How do they do it?

It’s really the question you want to ask when you see the rather long list of things going on at St. Stephen the First Martyr Parish, our apostolate in Sacramento, California. St. Stephen’s was the final stop on the Missive’s summer California tour, and that weekend the busy parish was holding its biggest event of the year – the annual Pig Roast in honor of its patron saint.

One of the older parishes in the Fraternity, St. Stephen’s was founded in 1997 and worked out of the parishes of St. Rose and Immaculate Conception before purchasing its own church in 2002. The church was a former Lutheran building that required almost $2 million in initial renovations.

Even though it was smaller back then, the community was nonetheless very strong, said Fr. Joshua Curtis, who was appointed pastor of St. Stephen’s last year. They paid off the building in just a few years, and several sequential pastors built up the parish a step at a time. Fr. Lyons, who served as assistant for several years and then four more as pastor, brought them to the point they are at now, doing a tremendous amount of work on such projects as the parish hall and kitchen.

“Just rock solid,” said Fr. Curtis, describing the spirit of the former pastor, “and inexhaustible.” He would be up at 5 a.m., with the light on in his office till 9 p.m. “Day in, day out, absolutely steady.”

Fr. Lyons clearly left a huge legacy when he was appointed pastor of FSSP San Diego last summer, taking the place of Fr. Carl Gismondi who was assigned to head up our new parish in Philadelphia. But none was better equipped to take up the mantle than Fr. Curtis, who had already served for two years at St. Stephen’s as assistant pastor. And he had plenty of work before him, especially in regard to the pressing matter of their all-too-small church.

With an attendance of about 900 among the four Sunday Masses and a growth rate of 40-50 attendees per year, more space is badly needed, and plans are well afoot for expansion.

“It’s still just rough drafts at this point, but it’s been something we’ve been talking about for years,” Fr. Curtis explained. “Fr. Lyons and I started talking about it as soon as I got here, and started tossing around ideas, and sketching things just ourselves, brainstorming, thinking about difficulties.”

The goal is to at least double the capacity of the church. An architect is currently working on the official designs, with the central ideas being to add a narthex and expand seating into the wings and much further into the back. The parish hopes to eventually overhaul the sacristy and parish offices as well.

Despite the space issues, parish life goes on unabated. The number of educational and faith formation activities available for all ages are a testament to its particular character, which, among other epithets, could be described as, well, academic. The parish runs a high school co-op in which the priests teach the religion courses, including a one-year Old Testament course taught by assistant pastor Fr. Dominic Savoie and a one-year New Testament course taught by Fr. Curtis. Fr. Savoie teaches a course on faith and morality in which he goes through St. Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologiae in summary format, as well as popular adult formation classes, which have covered such works as the Book of Job, the Book of Genesis and the Office of the Dead. Fr. Savoie is a gifted teacher and possesses an in-depth familiarity with the Scriptures and the Church Fathers: if you read our Meménto newsletter, you have benefited from his vast supply of knowledge in our Ask Father column.

Fr. Curtis spoke with enthusiasm about the upcoming catechumenate program, a series of classes for those interested in coming into the Church. Up to this point, candidates for Baptism have met with a priest one-on-one for formation, but Fr. Curtis wanted to start something that was also accessible to parishioners and even people from other parishes who wished to deepen their knowledge of the Faith. Fr. Curtis further noted that one-on-one classes do not help the candidate plug into the life of the parish. According to the new plan, candidates will attend group classes twice a month and have a chance to meet each other and other parishioners, have refreshments and socialize for part of the time. Hence when it comes time for them to be baptized, they will already be well-integrated into the parish. Additionally, St. Stephen’s has permission to celebrate the pre-1955 Holy Week liturgy, which entails an earlier start time for the Easter Vigil and is more conducive to public baptisms than the later version. The candidates will therefore be baptized at the Vigil and welcomed into the Church and the parish in a public way.

