Pope Paul VI and the Slippery Slope

I recently came across this interview with Alice von Hildebrand. The interview was conducted by the Latin Mass Magazine (I am a subscriber). Alice von Hildebrand also writes for the New Oxford Review. Her words speak to the present crises in the Catholic Church.

[The interview, reproduced in part]

TLM: In terms of the present crisis, when did you first perceive something was terribly wrong?

AVH: It was in February 1965. I was taking a sabbatical year in Florence. My husband was reading a theological journal, and suddenly I heard him burst into tears. I ran to him, fearful that his heart condition had suddenly caused him pain. I asked him if he was all right. He told me that the article that he had been reading had provided him with the certain insight that the devil had entered the Church. Remember, my husband was the first prominent German to speak out publicly against Hitler and the Nazis. His insights were always prescient.

TLM: Did your husband think that the decline in a sense of the supernatural began around that time [1920s -- from an earlier question], and if so, how did he explain it?

AVH: No, he believed that after Pius X’s condemnation of the heresy of Modernism [1907], its proponents merely went underground. He would say that they then took a much more subtle and practical approach. They spread doubt simply by raising questions about the great supernatural interventions throughout salvation history, such as the Virgin Birth and Our Lady’s perpetual virginity, as well as the Resurrection, and the Holy Eucharist. They knew that once faith – the foundation – totters, the liturgy and the moral teachings of the Church would follow suit. My husband entitled one of his books The Devastated Vineyard. After Vatican II, a tornado seemed to have hit the Church ...

Even the pagan Plato was open to a sense of the supernatural. He spoke of the weakness, frailty and cowardice often evidenced in human nature. He was asked by a critic to explain why he had such a low opinion of humanity. He replied that he was not denigrating man, only comparing him to God.

With the loss of a sense of the supernatural, there is a loss of the sense of a need for sacrifice today. The closer one comes to God, the greater should be one’s sense of sinfulness. The further one gets from God, as today, the more we hear the philosophy of the new age: “I’m OK, You’re OK.” This loss of the inclination to sacrifice has led to the obscuring of the Church’s redemptive mission. Where the Cross is downplayed, our need for redemption is given hardly a thought.

The aversion to sacrifice and redemption has assisted the secularization of the Church from within. We have been hearing for many years from priests and bishops about the need for the Church to adapt herself to the world. Great popes like St. Pius X said just the opposite: the world must adapt itself to the Church.

TLM: From our conversation throughout this afternoon, I must conclude that you don’t believe that the accelerating loss of the sense of the supernatural is an accident of history.

AVH: No, I do not. There have been two books published in Italy in recent years that confirm what my husband had been suspecting for some time; namely, that there has been a systematic infiltration of the Church by diabolical enemies for much of this century. My husband was a very sanguine man and optimistic by nature. During the last ten years of his life, however, I witnessed him many times in moments of great sorrow, and frequently repeating, “They have desecrated the Holy Bride of Christ.” He was referring to the “abomination of desolation” of which the prophet Daniel speaks.

TLM: This is a critical admission, Dr. von Hildebrand. Your husband had been called a twentieth-century Doctor of the Church by Pope Pius XII. If he felt so strongly, didn’t he have access to the Vatican to tell Pope Paul VI of his fears?

AVH: But he did! I shall never forget the private audience we had with Paul VI just before the end of the [Second Vatican] Council. It was on June 21, 1965. As soon as my husband started pleading with him to condemn the heresies that were rampant, the Pope interrupted him with the words, “Lo scriva, lo scriva.” (“Write it down.”) A few moments later, for the second time, my husband drew the gravity of the situation to the Pope’s attention. Same answer. His Holiness received us standing. It was clear that the Pope was feeling very uncomfortable. The audience lasted only a few minutes. Paul VI immediately gave a sign to his secretary, Fr. Capovilla, to bring us rosaries and medals. We then went back to Florence where my husband wrote a long document (unpublished today) that was delivered to Paul VI just the day before the last session of the Council. It was September of 1965. After reading my husband’s document, he said to my husband’s nephew, Dieter Sattler, who had become the German ambassador to the Holy See, that he had read the document carefully, but that “it was a bit harsh.” The reason was obvious: my husband had humbly requested a clear condemnation of heretical statements.

TLM: You realize, of course, Doctor, that as soon as you mention this idea of infiltration, there will be those who roll their eyes in exasperation and remark, “Not another conspiracy theory!”

AVH: I can only tell you what I know. It is a matter of public record, for instance, that Bella Dodd, the ex-Communist who reconverted to the Church, openly spoke of the Communist Party’s deliberate infiltration of agents into the seminaries. She told my husband and me that when she was an active party member, she had dealt with no fewer than four cardinals within the Vatican “who were working for us.”

Many a time I have heard Americans say that Europeans “smell conspiracy wherever they go.” But from the beginning, the Evil One has “conspired” against the Church – and has always aimed in particular at destroying the Mass and sapping belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. That some people are tempted to blow this undeniable fact out of proportion is no reason for denying its reality. On the other hand, I, European born, am tempted to say that many Americans are naïve; living in a country that has been blessed by peace, and knowing little about history, they are more likely than Europeans (whose history is a tumultuous one) to fall prey to illusions ... Judas had played his hand so artfully that no one suspected him, for a cunning conspirator knows how to cover his tracks with a show of orthodoxy.

