Saint Benedict Center's main site is Catholicism.org: An online Journal edited by the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Richmond, New Hampshire.


Tuesday, January 26, 2016

About Immaculate Heart of Mary School in Richmond, New Hampshire

Immaculate Heart of Mary School is a traditional primary and secondary school (K-12) in the Catholic tradition, run by the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary in Richmond, New Hampshire. This is in the Keene area, part of the Monadnock Region.

For students from grades K through twelve, Immaculate Heart of Mary School offers an integrated curriculum, laying a solid foundation in the liberal arts, Latin, music, history and the highest scholastic arts.

Go to the Immaculate Heart of Mary School website.


IHM_School_Site

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

An Exchange in the Keene Sentinel

Brother André Marie wrote the following letter to the editor in the Keene Sentinel, published in the Thursday, August 14, edition:

Tradition lives in Richmond, by Brother Andre Villarrubia 
Thank you for running the article, “For some traditional Catholics, the Latin mass thrives” in your Aug. 9 edition. 
The piece, by Lilly Fowler of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, described the young and vibrant following that the traditional Latin mass has in that city, at the beautiful and historic Oratory of Saint Francis de Sales.

Yes, the traditional Latin mass does have a young and vibrant following. Locally, this can be seen at Saint Benedict Center in Richmond.

Those who would like to worship in the ancient form of the Mass in all its integrity are cordially invited to Sunday Mass at 7:30 a.m. (Low Mass) or 9:30 a.m. (High Mass). There is also a daily Low Mass at 7:30 a.m.

The High Mass, with Gregorian chant, Latin hymns, and incense, is the best introduction to the Traditional Rite. The Low Mass is much more quiet and less solemn in its externals.

Both are beautiful.
Brother Andre Villarrubia 95 Fay Martin Road
Richmond 


To which Mrs. Terri O'Rorke responded with this letter, in the Sunday, August 24, edition:

An important point missing, by Terri O'Rorke

[TEXT MAY BE READ ON THE SENTINEL'S SITE.]
Terri O’Rorke
320 Whipple Hill Road
Richmond

Which prompted this response from Brother André Marie, published in the August 29 edition:


Priests approved to offer masses in Richmond, by Brother Andre Villarrubia
Mrs. Terri O’Rorke’s letter of Aug. 26 (“An important point missing”) makes a serious error in fact. 
The error is the claim that Saint Benedict Center does not “have the permission from their Diocese to offer Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.”

The priest in residence here at the center is a cleric of the Santa Fe, N.M., Archdiocese. He is here with the permission of his own archbishop as well as the last two bishops of Manchester. This permission dates back to October 2010.

The Diocese of Manchester says on its website that our bishop “has granted permission to a priest in good standing to celebrate Mass and hear Confessions at Saint Benedict Center for the residents and their guests. The Bishop has approved a recently constructed building as an appropriate worship space. ...”

Church law allows all Latin-Rite priests to offer the so-called “Extraordinary Form” of the Roman Rite, a.k.a., the Traditional Latin Mass. As of July 7, 2007, this issue is no longer even debatable.

Since our celebrant is a priest in good standing, who has been allowed by the local bishop to offer Mass here, he enjoys all the permissions he needs to offer the Traditional Latin Mass at Saint Benedict Center.

All these claims are easily documented.

In addition to our resident priest, three priests of the Diocese of Manchester have graciously offered the Traditional Latin Mass for our community in these last (almost) four years. We are grateful to them.

Mrs. O’Rorke’s misstatement is typical of the content of the book she recommends, a volume whose authorship is as mysterious as its claims are fantastic.

Brother Andre Villarrubia
95 Fay Martin Road
Richmond

Friday, July 8, 2011

I Don’t Have Time! Part II

By Sr. Marie Thérèse, M.I.C.M., Prioress

I realize that my hard-hitting article on time and its use may have discouraged a few of you. Yes, you are truly busy and you don’t see how you can cut out anything to be able to make time for the Rosary without jeopardizing your daily duties. I am hoping that the following anecdote about the sisters’ daily Rosary will encourage you to make a leap of faith, if necessary, to pray your Rosary daily. The value of the daily Rosary, as Our Lady requested it, is greater than you can imagine. The following could be the subtitle for this article: A little insight into how the “impossible Rosary” can make things possible.
Our convent manages the duties of twenty-five sisters. The only problem is that there are only eight sisters here, and one of us is a nonagenarian with special needs. Are we busy? No, there has to be a better word for it!