If we enumerated everything that’s going on at this lively hub of Fraternity life, this article would be reams long, so we’ll just touch on a few more activities. St. Stephen’s keeps up a number of charitable works, including participating in the Brown Bag Lunch program, an operation run out of the Sacramento Cathedral that involves giving out bagged lunches to the homeless of the area. St. Stephen’s is one of the parishes that provide the Cathedral with hundreds of bagged lunches, parishioners donating the food, putting together the lunches and transporting them to the Cathedral. A newly-founded chapter of the St. Vincent de Paul Society also assists the needy, processing and responding to requests for help that come to St. Stephen’s and giving the parish a reliable arm with which to handle these cases.

Now, we would be remiss if we didn’t mention the St. Stephen’s Bookstore, a place filled not only with a wide selection of Catholic reading material, sacramentals, medals and other gifts, but also with the joyful energy that seems to be a St. Stephen’s trademark. It’s a focal point for life at the parish, and though it really requires an article unto itself and we can’t do more than mention it here, we’ll be posting about it later on so stay tuned.

Of course, the whole reason we chose that weekend to visit St. Stephen’s was the annual Pig Roast, which is a part of the celebration of the feast day of their patron, St. Stephen the First Martyr. At this point you may be asking why they celebrate their patron on a date so distant from his liturgical feast day (if you don’t remember when that is, the words to a famous song will give you an idea: Good King Wenceslaus looked out, on the feast of Stephen, when the snow lay round about, deep and crisp and even…). Yes, it’s December 26th, not the best time for a parish party. When this happens, sometimes parishes can get permission to celebrate their patronal feast day at another time. Conveniently for St. Stephen’s, an old feast of his exists in August – the feast of the finding of his relics, which falls on August 3rd. They therefore celebrate their holy patron near that time.

The big day this year was Sunday, August 4th, and the High Mass, usually at 10:30 a.m., was moved to the 1:30 p.m. time slot so as to sync with the rest of the day’s events. The Mass was that of the External Solemnity of St. Stephen, and the crowds filled the church. At 3:30 p.m., Vespers were sung and at 5 p.m., dinner began. Families and friends lined up to partake of the smorgasbord set up inside the parish hall, a spacious, high-ceilinged building, once a gym, that provides abundant space for parish events. The fare included, yes, you guessed it, roast pig, along with a variety of other treats including hamburgers, chili, mac & cheese, salad and watermelon.

The partygoers bore their plates of victuals outside and gathered at tables under the boughs of trees or in the shade of a great tent set up on the grassy expanse that lies beyond the main parish complex, trayfuls of ice cream making their way around the crowds as dinner was concluding. The children enjoyed face-painting, a magic show, sno cones, taking swings at piñatas hung from one of the trees and, of course, dogpiling on the candy that eventually rained down. The tables were moved out from under the tent after dinner and square dancing, complete with a live band, took their place.

So, if you find yourself in northern California around the beginning of August, we highly recommend joining St. Stephen’s for their yearly festivities. But as you can tell, there really isn’t a bad time to visit. All year round it is a glowing example of that comprehensive parish life that the Fraternity strives to provide as an important complement to the Holy Mass and the Sacraments. Friendships, education, faith formation, charitable work, evangelization and recreation are all critical components to a well-balanced Catholic life, and the parish in California’s capital city does it all. +

The internet is abuzz with the recent news of the extraordinary growth of the FSSP over the past year. Our article was published on October 17th, 2019, and since then the great news of the Fraternity’s growth has been carried by several major news outlets:

– 11/2 – The Washington Examiner published their own analysis, which includes a link to and information from our article;

– 11/3 – EWTN News retweeted the Examiner article to nearly 20,000 followers;

– 11/4 – The Catholic Herald included the Examiner article on its list of “Morning Catholic Must-Reads”;

– 11/4 – Patheos reposted portions of our article and the Examiner article in a summary report.

Please continue to share, repost and otherwise spread this wonderful news about the FSSP’s work! Thank you for your support of the FSSP and may God reward you! +

Today is the commemoration of All Souls. On this day the Church solemnly reminds us to pray constantly for the Poor Souls in Purgatory, who are destined to enter Heaven but must first pay the temporal price for sins committed upon Earth. They cannot speed their own deliverance, but we can through our prayers and sacrifices on their behalf. This day and the days following are particular opportunities to do so: priests are permitted to say three Masses on this day, and a plenary indulgence, applicable only to the souls in Purgatory, is available every day from November 1st – 8th, inclusive. All you have to do is pray at a cemetery for the Poor Souls and fulfill the usual conditions: Confession, detachment from sin, Holy Communion and a prayer for the Holy Father’s intentions (the last two items must be repeated for each indulgence). You can also gain a plenary indulgence, again only applicable to the Poor Souls, on All Souls Day if you visit a parish church or public oratory and recite an Our Father and Apostles’ Creed (N.B. Only one plenary indulgence can normally be gained per day).

