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Our schools are highly regarded within the community of the Church and in society-at-large.

All that having been said, however, it is equally clear that in the foreseeable future, our schools will be run predominantly by laity, many of whom have not had a Catholic elementary and/or secondary school education themselves or who have had poor experiences of such; even many of the clergy and religious currently involved in the Catholic school apostolate fit into the same category.

Most courses carry three credits. Thirty credits are needed for the degree, with 28 of those credits comprising required courses; thus, a student will be able to choose from five or six courses for the one elective.

These are the required courses: Organization & Administration of Catholic Education; Philosophical Foundations of Education; Psychological Foundations of Education; Civil & Canonical Issues in Education; Finances for Catholic Schools; Curriculum Development & Evaluation in the Classical Mode; Formation of Catholic School Teachers; History of American Catholic Education; The Way of Beauty: The Catholic Cultural Heritage; Educational Research.

Some electives are Catechetics for the Catechist, The Spiritual Life of the Catholic School, and School Community Relations. A thesis will also be required.

Those who are interested to know more about the program itself should go to the Pontifex University website, here. Enrollments are online through www.Pontifex.University, you can access the page, here.

Education and Devotion: A School of the Lord’s Service - Guest Article by Ferdi McDermott

We wish to thank Mr Ferdi McDermott, the headmaster of Chavagnes International College, for sharing with us this essay on the place of the liturgy and the Extraordinary Form in a Catholic education. Mr McDermott is a graduate of the universities of Edinburgh and Buckingham, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, the Chartered College of Teaching, and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. When not busy teaching and administering Chavagnes, he is currently completing a doctorate in Education at the University of Buckingham.

At Chavagnes International College, our English Catholic boarding school for boys, situated in the west of France, near Nantes, Mass is celebrated daily in the main College Chapel, Monday to Friday according to the 1962 missal, for all boys and Masters. On Sundays, Mass and Vespers in the Extraordinary form attract parents of pupils and a growing local following of friends and supporters. In addition, there are confessions, adoration, Benediction and other devotions held regularly in our chapel. The strains of Gregorian chant can be heard every day. Why, might you ask, do we place the Church’s liturgy at the heart of our life as a school? Perhaps I may answer this by an attempt at telling the story of Catholic education from an English standpoint, and with a very long view.

Solemn Mass in the chapel at Chavagnes

At Chavagnes, we take as our blueprint the checklist for Catholic schools from Vatican II’s Gravissimum Educationis: a broad education not just confined to religious teaching, a deep education which creates a habit of intellectual discipline, a moral formation and, lastly, a formation in prayer, especially in the context of the Sacred Liturgy. That document is nearly sixty years old now. But its philosophy is much older, as I will try to show.

When, about twenty years ago, I was setting up Chavagnes International College, I studied the handbooks of several leading English public schools for inspiration. Browsing through the correct and crisp prose on the arcana of uniform, haircuts and sports gear, I noticed a common feature of several leading boarding schools that surprised me. Boys were not only expected to attend daily chapel services, but especially obliged to be present in chapel on a Sunday, to keep the Sabbath day holy. In cases where parents took their sons home for the weekend, they were asked to provide the name and telephone number of the incumbent of the parish their son would be attending, to enable the school authorities to check that he had been to church. I even heard anecdotes of rich step-fathers waiting outside English country churches in their comfortable convertibles while their sleepy stepsons who had been hauled out of bed after a night of partying, dozed through Prayer Book Mattins and a dreary sermon in a discreet pew near the back door.

Nowadays such happenings are rare. Priorities have sadly changed. And with covid and its lockdown, many things will never be the same again. But within living memory, our nation’s leading places of education recognised strongly the centrality of worship to education. Moreover, the only mandatory elements of State education until the 1980s were Christian Religious Instruction and a daily act of worship. No other country in Europe had a similar law. The roots of this tradition are very deep. In England today we still have hundreds of schools founded during the first millennium of English pre-Reformation Christianity. That is unique. And despite the trauma of the Reformation, many had, until perhaps the last decade, held on to the idea that the best education is one which has the worship of God at its heart. As I approach 50 next year, I remember with fondness the country primary school where we read the Bible, prayed several times a day and sang traditional hymns. It all seemed completely normal then.