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Liberalism: Bad for Religion, Good for Education

By Brother André Marie
At Saint Benedict Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, our forefathers had a saying that epitomized their apostolate in the academic circles in which they mixed: “We are against liberalism in religion, but we are for liberal education.” This was in the 1940’s. At the time, the Jesuits were parting drastically from the traditional ratio studiorum of their institutions of higher learning, modeling them instead after those institutions they were sending their young scholastics to, institutions like Harvard.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

SBC to Host Papal Knight at October Conference


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA ADVISORY
Catholic PRWire
RICHMOND, NH (May 4, 2011) - The Saint Benedict Center, administered by the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, will hold its fifteenth annual conference on October 7-8, 2011. The conference will be held on the monastery grounds in Richmond, New Hampshire. Call 603-239-6485, email bam@catholicism.org, or visit cat.catholicism.org for registration information.

The theme of this year’s conference will be Right and Freedom: Catholic Considerations on Misused Concepts. Included in the list of speakers is author, papal historian, and lecturer, Charles A. Coulombe, K.C.S.S. By order of Pope John Paul II, Mr. Coulombe was created a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Sylvester for his services rendered to the Holy See. Author of the chart-climbing The Pope's Legion, and Puritan’s Empire: A Catholic Perspective on American History, Coulombe is recognized internationally for his in-depth knowledge of Vatican politics and the influence of Catholicism in America and Europe. His audiences regularly range from graduate students at Oxford University, England to the New Mexico Military Institute, from which he graduated. His international articles have appeared in the New Oxford Review, National Catholic Register, American Thinker, Los Angeles Catholic Mission, Monarchy Canada, and The Irish Democrat.

The list of speakers also includes retired U.S. Army Special Forces (Green Beret) officer Dr. Robert Hickson, a former professor at the U.S. Air Force Academy and the Defense Intelligence College, and former Chairman of the Literature and Latin Department at Christendom College. Joining Dr. Hickson will be the celebrated Catholic writer and chronicler of the traditionalist movement in the Church, Gary Potter, the founding editor of Triumph magazine and the author of After the Boston Heresy Case.

Other speakers include Brother André Marie, M.I.C.M., Prior of the Saint Benedict Center since 2002, and lecturer in the fields of apologetics, ecclesiology, church history and devotional practices; Boston’s veteran culture warrior and noted defender of the Faith, C.J. Doyle, Executive Director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts; and noted Catholic psychotherapist and lecturer, G.C. Dilsaver, PsyD, MTS, author of Imago Dei Psychotherapy: A Catholic Conceptualization and The Three Marks of Manhood: How to Be Priest, Prophet and King of Your Family.

Brother André Marie made the following comment: “This year, our conference will explore two very maltreated concepts, both of which are necessary for an orderly natural society, and both of which are elevated by God in the real life, the life of grace, which we live in God’s true Church. In these days when increasing governmental hubris both asserts non-extant “rights,” (e.g., “gay marriage”) and denies fundamental human freedom (e.g., abortion), Catholics must recover and safeguard the proper notions of right and freedom. As usual, our fine panel of speakers will treat their subject in a way that is both illuminating and motivating, informative and practical. They will show how the solutions to the ills of society, the family, and the individual soul are to be found in Catholic tradition.”

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass will be offered according to the traditional Roman Rite (“Extraordinary Form”) during the conference, as it always is offered at Saint Benedict Center.
Contact: Saint Benedict Center
Br. Andre Marie, Prior
603-239-6485
http://cat.catholicism.org/ 
 Keywords:St. Benedict Center, Gary Potter, Robert Hickson, Charles Coulombe, GC Dilsaver, CJ Doyle

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Home Sweet Home

By Jill Bosonetto

I don’t think our lives really began until we moved to Richmond, to the Center. At least, all I can remember before we came here is that we were seeking a place to call home and hadn’t found it yet. Now we are decidedly home.