TLM: Do the two books by the Italian priest you mentioned before the interview contain documentation that would provide evidence of this infiltration?

AVH: The two books I mentioned were published in 1998 and 2000 by an Italian priest, Don Luigi Villa of the diocese of Brescia, who at the request of Padre Pio has devoted many years of his life to the investigation of the possible infiltration of both Freemasons and Communists into the Church. My husband and I met Don Villa in the sixties. He claims that he does not make any statement that he cannot substantiate. When Paulo Sesto Beato? (1998) was published the book was sent to every single Italian bishop. None of them acknowledged receipt; none challenged any of Don Villa’s claims.

In this book, he relates something that no ecclesiastical authority has refuted or asked to be retracted – even though he names particular personalities in regard to the incident. It pertains to the rift between Pope Pius XII and the then Bishop Montini (the future Paul VI) who was his Undersecretary of State. Pius XII, conscious of the threat of Communism, which in the aftermath of World War II was dominating nearly half of Europe, had prohibited the Vatican staff from dealing with Moscow. To his dismay, he was informed one day through the Bishop of Up[p]sala (Sweden) that his strict order had been contravened. The Pope resisted giving credence to this rumor until he was given incontrovertible evidence that Montini had been corresponding with various Soviet agencies. Meanwhile, Pope Pius XII (as had Pius XI) had been sending priests clandestinely into Russia to give comfort to Catholics behind the Iron Curtain. Every one of them had been systematically arrested, tortured, and either executed or sent to the gulag. Eventually a Vatican mole was discovered: Alighiero Tondi, S.J., who was a close advisor to Montini. Tondi was an agent working for Stalin whose mission was to keep Moscow informed about initiatives such as the sending of priests into the Soviet Union.

Add to this Pope Paul’s treatment of Cardinal Mindszenty. Against his will, Mindszenty was ordered by the Vatican to leave Budapest. As most everyone knows, he had escaped the Communists and sought refuge in the American embassy compound. The Pope had given him his solemn promise that he would remain primate of Hungary as long as he lived. When the Cardinal (who had been tortured by the Communists) arrived in Rome, Paul VI embraced him warmly, but then sent him into exile in Vienna. Shortly afterwards, this holy prelate was informed that he had been demoted, and had been replaced by someone more acceptable to the Hungarian Communist government. More puzzling, and tragically sad, is the fact that when Mindszenty died, no Church representative was present at his burial.

Another of Don Villa’s illustrations of infiltration is one related to him by Cardinal Gagnon. Paul VI had asked Gagnon to head an investigation concerning the infiltration of the Church by powerful enemies. Cardinal Gagnon (at that time an Archbishop) accepted this unpleasant task, and compiled a long dossier, rich in worrisome facts. When the work was completed, he requested an audience with Pope Paul in order to deliver personally the manuscript to the Pontiff. This request for a meeting was denied. The Pope sent word that the document should be placed in the offices of the Congregation for the Clergy, specifically in a safe with a double lock. This was done, but the very next day the safe deposit box was broken and the manuscript mysteriously disappeared. The usual policy of the Vatican is to make sure that news of such incidents never sees the light of day. Nevertheless, this theft was reported even in L’Osservatore Romano (perhaps under pressure because it had been reported in the secular press). Cardinal Gagnon, of course, had a copy, and once again asked the Pope for a private audience. Once again his request was denied. He then decided to leave Rome and return to his homeland in Canada. Later, he was called back to Rome by Pope John Paul II and made a cardinal.

TLM: Why did Don Villa write these works singling out Paul VI for criticism?
AVH: Don Villa reluctantly decided to publish the books to which I have alluded. But when several bishops pushed for the beatification of Paul VI, this priest perceived it as a clarion call to print the information he had gathered through the years. In so doing, he was following the guidelines of a Roman Congregation, informing the faithful that it was their duty as members of the Church to relay to the Congregation any information that might militate against the candidate’s qualifications for beatification.

Considering the tumultuous pontificate of Paul VI, and the confusing signals he was giving, e.g.: speaking about the “smoke of Satan that had entered the Church,” yet refusing to condemn heresies officially; his promulgation of Humanae Vitae (the glory of his pontificate), yet his careful avoidance of proclaiming it ex cathedra [infallible doctrine]; delivering his Credo of the People of God in Piazza San Pietro in 1968, and once again failing to declare it binding on all Catholics; disobeying the strict orders of Pius XII to have no contact with Moscow, and appeasing the Hungarian Communist government by reneging on the solemn promise he had made to Cardinal Mindszenty; his treatment of holy Cardinal Slipyj, who had spent seventeen years in a Gulag, only to be made a virtual prisoner in the Vatican by Paul VI; and finally asking Archbishop Gagnon to investigate possible infiltration in the Vatican, only to refuse him an audience when his work was completed – all these speak strongly against the beatification of Paolo VI, dubbed in Rome, “Paolo Sesto, Mesto” (Paul VI, the sad one) ...