Later on, at senior school, there were perhaps fewer prayers, but there was much more study of Scripture, and as a chorister I got to sing plenty of Palestrina, Bach and Mozart. I was a Catholic boy in an Anglican school. But I could tell it was a good one. And a positive experience of both primary and secondary school got me interested in education at an early age.

Let me tell you about the first ever Catholic boarding school for boys … in the late 2nd century, in the shadow of the great library of Alexandria, where, three centuries before, the chief librarian Eratosthenes had first calculated the circumference of the globe, St Clement of Alexandria ran a school for boys where the mathematics of Pythagoras, the oratory of Cicero and the epic poetry of Homer were taught alongside not only Sacred Scripture and Christian doctrine, but also Greek athletics and dance. And every day, the pupils would recite the psalms and attend the liturgy. In fact they spent an incredible amount of time singing, and here is a hymn that Clement composed for them to sing, probably outside of the liturgy, and perhaps as they danced! I give it in an English translation which, although it omits many of the beautiful metaphors (the boys are untamed foals; Christ is the bit in their mouths; they later go out with him to haul in the fishes, etc) it is at least rhyming, metrical and easy to sing (to the melody of “Thou whose almighty Word” Translation by H. M. Dexter, 1909-14, in Hymns of the Christian Church, The Harvard Classics.).

SHEPHERD of tender youth
Guiding in love and truth
Through devious ways;
Christ our triumphant king,
We come Thy name to sing;
Hither our children bring
Tributes of praise.

So now, and till we die,
Sound we Thy praises high,
And joyful sing.
Let all the holy throng
Who to Thy Church belong,
Unite and swell the song
To Christ our King!

We need to move on three hundred years to the Rule of St Benedict in the sixth century to understand how this great tradition came to spread throughout Europe and strike very deep roots in distant England. In his Rule, Benedict calls the monks to practise each day a specific kind of prayer called ‘meditation’ in which the Christian repeats in a low voice the words of a sacred text, over and over, to draw out the meaning. But he can only do that if he can read the words. So Benedict orders that during 'meditation time' the boys, together with any men under 50 who cannot yet read, must be taught their letters. And then in addition the whole psalter should be recited each week, as well as the celebration of Masses. But monasteries, even before St Benedict, were not only places of prayer; they were also the repositories of secular knowledge going back to the Greeks. And schools qua schools, such as there were, were always very much communities of prayer.

These were the places that kept the light of civilisation burning while everything seemed to be collapsing in Europe. And it was the new rule of St Benedict which gave a new impetus to monasticism and to education, thus coming to the rescue of cultural continuity and also of the spreading of the Gospel . But this important role which the Rule of St Benedict played in the promotion of Christian education and culture is really all down to one man, St Gregory the Great.

In the 6th century, Gregory was a rich young man who had set up a community following St Benedict's Rule in his family villa. When he became Pope, he famously sent Augustine all the way to Canterbury with a group of Anglo-Saxon boys discovered in the slave market of Rome. He had seen these fair-haired youths and wondered at their strange appearance. When he enquired as to their identity he was told ‘Angli sunt’, meaning “they are Angles”. ‘Non angli sed angeli’ … “Not Angles, but angels … if only they were Christians” he is said to have answered.