Friday, January 14, 2011

The Economy of Feeding a Family

By Christine Bryan
I don’t have a business degree and I don’t listen to the news, but there is no need of an expert’s commentary for me to be aware something has happened to the value of the dollar. Every trip to the grocery store or gas station convinces me that my buying power is reduced.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

The Canadian Maccabees – The Fabulous Le Moynes

By Russell LaPlume
The history of the founding of New France glitters with astounding personalities that not only brought the Catholic Faith to a heathen population, but also, it would appear, created from the French colonists a new breed of Frenchman – one who adapted immediately to those immense forests, with great fearlessness and vigor — the Canadians. The names of Cartier, Champlain, and LaSalle are familiar to most students of history, but there is one name forgotten, that stands with or above these intrepid adventurers, that of Charles le Moyne who, along with his famous sons, lived a saga that spanned over a century of Canadian history. Unlike Cartier and Champlain, there is little history written about this fantastic family, most of it coming from oral tradition, but there is no doubt that they were considered a legend in their own time – loved and feared by the savages, loved and depended on by the colonists.

Monday, January 3, 2011

SBC Watch Back Online

The SBC Watch site is back online:

http://sbcwatch.blogspot.com/

"The Truth about Saint Benedict Center and the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Richmond, New Hampshire"

Thursday, September 23, 2010

The Fire of Pentecost

By Brian Kelly
Summer begins on my calendar after our May Procession. In meteorological time, it begins June 1. What this means is that the season of summer extends through the warmest months of the year, which in the Northern Hemisphere are June, July, and August. I only discovered today, while beginning this article, that in Great Britain and Ireland (and other northern countries) summer follows weather, or meteorological time. In Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream the play takes place during the shortest night of the year, June 21, although this is not, in meteorological time, mid summer. That would be mid July. 

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Third Order Formation and the Saint Augustine Institute

So much has happened since I last wrote you that I hardly know where to begin. Over the past few months I have spoken on the phone with many of you — tertiaries and non-tertiaries alike. I have explained the Saint Augustine Institute of Catholic Studies (SAI) and what it means to be a tertiary of the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Thursday, September 9, 2010

The Virtue of Patriotism

By Brother Francis Maluf, M.I.C.M.
Editor: The following edited extract is taken from one of Brother Francis’ Sunday talks. We are grateful again to Sister Anna Maria, from the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary community in Vienna, Ohio, for transcribing the lecture.


Patriotism ― We love this country. We are grateful for being in this country. Some of us were born here; some of us are glad to have been brought here. No matter how we got here, as far as being able to work for the Faith, I don’t know any country more favorable. As far as having people with good will that could at least be talked to about the Faith, I don’t know where in the world you could find better folk than you do in this country.

I used to say to Father Leonard and to Sister Catherine, and they always agreed with me, that I don’t know any other country in the world where we could have done what we did here. Of course, we had corrupt courts. Of course, occasionally, we had to deal with tyrannical men in power. Of course, we had lots of persecutions and injustices done to us, but substantially, tell me any other country where we could have gone on for forty years, affirming a most unpopular doctrine ― and still be able to go on.

[Editor’s Note: Today, as the political climate descends further and further in its commitment to exalt secularism and moral degeneracy, and the freedom to preach the truth in America seems about to be legally extinguished, I fear Voltaire’s proscription for the ultimate utopian Masonic state, as outlined in his Social Contract, may soon come to pass: “Let him who says that there is no salvation outside the Church be cast out of the state.” The political situation in America (as in Europe) has gotten a lot worse since Brother Francis said these things.]

Now don’t take these liberties for granted. They are ours because there was some goodness, let it be just natural goodness, in some of the men who founded this country and gave it its ideals and its Constitution. We ought to thank God for that. That’s true patriotism, and patriotism is part of the virtue of religion. The virtue of patriotism includes an active participation in whatever good we can support in the large society in which we live. We should support those running for office who are committed to protecting the just ideals found in the Constitution and to defending the country against subversion and betrayal and treason.

These are all social duties, and they are essential for the promotion of the principles of the natural law. They are not the complete picture, of course, but they are a very essential part of that complete picture. And they can never be ignored with impunity.

Americanism — The fact that Pope Leo XIII, in the 1890s, called the prominent liberal heresies of separation of Church and State, religious individualism, and religious egalitarianism, Americanism (Testem Benevolentiae Nostrae, 1898) ought to be a little challenge to us. We ought to face the fact — and learn a lesson from it as good Catholics — that the Church in America, in some very serious way, has been responsible for this liberal defection from the challenge of the unadulterated Faith, a defection that we see all around us.