God alone is the judge of Paul VI. But it cannot be denied that his pontificate was a very complex and tragic one. It was under him that, in the course of fifteen years, more changes were introduced in the Church than in all preceding centuries combined. What is worrisome is that when we read the testimony of ex-Communists like Bella Dodd, and study Freemasonic documents (dating from the nineteenth century, and usually penned by fallen-away priests like Paul Roca), we can see that, to a large extent, their agenda has been carried out: the exodus of priests and nuns after Vatican II, dissenting theologians not censured, feminism, the pressure put on Rome to abolish priestly celibacy, immorality in the clergy, blasphemous liturgies (see the article by David Hart in First Things, April 2001, “The Future of the Papacy”), the radical changes that have been introduced into the sacred liturgy (see Cardinal Ratzinger’s book Milestones, pp. 126 and 148, Ignatius Press), and a misleading ecumenism. Only a blind person could deny that many of the Enemy’s plans have been perfectly carried out.

One should not forget that the world was shocked at what Hitler did. People like my husband, however, actually read what he had said in Mein Kampf. The plan was there. The world simply chose not to believe it.

But grave as the situation is, no committed Catholic can forget that Christ has promised that He will remain with His Church to the very end of the world. We should meditate on the scene related in the Gospel when the apostles’ boat was battered by a fierce storm. Christ was sleeping! His terrified followers woke Him up: He said one word, and there was a great calm. “O ye of little faith!” ...

TLM: So you see the only scenario for a solution to the present crisis as the renewal of a striving for sanctity?

AVH: We should not forget that we are fighting not only against flesh and blood, but against “powers and principalities.” This should elicit sufficient dread in us to make us strive more than ever for holiness, and to pray fervently that the Holy Bride of Christ, who is right now at Calvary, comes out of this fearful crisis more radiant than ever.

THE RAPE MONOLOGUES: (from The Weekly Press)

The first line of Allen Ginsberg’s HOWL reads: “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix…”

Put a contemporary Philly twist on Ginsberg’s HOWL and you might come up with: “I saw heretofore reasonable intellects destroyed by political correctness, starving hysterical in their search for answers, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an appropriate scapegoat…”

The scapegoat in this case, Broad Street Review editor Dan Rottenberg, has been blacklisted by some in the theater community because of an editorial he wrote in BSR in which he admonishes city women to pay attention to what they wear if they want to be “on guard” against rapists. Ideologues interpreted Rottenberg as saying that women who dress scantily deserve (or “ask”) to be raped. The emotional backlash went even further when some men and women put the iconic and often cantankerous editor on the same level as a rapist.

A fatwa of sorts was issued by a number of small theater companies barring Rottenberg or any of his BSR freelancers (the online publication is famous for its huge stable of theater reviewers) from reviewing new plays “forever and forever” (the bigger theater companies, of course, took the high road).

(For those not in the know, the highly readable and often enjoyable BSR is a quirky publication in which contributors write not to a general audience but attempt to address or appeal to some mysterious, albeit therapeutic, need in Dan Rottenberg’s head. If you don’t understand or “get” Dan Rottenberg, you’ll never appear in BSR, despite the fact that you may be a Pulitzer Prize winner or a columnist for The New York Review of Books.)

At Plays and Players Theater recently, a one time showing of “Dan Rottenberg is Thinking About Raping You: An Educational Presentation” was presented at Plays and Players Theater. The show’s creator, Clara Blouin, told The Philadelphia Weekly that she wanted to “put Rottenberg’s ideas under the lights to be laughed at.”

But what are Rottenberg’s ideas?

One of them is the egregious sin of paternalism, his seeming to offer “fatherly” advice (the man does have a grown daughter) to women to pay some attention to how they dress before going out in public.

On the surface at least, the idea of a man giving advice to women on how to dress when going out in public may appear as slightly medieval. But…this is Philadelphia, an often times “medieval” place where shopkeepers get shot in the face with sawed off shotguns and where spitting in the street is accepted as normal behavior.

I wonder if all the people hanging Rottenberg out to dry have ever hung out or walked in the most dangerous sections of the city, which seem to be everywhere these days sans the oasis of Center City and the Avenue of the Arts.


I doubt whether presenting exposed cleavage and mini shorts as a green light for rape was Rottenberg’s explicit intention. I think Rottenberg was merely asking: why risk rattling the cage of uncivilized urban animals, since there seem to be so many of them? I mean, if you’re deciding what to wear to go to WAWA in the middle of the night for that bit of frozen yogurt, would you opt to wear something skimpy rather than a sweater that may draw less attention? If you know that at that hour there might be a number of skuzzy men hanging around, why invite possible animal leers? Why even tempt them a little bit to go over the edge?

Of course, every woman has the legal and human right to wear whatever she wants, just as I have the right to walk hand-in-hand with a male partner through questionable, gay unfriendly neighborhoods. But why invite the hassle?

While dressing sexily in no way excuses a rapist, Rottenberg’s paternalistic common sense rule still contains a little bit of wisdom.

I wish the antiRottenberger bigrade good luck in attempting to eliminate any reference to common sense when it comes to navigating Philly’s mean streets.

I say this because just the other day, as I was exiting the EL at Berks Street, I witnessed a police officer pull over a scantily clad young woman in a mini skirt. What he said to her was right out of an article written by Dan Rottenberg: “Miss, you shouldn’t be walking around this neighborhood like that. You don’t know where you are. I suggest you call someone and have them pick you up.”