So let us take advantage of the graces and opportunities available to us during this time dedicated to the Holy Souls. Let us especially pray for our deceased relatives, friends and benefactors and the most forgotten souls who have no one to pray for them.

Please keep in your prayers also all the deceased of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter:

Fr. Denis Coiffet, FSSP
Fr. Charles Fiore, FSSP
Fr. Michel de Fommervault, FSSP
Fr. Pierre Gaudray, FSSP
Fr. Mario Hausheer, FSSP
Fr. Michael Irwin, FSSP
Fr. Georges Salleron, FSSP
Mr. Sylvain Santer, FSSP
Fr. Kenneth Walker, FSSP
Fr. Nicholas Zolnerowicz, FSSP

Réquiem ætérnam dona eis, Dómine: et lux perpétua lúceat eis. Requiéscant in pace. Amen.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord: and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace. Amen.

The Pie Jesu Dómine from the Fraternity’s Requiem album, produced by DeMontfort Music.

A happy and most joyful feast of All Saints! On this day we commemorate all the members of the Church Triumphant, that is, all the angels and saints who are in Heaven and enjoy the beatific vision. Included among the saints are not only those whom the Church has officially canonized and whose names we know, but also all the faithful departed who have entered Heaven. So if we do our bit and make it to Heaven, it will be our feast day too! Don’t forget that your future feast day is a Holy Day of Obligation, so be sure to get to Mass.

The feast of All Saints is one in which we should take particular joy, reflecting on the way that God’s grace works in every human life and situation. The saints were not of any one type: they came from every part of the world, every walk of life, social strata both high and low, they were monarchs, religious, stableboys, accountants, doctors, soldiers, mothers, fathers, ordinary men and women of all ages. Some were saints from their youth, like St. Aloysius Gonzaga; some were repentant sinners, like St. Augustine; some were rulers, like St. Elizabeth of Hungary; some were poor, simple girls like St. Bernadette; some are well-known, some obscure, some unknown; some led the Church, some led nations, some wrote volumes, some could barely write at all. Some just prayed and did their daily work with love and devotion. What unites them all is their wholehearted response to God’s call to holiness, which is something about them that we too – who are called to be saints – can imitate in our everyday lives. So if you ever are tempted to think that you aren’t “saint material,” perhaps take that dusty Lives of the Saints book off the shelf and flip it open. You may find that once upon a time, many of them were not so different from you. +

Gaudeámus omnes in Dómino, diem festum celebrántes sub honóre Sanctórum ómnium: de quorum solemnitáte gaudent Ángeli, et colláudant Fílium Dei.

Let us all rejoice in the Lord, celebrating a festival day in honor of all the Saints: at whose solemnity the Angels rejoice, and give praise to the Son of God.

– from the Introit for today

We wish a happy patronal feast day to the Church of All Saints, our apostolate in Minneapolis, Minnesota!

It’s not too late to sign up for the annual Novena of Requiem Masses offered at Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary for the souls of the faithful departed.

The Novena takes place from November 2nd, All Souls Day, through November 10th, and you can enroll your deceased loved ones by filling out the form below. Those whom you enroll will be included in the Novena and prayed for by the priests and seminarians of the Fraternity in their daily prayers in the Chapel and the Seminary cemetery.

The holy card for the All Souls Novena, with a prayer that can be offered during the Novena, can be downloaded by clicking the image to the right.

Read Fr. Stinson’s Letter
for All Souls Day 2019

Fr. Daniel Powers was born and raised by loving parents in a devout Catholic home in the South Suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. When he was young, his father would bring him along with his brother to morning Mass every Friday and instruct them afterward in the catechism or the Sacred Scriptures. He was taught from a young age to love the Catholic Faith, to have great love and reverence for the Blessed Sacrament, and to practice devotion to the Blessed Virgin.