Americanismus is a very correct way to name it. You cannot call it French; you cannot call it English; you cannot call it Chinese. It is American ― this whole idea of one religion being as good as another. “The things on which we agree are vastly more important than the things on which we differ.” The principles that Archbishop Cushing and other Americanist clergy gave in the 1940s, and even more stridently in the 1950s and 60s, became the only dogma for ambitious Catholic politicians: “We cannot inflict our conscience on anybody else.” “My Faith will not affect my politics,” etc., etc. They tell me there are any number of Catholics now in the Congress who say, “Oh, I am personally opposed to abortion, but I have no right to inflict my conscience on anybody else.”

So they are against abortion, but they vote for every measure that encourages it. And they’re betraying, through their votes, other moral values as well, through government programs that aid and abet the corruption of youth by way of sex education subsidies and socialist economic policies. This moral relativism, of divorcing right conscience from politics, started mainly here, at least as a powerful force, right here in America; it’s because of the tremendous, paramount influence of America that it has progressed elsewhere. Doctrinal liberalism, even if it seemed to come from radical theologians from Germany, France, or Holland who had a direct influence at Vatican II, was still the American heresy. And it is with us in a far more pervasive degree today. The reason is that, for generations, nothing was done by the American hierarchy to extirpate it; in fact they began to call it “the phantom heresy.” So let this be a challenge to us.

American foreign aid programs fuel many tyrannical regimes with their proliferation of weapons of mass murder. Immodest fashions, at least on the scale of mass production, mostly originated here. Hollywood hedonistic movies and other media of pornography originated here and they are a huge affliction on other countries and whole continents.

We know people who are going to extremes about that, to the point of being unpatriotic, cynical, negative, and ineffective. This was never the spirit of the Center and it will never be. Even though we know that many of our founding fathers were bigots and very wrong religiously, we also thank God that they did have certain natural virtues, and they did have some good ethical principles, and we do not need to be absolutely negative in our appreciation of American history.

I had the privilege this year to teach a whole course in American History, and I am very happy I did it. I can speak now with more confidence. There are some good American principles that should be defended, should be rediscovered, and should be re-affirmed. America can be converted on its own principles. A man who said this very strongly in the last century was Orestes Brownson. He was very critical of the false principles that were gradually creeping into the American Republic, the unconstitutional expansion of centralized government over States’ rights for one thing, but he also was very proud and patriotic. He was glad to employ in his own apostolic work the many positive elements that patriotic Catholics could utilize from our own Constitution as a basis for bringing the complete truth to the nation. In fact, one of his best books, The American Republic and Its Constitution, was written for the instruction of Catholics concerning government in general, its human origins, and concerning the Constitution.

[Editor: I highly recommend Brother Thomas Mary Sennott’s book, They Fought the Good Fight, which juxtaposes the lives and teachings of Brownson and Father Feeney, two of the most valiant defenders of the defined dogma: Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. Brother Thomas Mary’s book can be purchased from our bookstore at store.catholicism.org. Brownson had a strong conviction, as well, that our republican form of government absolutely needed the Catholic Faith to sustain it for any long period of endurance. Without the Faith, he believed, the republic would eventually fail. He wrote a treatise on the subject, which was titled: “The Catholic Faith Is Necessary to Sustain Popular Liberty.”]

Brother Francis loved his own native country of Lebanon. He lived part of his life there — before coming to America, in 1939, at the age of twenty-six — under the yoke of foreign occupiers, first the Turks, then the French. He was very active in working towards Lebanon’s cherished independence, or any other Arab nation’s, from those who would colonize them. He was the Vice-President of the Syrian National Party, which had as its main objective the establishment of a federated republic of Arab nations, compromising what the Arabs called the “fertile crescent.” I remember him explaining how even Lebanon, in the 1930s, was threatened by Communism and that protection from this menace was another reason behind the platform of a united Syrian Republic of nation states. Brother appreciated the freedom that all nationalities had in the United States, a freedom that Catholic Americans had fought hard to achieve. He believed that, despite its imperfections, without the Constitution, Catholics would have had a far more difficult time achieving their religious and civil rights in these United States. So, he was grateful. He was grateful for whatever good that he was the recipient of, natural as well as supernatural, natural justice as well as supernatural justice, which latter is the grace we call “holiness.”