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Swimming in the Crest (STAR column)

Wildwood Crest is a place I keep returning to, as noted in other Sojourn columns. Once a year I usually head down to the bus station at 13th and Filbert and take New Jersey Transit to the Wildwood Bus Terminal, and then walk with my luggage to the little apartment that I rent every year.
Ocean swimming has gotten a bad reputation over the years. I know people who will not swim in the ocean because of toxins and pollutants or because they have a primal fear of marine life. While the “ocean is a dirty place” mindset may direct our attention to legitimate ecological concerns, in my mind the concern is inevitably linked with current scientific data on the atmosphere or the air we breathe.
Do we stop breathing because the air around us is filled with toxins?
True ocean lovers realize that swimming in the sea is like taking a leap of faith with Mother Nature.
Four years ago when I visited the Crest after Labor Day I noticed a lot of jellyfish in the water. Not live jellyfish mind you, but those dead blobs of protoplasm that float over the waves like transparent Jell-O molds.
Three years ago I noticed another “impurity”: the water was filled with unusual tangles of seaweed, Seaweed, while a great herbal food (especially in soups) is most unpleasant when it gathers around your body. This year the seaweed problem was minor; there were also virtually no jellyfish, as well as no big fish swimming around my ankles (as there was last year) when I waded into the breakers.
This year, for the first time ever, I experienced the feeling of a crab’s claw clamping down on my feet. One crab attached itself to my little toe and caused me to loose my balance in the breakers. I no sooner disengaged the thing when another one attached itself. I literally had to lift my left leg out of the water and shake it loose in the air. A third crab came along but I think the pounding surf washed it away. For a moment I imagined that I was crab special target #1, caught in some “crab version” of Hitchcock’s The Birds.
Believe it or not, there are big men and big women who are afraid of fish, otherwise fearless individuals who wouldn’t think twice about engaging in a street fight but who run like Goldilocks from the living, wiggling things on the ocean floor.
But nothing, neither rabid crabs, fish as long as eels, or dead jelly fish, can keep me out of my beloved ocean. I’m sure that other Philadelphians, and especially Riverward residents, feel similarly. The ocean is not an antiseptic chlorine saturated pool, but a natural playground. When we swim there we unite with our primal selves. And that’s why I love it.
There’s a certain skill to swimming in the ocean. For starters, always respect the ocean and always be on guard. Whether it’s the paranoid influence of B movies like Jaws, but when I swim in the ocean my eyes always periodically scan the horizon for fins or strange “above water” protrusions. This obsession served me well a few years ago when I noticed a huge 20 foot pier plank, with a number of spikes in it, floating over the rollers towards the beach. Two nephews of mine who happened to be swimming with me then did an altruistic thing and carried the plank to the beach.
Now I’m a firm believer in teaching children to swim if only because I think that conquering a fear of water can have a positive influence on handling a number of problems in life.
When you think about it, there’s nothing more depressing then hearing a strong looking man or woman announce to friends or strangers that they never learned how to swim. They may be a star athlete in every other area of life; they may be able to press 200 pounds, but when it comes to water they are reduced to silly putty. At the beach I sometimes see tough football player types wade in the ocean up to their ankles only to retreat skittishly when a big wave comes in.
Sometimes these brawny characters, though “gladiatorial"” in every other aspect of life, draw back from the ocean like the infirm or a scared young child. Like the Biblical Samson without his hair, not knowing how to swim has rendered them powerless.
A crab, however, may still find their feet delectable.

PAFA Annual Student Exhibition, ICON June 2011

There may be nothing quite like it in the nation: student artists with their work on display mingling with potential patrons and buyers in a party circuit atmosphere where the only “bad” vibe is a theatrical frown or two because the generous open bar has just run out of champagne.
For an art lover, events like this don’t get any better.
The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts’ (PAFA) 110th Annual Student Exhibition (May 13-June 5, 2011) preview this year hit a milestone. The word in the crowd is that the works on exhibit from third-and-fourth year students, as well as Bachelor of Fine Arts and graduating Master of Fine Arts students, was better than ever.

After years of unglamorous solitary creation in the “dorms” of studios, classes, and trial by fire experimentations (which inevitably include a fair share of artistic failures), the PAFA student finally has the opportunity to help arrange their first show. For the emerging student-to-adult artist ready to step into the world as a creator, the Annual Student Exhibition is a crucial first step. The exhibition’s preview party, besides being a great opportunity for artists to chat with potential buyers, also doubles as a serious competition and critical venue for these (almost) former students.

Since most of the works on the three floor exhibition space exhibition are for sale, the air of expectation among the artists is high.

Will the public respond favorably? Or will they walk past and nod politely, their eyes set on the next artist’s work?

“I think this years’ show is a good looking show in terms of installation,” Jill Rupinski, PAFA’s Appointed Faculty and ASE Coordinator told me by phone. “The students did a really good job in putting a more professional look on the show in terms of editing their work, and thinking hard about what they wanted to show. This was less concern about throwing everything up on the walls in terms of selling work.”

With the work of 128 student artists on display, Rupinski says there’s more crossover work this year as well, with sculptors doing painting and vice versa. And sales so far have been good, with some works commanding what Rupinski calls “hefty prices,” especially among graduate students who left careers to return to school.

“We always say to the students, if you get a large price for a piece you may not get that large a price after school. We tell them that our venue, the annual student exhibition, is heavily marketed and advertised.”