And so the boys were bought out of slavery, then no doubt offered a few hot dinners and fresh clothes, before accepting baptism and the monastic tonsure. Thus was English Catholicism born. They accompanied Augustine across the channel as his translators. And out of this community grew the first English Catholic boarding school, with the worship of God at its heart. First there was Canterbury, then Rochester. Other monastic schools began to spring up everywhere in England, under the influence of St Gregory’s Regula Pastoralis. Several of them still exist today, 1,400 years later. It ought to be mentioned that in the Celtic fringes of the north and west, and in Ireland, the Catholic faith had been present since Roman times. In Ireland, monastic schools, and even whole monastic villages, had existed since the 5th century.

We know all about the adventures of St Augustine of Canterbury from the writings of St Bede, who himself benefited from a 7th century monastic education in the monastery of Jarrow, near Durham, in the north of England. Bede wrote mighty pedagogical treatises too, proof that only a generation or two after the mission to the Anglo-Saxons, the school system was well and truly up and running all over England.

In the 9th century, King Alfred the Great, who himself translated Pope Gregory’s Regula into Anglo-Saxon, trenewed the call across the land, during a substantial 15-year period of truce with the Danes: "education for all." And that meant girls as well as boys. The main thing was to learn to read, so that the knowledge of books and the words of prayer could enter the soul through the window of the eye. And not just Latin, but also Old English. Thus, when the Normans conquered England two centuries later in 1066, they subdued a pragmatic, more egalitarian and more learned race which already had a flourishing written literature in their native tongue, while written French was only in its infancy.

And so in what we came to call the Dark Ages, with the Roman Empire in collapse and the threat of the Norsemen ever present, the English (with the Welsh, the Irish and the Scots) busied themselves with the creation of centres of prayer, culture and learning. In a climate of uncertainty, but in a spirit of faith, the whole of England had taken, as it were, “the Benedict Option.” The teaching of Greek suffered a decline, but the Latin flourished and many Greek stories were retold in Latin, while the mathematical writings of Euclid, translated into Latin, were widely studied. There was no imperial system to keep all this going, but the Church made a surprisingly good job of it, especially in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, despite their considerable distance from Rome. Continental Europe was in turmoil, but in faraway Britain even the girls went to school, while in Ireland, the penitential monks were busy reciting all 150 psalms, not weekly, but daily. They were praying like mad … for Europe. While Alfred started his chain of Saxon schools, Charlemagne did the same in France. But he needed an Irishman (St Clement of Ireland) to run his cathedral school for boys in Paris, while an Englishman (Alcuin of York) ran the Palace School in Aachen (Aix la Chapelle).

When at the end of the 13th century, Innocent III asked every religious house in Christendom to open a school, England already had a massive head start. By the time of the Reformation there were Catholic schools in every English town: monastic schools, chantry schools, colleges, grammar schools, all founded with the gifts of the faithful and built on daily prayer and worship. Hundreds of them still exist, although they have sadly departed from the faith that prompted their creation.

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“What One Good Teacher Can Do: A Musical Reminiscence” by Fr Anthony Cekada†

Gregory DiPippo informed readers last Friday, September 11, of the death of Fr. Anthony Cekada. Although I never met Fr. Cekada in person, he and I would exchange emails from time to time on musical matters. Readers are no doubt aware that he was a great lover of sacred music in all its varieties. At one point, when we were discussing easy choral Masses in Latin with organ accompaniment, he offered to send me copies of a number of Masses for two- and three-voices, which I gladly accepted. He ended up sending me a considerable number of them, which I still have on my bookshelf.

On June 15, 2016, Fr. Cekada sent the following article, with illustrations, to his email list. I knew that Father was a composer of modest and useful sacred music, but I had not realized the extent of his musical training until this charming article and its illustrations. I thought it would be a fitting way to remember him, in spite of the fact that we obviously had profound disagreements in matters of ecclesiology. The article was prefaced with a note.

"Dear Fathers, Seminarians, Church Musicians, Teachers and Friends,

"During the past week or so, I’ve had a lot of correspondence with musicians, including some professionals who live by this glorious art. In one exchange, I told the unusual story of my own musical education in my early and mid-teens. It took place over two intense years, exactly a half century ago. The education took me from being an untrained but eager musical ignoramus at 14 to being the accomplished and technically adept orchestral composer of a major work at 16. The credit for my transformation belongs to one amazing man: Michael P. Hammond. The story of what he did and its final outcome is a testament to the lasting and profound change that one good teacher can make in the life of a willing student.

