OH THE NEGATIVE MEMORIES OF THE NATIONAL SHRINE OF SAINT ALPHONSES LIGUORI IN BALTIMORE!

 This was Christmas Day Mass at this shrine which is a block down from Baltimore’s original Cathedral, the Basilica of the Assumption, the oldest cathedral in the USA. It is also across the street from the birthplace of Edgar Allan Poe!

Below the photos, read by negative memories from about 1976…

As a 22 year old seminarian at the major seminary of St. Mary’s in Baltimore and in 1976, a group of us went to downtown Baltimore to visit the various sites there. I loved Baltimore of that that time.

We went into the Basilica of the Assumption (pre-restoration/renovation) and it was dark and dingy and smelled of being ancient too. We lammented that it was so pre-Vatican II and needed to be wreckovated, although that term wasn’t in vogue at the time. Wreckovation was so post-Vatican II and new and improved!

Then we walked a block down to St. Alphonsus Liguori and we were shocked that in 1976 it was so pre-Vatican II not just in looks but in worship too. Shocked I say, that it was so pre-Vatican II and Neanderthal! 

We seminarians at the time mocked the church building for not just being pre-Vatican II but that in the clergy and laity’s mind at that church, a renovation meant dusting off all the statues that are there.

We mused at how less distracting it would be to the new and improved Mass, to have everything in there ripped out, statues, altars and all and that the focus be just on an altar that looked like a table, an ambo that did not lord it over the people and a simple chair for the priest with all of that in the center of the nave so the laity could concelebrate the Mass with the President of the Assembly.

In 1976, my First Year of Theology Class had about 60 seminarians, many of them somewhat conservative. They were like square pegs being forced into the progressive round holes of Saint Mary’s and they didn’t make it because they were too traditional, rigid, and backwards, as Pope Francis called so many traditional Catholics today.

By 1979, my class was down to 21 seminarians, the conservative ones culled out. Of those who were ordained, several were removed from the priesthood in disgrace, others have died, one committed suicide, God rest his soul. I think there are only 7 or 8 of us still living and active in retirement or making plans for retirement.

And Saint Alphonsus Liguori? That shrine has been restored, not wreckovated and the FSSP staff it and the TLM and ancillary liturgies are alive and well there!