The Exhibition comes on the cusp of school graduation, when exhibiting students will pack up the paintings that don’t sell and implement plans to head home, wherever that may be.

I got a taste of this when I visited the PAFA studio of Master of Fine Arts Exhibitor Roman Serra.
Serra, who hails from Detroit, grew up on a farm and worked as a landscaper before winning a scholarship to the school. An abstract artist, his small studio is identical to the other students’, about as large as a boxy efficiency apartment. Sectioned off in an old automotive warehouse with an exposed factory-like ceiling, the off-white walls in the cubicle are paint splattered as is the floor.

“People like the floor,” Roman tells me, “but before I leave for Detroit I have to repaint the walls, though you can see the hearts my girlfriend painted there.”

I look up and notice half a drawn heart, the other half hidden behind one of Serra’s works.

In this vast space student voices can be heard coming from other cubicles. Most seem to be packing to leave their studios for good. Along the hallway are bunches of stacked paintings, awaiting U-Haul or SUV transport.

Serra, who plans on studying and working in Italy in September, and who has an upcoming exhibition at The Sporting Club at the Bellevue, tells me that the groundbreaking shovel he designed for the Lenfest Plaza groundbreaking was chosen as the winning shovel over other student-designed shovels.

“I did something different than what other people did. I made it into a staff of power, a sort of Shaman’s staff . I carved it with a diamond blade grinder. I wanted it to have a special quality. The school was impressed with what I did. Then they asked if I would be a presenter at the groundbreaking and if I would carry a 65 pound paint brush and present it to Mrs. Lenfest.”

Serra says he’s disappointed that his Philadelphia experience has been on the mediocre side.

“I think Chicago was a better city for my work. There are a lot of conservative tastes in Philadelphia when it comes to buying work. It’s been hard for me to support myself.”

Sometime during our chat, Serra mentions a friend, Tyler Kline, who has a studio on the other side of his.

I met Kline rather serendipitously while touring the preview party. Kline, a slight of build guy with a small goatee, was pacing in a remote corner of the exhibition space some distance away from his work when we began speaking.
He told me he is primarily a sculptor and describes his work as something that’s “after post modern.”
“It’s grotesque romanticism for this new 21st century,” he said, “which has been shaped by the September 11 attacks and this ongoing holy war.”
He tells me that there is a political element in his work but that he tries not to make it “upfront.” “There are certain veiled things alluded to, a lot of it is allegory.”
“I’m concerned with not being overly obvious, in not creating things that are quickly read. Ten years ago I was doing overly political paintings and I look back now and realize that I was just perpetuating an aesthetic—perpetuating things that I didn’t want to happen.” A native or Portland, Oregon, Kline’s political paintings then had a lot to do with the World Trade Organization protests in that city.
Kline, who bought a house with his wife some time ago in what he calls a “fringe area between between East Falls and Germantown,” plans to make Philadelphia his home. “Philadelphia is not the art market place that New York is, and most artists here can’t make a living from selling art. I think Philly has Manhattan beat as far as things being produced in the city. It has Brooklyn beat.”
He tells me about his membership in an arts collective, what he calls an “alternative performance/installation laboratory for the Creative Arts,” the Little Berlin Gallery on West Montgomery Avenue.



An avid skateboarder, Kline says he skates around the city in order to “watch the urban space.”
“One corner of urban renewal instead of the gentrification of neighborhoods in the building of condos, is building alternative spaces. Now we have working class artists buying houses and turning around these spaces. Skate parks,” he said, “are popping up in underused playgrounds that were formerly open air drug markets.”

While the PAFA preview party offers its fair share of spotting ‘Who’s Who,’ —I’m thinking especially of watching Gerry Lenfest pour himself coffee and getting to ask if anybody asked him for money today—that was not always the case. Thrity years ago, Rupinski says, the preview parties were “less of a cohesive effort in advertising,” and that during the party things were so quiet “you could hear a pin drop.”


But preview parties for some of the artists can be rough. Rupinski tells me that faculty members then are on the lookout for artists who seem to be having a meltdown because nobody is talking to them about their work. “This also is an education,” she says, “so we go over and talk them up.”
“When there’s a dull moment for a student, I see them standing there all pretty in their finer attire and I come over and say, ‘Tell me about your art, talk to me.”
The Dean of the School of Fine Arts agrees.
“The Annual Student Exhibition is perhaps the single most important event in the school year,” Jeffrey Carr told me. “It draws together all the various elements of the Academy, museum and academic programs, and it is a clear statement of what we are and what PAFA values. We are a strictly fine arts school and also a unique combination of school and museum committed to the evolving diversity and vitality of the fine arts in America.”

From ICON Magazine, June 2011

THE LAST WORD

When most people think of the Pearl S. Buck house they think of the sprawling 60-acre estate in Bucks County. But long before the women’s rights crusader, philanthropist, humanitarian and author moved to this house (or Green Hills Farm) she lived at 2019 Delancey Street in Center City.
The Delancey Street house, despite its having been occupied by the author of over 70 books and the winner of the 1938 Nobel Prize for Literature for “The Good Earth,” is registered with the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission as the Richard Cadwalader house. Built in 1860 for Cadwalader in the Federal style, the multiple dwelling row house was later recast in the Beaux Arts style in 1918 by the Philadelphia architectural firm of DeArmond, Ashmead & Bickley.
DeArmond, Ashmead & Bickley (1911-1938), all University of Pennsylvania graduates, were famous for their colonial revival residences and English-influenced style buildings. They also designed (the long demolished) Franklin Trust Company Building at 18 South 15th Street in Philadelphia.