While attending the second grade at a local Catholic school, he saw a picture of a priest offering Mass in his religion textbook and was struck with the idea of becoming a priest. This idea never left him, despite his desire to be the third baseman for the Chicago White Sox. After high school, he decided to work and attend a local community college in order to get some real world experience and further prepare himself intellectually for seminary studies.

By God’s grace and mercy, he was accepted into Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary in the fall of 2012. He greatly enjoyed his time in seminary and is deeply grateful for the formation which he received there and for all of the work and sacrifice on the part of the priests, faculty, and staff of the seminary. After completing seven years of seminary formation, he was ordained a priest on May 24th, 2019 by His Excellency the Most Reverend Fabian Bruskewitz, Bishop Emeritus of the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Lincoln.

Fr. Powers would like to thank all of those who throughout his life aided him in the pursuit of his vocation with their prayers or sacrifices. He would like to assure you of his prayers, and earnestly asks that you continue to pray for him. May God reward you! +

Fr. Powers is currently serving as the assistant pastor at Our Lady of Fatima Chapel in Pequannock, NJ.

His Excellency the Most Reverend Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, will confer the Sacred Priesthood on Mr. Rock today, October 26th, at 10:30 a.m. at St. Mary’s Church, our apostolate in Providence! First blessings and a reception will follow. Mr. Rock’s first Mass will be tomorrow, Sunday, October 27th, at 10 a.m. at the same location.

St. Mary’s Catholic Church
538 Broadway
Providence, RI 02909

We are excited to welcome Bishop Schneider to confer the Sacrament of Holy Orders for us for the second time – he ordained seven FSSP priests in 2014 at St. Cecilia Cathedral in Omaha. It is also particularly joyful for us to see an FSSP priest ordained at one of our own apostolates, the beautiful church of St. Mary that came under the care of the Fraternity last year. God’s blessings upon our Fraternity continue to be abundant, and we hope you can join us in giving thanks to Him and celebrating the ordination of Deacon Rock this weekend.

For more information, please visit St. Mary’s website here.*

*Please come, even if you did not RSVP in time!

On Saturday, November 16th, at 10 a.m., His Excellency the Most Reverend Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco will celebrate a Solemn Pontifical Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. The event is hosted by the Benedict XVI Institute as part of a tour introducing the Mass of the Americas, a newly-composed Mass setting in the sacred music tradition of the Church. A free conference comprised of workshops and discussions with the composer and other Catholic artists will follow the Mass.

For more information or to RSVP for the Mass (an RSVP is encouraged but not required), click here. You can register for the conference (registration includes attendance at the Mass) by clicking here.

Archbishop Cordileone is a great friend of the Latin Mass and will be conferring our diaconate ordinations on March 28th, 2020 at the chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary. We encourage you to attend the DC Mass if you can – it’s not often that you get to experience a Solemn Pontifical Mass, let alone at the high altar of a church that is a minor basilica, the largest Catholic church in North America and a place of particular importance to the Faith in this country. Even if you cannot attend, perhaps take a moment on that day to pray for our country, which is entrusted to Our Lady under her title of the Immaculate Conception, that America’s holy Patroness will guide her in the truth and make the Faith flourish here more strongly than ever.

The upcoming Mass brings back memories from April of last year, when the Most Reverend Alexander Sample, Archbishop of Portland, Oregon, celebrated a Pontifical Mass at the Basilica in honor of the 10th anniversary of Summorum Pontificum. The Fraternity was greatly involved with the planning of that Mass and several of our priests assisted at it. We posted about it here. +

Today the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter gives thanks to God for 31 years of service and fidelity to God, His Church and the Holy Father. On this day in 1988, our Fraternity was officially erected as a Clerical Society of Apostolic Life of Pontifical Right by Pope St. John Paul II. Starting in Switzerland with just 12 priests, 1 deacon and 20 seminarians, the Fraternity has since grown to 315 priests and 14 deacons working in 133 dioceses worldwide, with 165 seminarians studying at 2 flourishing seminaries. We have the privilege and blessing of offering the traditional Latin Mass every day and of serving thousands of God’s faithful people at our parishes, chaplaincies and missions scattered across 5 of the 7 continents. We have seen incredible growth this year in our North American District (more on that here), and we have every reason to hope that our best days are yet to come.