"Unfortunately, Mr. Hammond soon departed for another teaching post. His successors spurned the traditional principles he had taught me and insisted we composed noisy, irrational junk. I quit composition in disgust, turned to the organ, put all my works away, and, for a half century, gave little thought to my teenage composing days. But very recently, you’ll see, I went back for a look at the music I had composed. It was only with fifty years perspective that I could see in it the miracle that Michael Hammond worked on the teenage Anthony Cekada. I thank God for Michael Hammond — and all great teachers like him!"

“What One Good Teacher Can Do: A Musical Reminiscence”

Fr. Anthony Cekada†

Michael Hammond was not a composer, but he was an amazing man and musician. When I met him, he was about 30, and had just been appointed director of the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and of the Milwaukee Civic Orchestra.

I studied with him for a mere two years, 1966-1968, when I was 15–17. To me, Mr. Hammond was a spectacular speeding comet, shedding bright light on all corners of the musical universe and leading me on an exhilarating, non-stop journey towards excellence in the composer’s craft.

By that time, Mr. Hammond was already the complete Renaissance man — a polymath in classics, philosophy, sociology and medicine; Rhodes scholar; student at Oriel College; expert in medieval polyphony; instructor in physiology and anatomy at the University of Wisconsin; researcher in neuroanatomy; student of Indian music and the sitar under Ravi Shankar, and, incredibly, a speaker of the Menominee American Indian language! After he left the Conservatory, he would go on to become founding dean of the music department at SUNY-Purchase; Assistant Conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski, conductor of the Norman Dessoff Choirs; dean of music at Rice University; president of Rice University, and in 2001, be appointed by President Bush as the eighth chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts.

When I began studying with Mr. Hammond, my only previous musical training consisted of Catholic grade school music classes, singing the daily High Mass with the rest of the children and going to concerts, courtesy of the wealthy lady who employed my father as her chauffeur. In grade school, I desperately wanted to play the piano, but it was physically impossible to get one into our tiny apartment.

Fortunately, when I started high school in 1965 at age 14, I finally got access to pianos, and better yet, to practice organs. I found a nun to teach me organ.

I promptly composed my first piece, an organ march to be played after Mass. (Ex. 1).

At the same time, I began trying to compose sacred choral music by studying scores of the old masters and trying to imitate them. The post-Vatican II liturgical changes has just been introduced, and the new music that came with it revolted me. Everyone else might produce insipid musical junk for Mass, but not the teenage Anthony Cekada! He would learn how to be a composer and then write real sacred music!

My father’s employer, Paula Uihlein, was a great patroness of the arts in Milwaukee, and when she got wind of this, she arranged for me to meet Mr. Hammond, who had just taken up his post as the conservatory director.

I brought Mr. Hammond all my compositions, and told him what I aspired to do: compose good, traditional sacred music. He said that what I’d shown him was very promising and showed that I had a real ear for the older styles, but that I needed to learn all the correct rules of technique.

The program Mr. Hammond laid out for me was this. Two years of piano training, then organ. He would personally tutor me in counterpoint, in those those principles of composition and theory where he thought I needed the most help, and in introductory orchestration. These lessons, he said, I could immediately apply to my own compositions — a point that he probably figured would keep my interest fired up.

When I graduated from high school, Mr. Hammond added, I should then coordinate taking the formal composition curriculum at the Conservatory with my theology courses at the diocesan seminary. This would ensure that in the long run there would be no gaps in my formal training.

So each week, I spent a very intense hour or so in Michael Hammond’s office, correcting exercises, learning principles and making practical applications to my compositions-in-progress. He was an astoundingly lucid teacher and an exemplary mentor.