It was in this Center City house where Ms. Buck compiled her 1972 short story collection, “Once upon a Christmas.” Other holiday stories like “Christmas Miniature,” (1957), “The Christmas Ghost,” (1960) and “Christmas Day in the Morning,” may also have been written in the Delancey Street townhouse.
The 9,000 square foot, 5-floor townhouse was purchased in 1964 as the home of Pearl Buck and the Pearl S. Buck Foundation. While the basement and first floor was renovated for use as Foundation space, the second floor was designed to house the dining room, a formal drawing room and the solarium or Sun Room where Buck had large numbers of plants.
With the famous Rosenbach Museum and Library just a few doors away at 2008-2010 Delancey Street, it’s no wonder that Buck saw this area as a special part of Center City. Although it was the informal, tumultuous Sixties, when Ms. Buck called 2019 Delancey Street home, she was often referred to as “Miss Buck.” When in Center City it is said that she dressed like a society matron, but when she was her Bucks County home she was far more informal.
The octagonal-shaped dining room was lavishly decorated with a Ming screen with inlaid ivory figures. A long Chinese buffet table was also situated under a smoked glass mirror. Since the dining room also doubled as a place for dancing, the octagonal table could be rolled into a closet and the chandelier could be raised or lowered as needed.
“Why did I choose Center City, you ask?” Pearl S. Buck once wrote. “Because there was a street, there was the house, there were the people. There, too, was the tradition of brotherly love…” Buck also wrote that no matter where she lived there were always elements of the Chinese. “Sooner or later into every room in any house I own the Chinese influence creeps.”
At 2019 Delancey, the 3rd floor library contained a baby grand piano, the famous “Good Earth Desk,” an ancient Chinese drum on a pedestal which acted as a coffee table, as well as leather bound editions of her books given her as gifts by her publisher. Much of the furniture was imported from the Buck house in China, namely the rose and tan Peking rugs, the Blackwood chairs, and a daybed.
The 3rd floor Master Bedroom had a small sitting room and a writing table.
One walked through the 1st Floor entryway into a vestibule that exploded with red lacquered doors, stained glass and a large statue of the Chinese goddess of Mercy. Beyond the foyer, near the fireplace with its flanking Mandarin Chinese chairs, was an altar table flanked by two antique candelabra.
During the renovation of the townhouse in 1964-65, the first floor kitchen was moved to the basement and the former kitchen became the Foundation’s conference room. In the center of the conference room was a six foot round table made of walnut and yellow marble.
Many of Buck’s Delancey Street townhouse treasures were moved to the Bucks County home when the townhouse was sold.
Of special note is the wrought iron gate on the front door. Artistically designed to downplay its use as a “guard” against intruders, the design of the mail slot is of special interest.
If you’re attending the Rosenbach’s Bloomsday celebration on June 16 from 12:00 pm to 7:00 pm when 75 Philadelphians will take turns reading sections from James Joyce’s Ulysses (I will be reading at 5:30pm), you might want to observe the proceedings from Miss Buck’s steps.




After Osama Bin Laden was shot dead by Special OPs forces in Pakistan, thousands of people, many of them students, took to the streets in celebration. Many of the revelers, who were in middle school when the 9/11 attacks occurred, responded in a way that more mature adults did not. Much of the celebratory frenzy that occurred in front of the White House, on college campuses, Times Square and Ground Zero, was like a big sports stadium roar. The reaction was definitely middle school behavior. But shouting, “USA, USA!” reduced bin Laden’s death to a gross manifestation of nationalism, as if America was a hockey team en route to a Stanley Cup victory. The hoopla seemed to suggest that the world’s troubles were over, when in fact the opposite is probably true. Cautious optimism and focused meditation, not frat party mayhem, should have been the rule that day. Why? Because when it comes to the psychology of war, one retaliatory strike breeds another.
Will the Talibun target President Obama during the 2012 campaign in the same way that Osama was targeted in May 2011? Only time will tell whether killing Bin Laden was a good thing, or whether having him fade away, his whereabouts unknown, would have been the better alternative.

Bin Laden’s rushed burial at sea (in the water or buried in the ground under the water?) must have seemed anti-climatic to most people, despite the comments of Tariq Ali, the noted Pakistani writer and activist, who noted, “Why wasn’t he captured alive and tried in a court of law to prove him guilty?” But it was the disposal of the body according to the rituals of Islam that struck me as most peculiar. I had a hard time imagining how the soul of a terrorist of Bin Laden’s ilk could possibly have benefited spiritually from prayers and an anointing after death. Perhaps in God’s great universe this makes an illogical sort of sense, but for the loved ones of the thousands killed on 9/11, a “holy” send off like this must somehow seem perversely incongruent. I suppose, ultimately, the (reported) reverence shown Bin Laden’s body stands as a reminder of death’s transcendent realm: We may be judge, jury and executioner here, but when it comes to the great unknown, we don’t necessarily have the last “word.”
*
In March, Philadelphia police had to close John F. Kennedy Plaza (or Love Park) because there were threats of flash mob activity. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Daily News, police spent some time chasing bands of young people in an attempt to curtail rowdy behavior. Disturbances on South Street also punctuated the day.