Of course, we could never have done it but for the grace of God and for you, our friends and benefactors, and are so grateful for your faithfulness to Him and your continued support of the Fraternity. Please continue to pray for us, that we might remain always true to our calling and serve Him ever more faithfully every day.

Members of the Confraternity of St. Peter, our lay sodality, can gain a plenary indulgence on this day under the usual conditions. If you are interested in becoming a member of the Confraternity, click here! +

Ego vos elégi de mundo, ut eátis et fructum afferátis: et fructus vester máneat.

I have chosen you out of the world, that you should go, and should bring forth fruit; and your fruit should remain.

– from the Alleluia for October 18th, the feast of St. Luke the Evangelist

Halfway through the FSSP’s annual October census, Fraternity parishes and chapels around the country report major increases in Sunday Mass attendance compared with last year.

Newer apostolates have seen dramatic growth, some doubling their numbers over the last year, such as Los Angeles, which went from 250 per Sunday to 500. The apostolate did not even have its own church until 2018, so finally settling down in a small church in San Fernando provided needed stability, contributing to the significant increase it saw this past year.

“The main obstacle right now is a lack of space,” said Fr. Federico Masutti, assistant pastor of St. Vitus, talking to the Missive over the summer. His words echo the sentiment of so many other FSSP apostolates that find themselves outgrowing their buildings, but it’s really a great problem to have.

“When we were at 200 people,” said pastor Fr. James Fryar, “we decided to add the fourth Mass, and just adding that one Mass, from one week to the next, another 200 people came.”

“The growth was amazing,” confirmed Fr. Masutti.

In Naples, Florida, the FSSP has been operating for less than two years, and is at nearly 400 people per Sunday, up over 20 percent from last year.

“A plethora of young families are coming, attracted by the sacred beauty and reverence of the Mass, the traditional catechesis and true parish family life,” said pastor Fr. Jonathan Romanoski.

He and assistant pastor Fr. Joshua Passo do not have their own church, but offer Mass in two locations, one in Naples and one in Fort Myers. He pointed out that it is not only the liturgy that draws the growing congregation.

“It’s more than just the Latin Mass—they’re coming for the community life and all of the groups we have—for adults, for kids, for catechesis,” he said. “They come because we are two priests, we are a small community where everybody can get to know each other and the families can truly bond.”

Two new apostolates established last year—in the dioceses of Philadelphia and Providence, Rhode Island—have started off strong and now have 400 and 300 parishioners, respectively. Both locations have inherited magnificent churches that should accommodate their communities for a long time.

Fr. Carl Gismondi of St. Mary’s in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, in the archdiocese of Philadelphia, said that his church is perfect for their needs. “Archbishop Chaput has been very generous in supporting the Latin Mass community,” he said. “The church here in Conshohocken, St. Mary’s, is in an ideal location.

“It’s a beautiful Neo-Gothic church built in 1950. It’s probably one of the last grand churches built in the archdiocese of Philadelphia.”

Even apostolates that have been established for a long time (by FSSP standards) have seen significant increases, but most report constraints of space that inhibit their growth and they look forward to building or buying new churches.

St. Anne Parish, our apostolate in San Diego, for example, was established in 2008, and despite having a small church that can seat approximately 200 adults, had reached more than 800 parishioners by 2018 with three priests offering five Sunday Masses. Now, they are averaging over 1,000.

“At some of our Masses we will have as many as maybe 350 people and so not everyone fits and so people are actually sitting outside the doors looking in through open doors,” said pastor Fr. John Lyons.

Other long-established FSSP parishes that have seen strong growth include our first North American apostolate, Mater Dei in Dallas, established in 1991, which has seen its Sunday congregation grow 24 percent from 1250 to 1550 in the last year.

St. Joan of Arc Parish, our apostolate in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, has gone from 650 to 840 in the past two years, an increase of about 29 percent. Likewise, St. Francis de Sales in Atlanta, established in 1995, has grown 30 percent over the last year. In October of 2018, it averaged 460 people each Sunday; so far this month, it has over 600. +