To begin our sessions, Mr. Hammond had me select any score from the library or his office that interested me, and pick a page or two in it. We’d then go through my selection to understand what was going on musically and why. At first, I picked Bach cantatas or Mozart symphonies, and I was amazed at his ability to do on-the-spot piano reductions of the dozen instrumental staves [stacked lines of music showing the note for each individual instrument], often in different keys. Little stinker that I was, I later started to test him by picking monster scores from Wagner, Mahler, Stravinsky and Schoenberg. None of it fazed him in the least — instant reduction, then ”Here’s the musical context... Now look at this, this and this…”

After two years of this, alas, Mr. Hammond was off to Purchase and to Stokowski. But what practical effect, if any, did his tutoring have on the musical compositions of Anthony Cekada, 16-year-old aspiring composer?

Up until a few days ago, I couldn’t have given you a clear answer. Sure, Mr. Hammond’s tutoring had undoubtedly improved my composing, but I couldn’t have told you much about how or why. In 1970, I sealed up my completed scores in two envelopes, and never looked at them again.

But my discussion with a young musician on Monday piqued my curiosity, so I opened the envelopes and pulled out the scores. What I found after 45 years absolutely astounded me. I had come to Michael Hammond as a musical ignoramus with grade-school music training, but full of teenage eagerness to get things right. After just two years with him, here is some of what he got me to produce:

A homophonic Ave Maria imitating Palestrina. (Dec. 1966, age 15) With few exceptions, it followed correct voice leading and harmonization rules, but with little touches of the modern or the unexpected here and there. It showed a nice attention to subtle dynamics. A parish choir performed it. (Ex. 2)

A Renaissance-style Kyrie. (Prob Fall 1966, age 15). Scored for SSTB a cappella in mode I. The two soprano parts were an exercise in how to handle voice lines that overlap.

Motet Acclamationes Sanctae Virgini. (May 1968, age 16). A cappella with two choruses alternating (SSAA, TTBB), possibly imitating Cristobal Morales. Observes all the correct Renaissance rules. Treats successive sections of the text (Tota Pulchra es Maria) in a variety of textures. Eighty bars long! Alas, it was never performed. (Ex. 3)

A baroque pastiche on Nun Komm der Heiden Heiland (March 1969, age 17). Scored for four-part chorus, continuo and a challenging violin obliggato. (Ex. 4)

“Mass of Praise and Glory” (begun early 1967, age 15; completed January 1968, age 16) (Ex 5)

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Guest Review of Joseph Shaw’s How to Attend the Extraordinary Form

NLM is grateful to the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales for giving us permission to reprint the following review from their magazine Mass of Ages. I would like to add that I have read this booklet carefully and agree completely with Fr Finigan’s positive assessment. In fact, this is the first and only such booklet I could genuinely recommend for the public “pamphlet rack” at the back of the church. It it compact enough not to frighten a prospective reader, yet never superficial in its treatment of questions.

A Valuable Booklet on the Traditional Mass from the Catholic Truth Society

Fr Timothy Finigan

Long-standing members of the Latin Mass Society have had to change and adapt considerably over the decades as the Church has given greater freedom to the celebration of the traditional Mass, and most notably since Summorum Pontificum and the gradual establishment of the “Extraordinary Form” as a part of the mainstream life of the Church.

We are now fortunate to have an increasing number of parishes including it in their ordinary schedule, traditional societies being given responsibility for parishes, and several Bishops, who not only no longer need to give permission for the Mass, but now celebrate it themselves.

As I write this review, young priests all over the country are celebrating Mass privately during the lockdown. My telephone conversations lead me to suspect that more than one or two are taking the opportunity to become familiar with the old rite without the risk of any controversy.