While police reported no violence or destruction of public property during these episodes, several arrests were made. Love Park was also closed for several hours in anticipation of further flash mob activity. The closure prevented visitors, tourists and office workers from enjoying the park on a beautiful spring day.

So what gives with the City of Brotherly Love?

In the days of Mayor Frank Rizzo, this sort of behavior would have been nipped in the bud. School kids, although minors, would have been hauled into jail and then turned over to their parents, or maybe the parents would have been arrested. The candy-coated, velvet glove “Ah, come on, they’re just kids” treatment would not have played out in Rizzo’s Philadelphia. But then was then and now is now as they say, and now is not so good, especially with the warmer weather here.
Mayor Nutter’s promise to crack down on flash mob activity comes after the horses have left the stable. The kids, or the culprits in question, don’t seem to mind his threats.
When gangs of school kids have the police chasing them around Laurel and Hardy style, you know those threats are basically meaningless.
When flash mobs first surfaced over a year or so ago, many nervous progressive types made all sorts of excuses for the behavior. There were Op-Ed editorials calling for more “after school” programs. Voices calling for the arrest of the students or their parents were criticized as being “racist” and “cruel.” But where is it written that any kid, be they Asian, Italian, Irish, African American or Indian, can team up with ethic or racial peers and hold a city hostage?
The Nutter Administration seems to be handling the problem on a case-by-case basis, as the incidents occur. This “damage control” approach to the problem has not prevented the mobs from reinventing themselves. Again, the kids do not feel intimidated or frightened because they keep doing it.
Two weeks ago, while crossing Market Street in Center City on a late Wednesday afternoon, a group of African American female students were crossing in the opposite direction. Walking beside me was a middle aged white woman, probably coming home from work. Suddenly and without warning one of the students jumped in the woman’s face and began screaming at the top of her lungs. The incident took all of five seconds, and may not have been much by urban standards, but it displayed an attitude that’s become all too common these days: callous disregard for other people’s rights and feelings. That small action, despite the fact that nobody was touched or physically harmed, constituted a kind of assault.
It would have been the same thing had a white girl screamed in the face of an older black woman-- same offense; same ignorance.
The woman was understandably shaken, but what could she do? Scenes like this have become normal in the City of Brotherly Love, and that’s the sad part. As a city we are building a tough collective hide that processes but then tunes out incidents like this. We’ve come to accept outrageous rudeness as “part of what it’s like to live in the city,” although if we were to compare Philadelphia to other cities we would discover that this is anything but the case, even though violence-prone flash mobs have occurred in Boston and New Jersey. That’s not true, however, in Baltimore, New York, Los Angeles, or even Detroit.
Frank Rizzo in the 1970s often went overboard when it came to maintaining public order, but one thing was certain: Philly was a safe city then.
As I see it, the way to eliminate flash mobs or random (group) teenage hooliganism, such as the March 4, 2011 incident at the Shops of Liberty Place when at least two dozen teens kicked over food and display tables in the Food Court, is to immediately implement the following:
Eliminate the “free ride” Septa transpass system for students, prohibit teens from gathering in groups of ten or more, and hold parents responsible for injuries or damages inflicted on homes or businesses during a flash mob
Since we can’t bring Frank Rizzo back from the dead, we can at least implement some useful, workable Rizzo-like solutions


*

Why Pope John Paul II is not a saint: As Catholic writer Michael Matt noted, “No man is great until history judges him so, which is why the rush to beatify John Paul strikes many Catholics as an attempt to preemptively overrule history’s inevitable verdict against a problematic pontificate that left the human element of the Catholic Church in chaos.”

FEAR AND LOATHING AT THE PHILADELPHIA CATHOLIC STANDARD AND TIMES

The following email from Matthew Gambino, General Manager of the Philadelphia Catholic Standard and Times, was sent to me the other day. It concerns a letter to the editor of mine that the CS&T approved and edited for publication, and then in fact did publish, giving it a prominent "framed" space in the newspaper.

The letter mentioned a family wedding I attended in a Catholic parish in Media. I wrote about the general mayhem and loud talking among the congregation before Mass. The point of the letter was to attempt to address a problem that seems to exist in a lot of Catholic parishes today. In the letter I also expressed disappointment in the wedding homily.

This letter, as I said, was approved for publication and then published prominently in the newspaper. I received many comments afterwards thanking me for writing it (from priests and neighbors). Almost everyone I spoke to agreed that the loud talking issue before Mass in many Catholic churches is an issue that should be addressed.

It should also be noted that I did not use the priest's name in my letter to the CS&T, but merely mentioned "the priest." He could have been a visiting priest. Regardless, the letter--my words--were initially approved for publication.

After my letter to the CS&T was published, I wrote the editor and asked if the CS&T would like to reprint an article of mine on sacred architecture previously published in The Philadelphia Bulletin.

I did receive a response from Mr. Gambino, but it was not about sacred architecture.

It shoud be noted that after reading Mr. Gambino's letter, I opted to telephone him as well. Mr. Gambino told me that he would have canceled my subscription had I been a subscriber to the newspaper. Mr. Gambino laughed at me when I pointed out that issues like wild talking and socializing before Mass need to be addressed.

The unprofessional behavior of the CS&T is disturbing.

MY PUBLISHED LETTER IN THE CATHOLIC STANDARD & TIMES:

Hello,

I attended a wedding Mass at this beautiful church about a month ago. It was my first time in Nativity and the architecture and interior design of the church seemed to promise an equally beautiful ceremony. As a side note, it was good to see that the "remodeling" frenzy that followed Vatican II did not harm Nativity in any way.

While the church was beautiful, I was disappointed in the quality of the Mass at this particular wedding. Before Mass, people stood and talked--in fact, they talked quite loudly--all over the church. Initially there was a tendency to whisper but this soon gave way to reception-like normal voices, and even laughter. Gone was the traditional quiet one used to expect (before Mass) in Catholic churches. It was like sitting in a cafeteria and watching old friends say hello to one another after slapping each other on the back.

The pastor should address this problem in one of his sermons in the future. There was plenty of time to chat and "get down" after the Mass.

Another disappointing thing about the Mass,was the homily. The priest, rather than using the pulpit to speak, stood in front of the couple and talked to them like he was chatting them up in a bar. He kept saying, "Wow, they met in Barnaby's, wow, isn't God great, wow, oh wow!"

I lost count of the "wow's" after a while, but many of the people around me in the pews seemed to be wincing. The off the cuff homily was pure stream of consciousness bar talk. The only thing missing was a high five and a baseball cap.

One expects something more formal at a wedding. A litany of WOW's might be okay at the reception, but we don't need to hear this very dumbed down and condescending talk in the middle of Mass.

Sorry to have to write this.

Sincerely,

Thom Nickels
Philadelphia, PA


-----Original Message-----
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2011 12:25:43 -0400
From: "Matthew Gambino"
To:
Subject: Re: Fwd: church architecture submission



Well, if it isn't Thom Nickels, the man who wrote a letter to the editor
which we published May 26. Publishing that letter was a mistake for
which I am truly sorry.

You could not stop at a good comment about the beautiful church. You
had to complain, as if there are not enough complaints in the world
today. You took a cheap shot at the priest -- you didn't have to name
him, he is the only priest at that parish. It wasn't enough that you had
to criticize his homily, you had to call it and him "dumbed down and
condescending."

You couldn't bring yourself to keep a mean-spirited insult to a fine
man and fine priest to yourself. You had to express it. And so you
insulted him and every priest trying his best to preach and minister to
the people.
Again, I regret bitterly that we published your letter; we never should
have allowed such garbage in this newspaper.

Please, save your strength in the future. Send no further
correspondence or phone calls or any communication to the Catholic
Standard and Times. I wanted to cancel your subscription but I see you
are not a subscriber.

Keep your complaints and your negativity to yourself. The world does
not need them. Make the gripe article you sent the last thing you ever
send this newspaper. Your name will never appear in it again.

Goodbye.

Matthew Gambino
Director and General Manager
The Catholic Standard and Times
Archdiocese of Philadelphia
222 N. 17th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103

215-587-3509

Dateline: Author Appearances & Readings

At the Rosenbach Museum on Bloomsday, June 16, I will join 75 other Philadelphians and read a section from Ulysses. This particular section is the rather long Corny Kelleher Dialogs with Bloom, the Horse, Stephen and Rudy. I will act out all parts. Stay tuned.

In September, Spiral Bookcase in Manayunk is planning a Pretzel Park outdoor reading and Q and A from my book, Manayunk, on the Spiral Bookstore Best Seller List for the last few years.

Recorded 4 Rainbow Minute history readings for The Rainbow Minute, WRIR 97.3fm in Richmond, Virginia. Air time to be announced. Judd Proctor recorded these sessions in Center City for broadcast sometime in June.

Published Letter to the Editor in The Catholic Standard & Times this week:

To the Editor:

I attended a wedding Mass at this beautiful church about a month ago. It was my first time in Nativity and the architecture and interior design of the church seemed to promise an equally beautiful ceremony. As a side note, it was good to see that the "remodeling" frenzy that followed Vatican II did not harm Nativity in any way.

While the church was beautiful, I was disappointed in the quality of the Mass at this particular wedding. Before Mass, people stood and talked--in fact, they talked quite loudly--all over the church. Initially there was a tendency to whisper but this soon gave way to reception-like voices, and even laughter. Gone was the traditional quiet one used to expect (before Mass) in Catholic churches. The experience was like sitting in a cafeteria and watching old friends say hello to one another after slapping each other on the back.

The pastor should address this problem in one of his sermons in the future. There was plenty of time to chat and "get down" after the Mass.

Another disappointing thing about the Mass, was the homily. The priest, rather than using the pulpit to speak, stood in front of the couple and talked to them like he was chatting them up in a bar. He kept saying, "Wow, they met in Barnaby's, wow, isn't God great, wow, oh wow!"

I lost count of the "wow's" after a while, but the people around me in the pews--they were traditionalist Catholics--seemed to be visibly wincing as well. The off the cuff homily was pure stream of consciousness bar talk. The only thing missing was a high five and a baseball cap.

One expects something more formal at a wedding. A litany of WOW's might be okay at the reception, but we don't need to hear this very dumbed down and condescending talk in the middle of Mass.


Sincerely,

Thom Nickels