The new booklet How to Attend the Extraordinary Form, intended for the general Catholic public and providing an explanatory introduction to the usus antiquior, is a helpful addition to the CTS list at this time. Dr Shaw has distinguished himself by writing copiously on questions related to the liturgical tradition, theology, law and practice. As an Oxford don, he is well used to dealing with controversial points without needing to start a row, and his reputation depends on accurate appraisal and intelligent comment. It would be hard to think of a better author for such an introductory treatment. The chapter on the organic development of the liturgy is a fine description of a complex subject which shows that mastery of material which is necessary in order to simplify it for a wide audience.

Traditionalists will not be disappointed by this measured and balanced account which deals gently but firmly with all the old objections about the priest “having his back to the people”, the barrier of supposedly incomprehensible language, the accusation of divisiveness and the subject on which we all have to tread on eggshells, the “reform of the reform.”

The pamphlet concisely explains the way the form of the liturgy “marks off the holiness of holy things” and has much in common with the ethos of the Eastern rites. The newcomer will learn how the personality of the priest is minimised, why the canon is said in silence, and what is gained in the traditional lectionary and calendar.

The treatment of the controversial topics of the reception of Holy Communion, head covering, and male altar servers will probably not convert a hardened liberal, but then who could? What it might well do is remove some of the obstacles for those who are genuinely enquiring but sceptical.

Many of Dr Shaw’s supporting quotations will be familiar to seasoned apologists for the Extraordinary Form and it is good to have a well-chosen selection for ready reference. The references to Pope Paul VI and even Pope Francis may raise a wry smile among some traditionalists, but they are so apposite that they simply cannot be dismissed as whataboutery.

It is no longer a newsworthy headline to proclaim that the traditional Latin Mass is attended by a high proportion of young people. Anyone not living under a stone since 2007 will have noticed by now, and during those 13 years new young people have been coming to the old Mass persistently year by year. Many of them will want a primer on the basics for themselves and, in the modern ecclesiastical zoomer vs. boomer phenomenon, so that they can answer the objections of the old folks.

How to Attend the Extraordinary Form is an excellent vademecum which is surprisingly comprehensive for its pamphlet format. Members of the Latin Mass Society would do well to get in a few copies to have on hand for interested enquirers. I would suggest having a good read yourself first: all but the most comprehensively informed are sure to find some nuggets they had not come across before.

How to Attend the Extraordinary Form is available from the LMS shop, £3.50 + £1.06 p&p., or directly from CTS.

The Latin Mass Society of England and Wales, founded in 1965, is an association of Catholic faithful dedicated to the promotion of the traditional Latin liturgy of the Catholic Church, the teachings and practices integral to it, the musical tradition which serves it, and the Latin language in which it is celebrated. Catholics anywhere in the world may become members and receive the quarterly magazine Mass of Ages. Visit the website for more information.

Aquinas Institute Announces Two Online Programs: Liberal Arts and Graduate Theology

Many readers of NLM will have heard of the Aquinas Institute owing to its blue hardcover Opera Omnia series of bilingual editions of the works of St. Thomas, the most recent addition to which is a two-volume set of his Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics.

The Aquinas Institute has announced the launch of Online Discussion Classes, at two levels:

• A Graduate Theology Curriculum, consisting of 12 integrated courses towards an MA in theology. Courses may be taken 1, 2, or 3 at a time. Anyone seeking a serious engagement with the greatest sources of theology should check out this program, as nothing else quite like it exists in the USA. Graduate courses begin the week of September 14th:

- The Book of Job, Dr. Nathan Schmiedecke (Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary)
- Existence and Attributes of God, Dr. John Mortensen (Aquinas Institute)
- Church Fathers I, Dr. Michael Foley (Baylor University)

• An undergraduate Liberal Arts Core Curriculum consisting of 12 courses in humanities, philosophy, and theology, to be taken 3 at a time. This program is for students ready to do college-level work, students already enrolled in state universities looking for a way to fulfill general education requirements, and people of any age group and background who want to fill in gaps in their own education. The courses are accredited by collaboration with Wyoming Catholic College. Undergraduate courses begin the week of September 21st:

- Gods & Heroes in Ancient Greece, Dr. Jason Baxter (Wyoming Catholic College)
- Tools of Philosophy, Jacob Terneus (Marquette University)
- Salvation History I, Dr. Vincent DeMeo (International Theological Institute)

Both programs are built on two principles:

(1) Primary Sources: we read, e.g., works by Plato and Aristotle for philosophy, Augustine and Aquinas for theology, Dante and Shakespeare for humanities -- not textbooks or random bits and pieces;

(2) Discussion: the classes take the form of interactive conversations guided by Catholic teachers passionate about their subjects.

The cost is comparable to similar online programs, and scholarships are available.

Read more at the Aquinas Institute website.

Cardinal Schuster’s Masterpiece Back in Print for the First Time in Nearly a Century

I am pleased to share with readers of NLM the excellent news that Arouca Press, a Catholic publisher based in Ontario, has just released an affordable reprint of Cardinal Ildephonse Schuster’s classic commentary on the Roman rite, The Sacramentary, in both paperback and hardcover editions, with discount rates for buying the entire 5-volume set directly from Arouca (US $100 for the complete paperback set, $140 for the hardcover set). As far I have been able to ascertain, Schuster’s work has been out of print since the late 1920s and the early 1930s when it was first published in English translation, and used copies fetch outrageous sums on the used book market. The Arouca edition is a high-quality and crisply legible reproduction of the original, with a new Foreword by NLM’s own Gregory DiPippo, discussing Schuster’s life, career, and publications.

It would be hard to exaggerate the importance and continuing relevance of Schuster’s work. He brings a formidable scholarship, an insightful mind, and a Thomistic clarity to bear on the history and meaning of the elaborate network of signs and symbols that make up the classical Roman rite in its millennial development. One would be hard-pressed to find a work comparable to The Sacramentary in richness of detail. Like all the members of the Liturgical Movement to one degree or another, Schuster sometimes let his theories get the better of him (see here, here, and here for examples), and later wrecking-ball reformers invoked such theories as their warrant. It is all the more important then to bring both the positive contributions and the occasional lapses of this giant figure back into the conversation as we continue to sift through the legacy of the original Liturgical Movement. It deserves to be emphasized that Schuster is, above all, a man of deep prayer and immense love for the liturgy; this radiates from every page, and places him in the company of Dom Guéranger as one from whom tradition-loving Catholics have much to learn today.

A brief synopsis of the contents:

The Sacramentary [Liber Sacramentorum]: Historical and Liturgical Notes on the Roman Missal

Volume I
Part I. Songs of Zion Beside the Waters of Redemption: General Conceptions of Sacred Liturgy
Part II. The Inauguration of the Kingdom of the Messiah
- Introduction
- The Sacred Liturgy from Advent to Septuagesima

Volume II
Part III. The New Testament in the Blood of the Redeemer
- Introduction
- The Sacred Liturgy from Septuagesima to Easter
Part IV. Baptism by the Spirit and by Fire
- Introduction
- The Sacred Liturgy During the Easter Cycle
- Euchological Appendix

Volume III
Part V. The Eternal Nuptials of the Lamb
- Introduction
- The Sacred Liturgy from Trinity Sunday to Advent
- Euchological Appendix
Part VI. The Church Triumphant
- Introduction
- The Feasts of the Saints during the Christmas Cycle

Volume IV
Part VII. The Saints in the Mystery of the Redemption
- Introduction
- The Feasts of the Saints in the Paschal Cycle (March to August)
- Euchological Appendix

Volume V
Part VIII. The Saints in the Mystery of the Redemption
- Introduction
- The Feasts of the Saints from August 14 to November 28
- Euchological Appendix

The paperback and hardcover sets may be ordered here; see here for a listing of individual volumes. The books may also be purchased at Amazon and affiliates.

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