Una Voce America

After a decade of shepherding the faithful at St. Patrick’s Parish in Ripon, Father Peter Carota is moving on to the next chapter of his spiritual service to the Lord.

“I want to start a Catholic Church television station that has the Latin Mass every day. That’s my dream,” he said.

Like the early pioneers who came west in search of their dream – “we don’t know where we’re going but we’re on our way,” was their common refrain – Father Carota is on his way to fulfill his dream although, he admits, “I don’t know how that’s going to happen.”

But that’s exactly what he intends to do during his year-long sabbatical, to learn how he can put that into effect. He will be traveling to visit monasteries that offer the Latin Mass as the focal point of their spiritual life. Among the monasteries he plans to visit is the Clear Creek Abbey, a Benedictine monastery in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and another monastery in Wyoming.

Two years ago, he wanted to start an order of priests who would “go around and tell everybody all the beauty and all the sacredness of the Tridentine Mass which I just discovered five years ago,” he said. “So that’s why I asked for a sabbatical year to do this.”

“I hope and pray that there will be a holy priest here that will continue preaching the gospel, and that will continue having the Latin Mass here, and that someday there will be a beautiful church back there,” he said, referring to the 22 acres that the church purchased a few years ago and where a chapel has been built. A new rectory is also now part of that property.

“I have grown in these ten years. Hopefully you have too. Five years ago, the Pope encouraged saying of the Latin Mass again. Since saying it these last five years, I have truly understood my priesthood in a totally deeper way as being sacrificial. Above all, I love the reverence and sacredness of this mass. Jesus is God and truly present in Holy Communion. Therefore we should kneel and receive Him with all reverence that God deserves. This mass is only concerned with adoring God…. Please pray for me, and thank you for all you have done for me. Thank you to all who have taken seriously your spiritual growth as Catholics. With your help, the parish has a great future with the 22 acres.”

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Mrs.  Joy Lanfranchi reports from Una Voce Orange County, CA:

Mr.  Bob Opelle, a longtime champion for the TLM, passed away Thursday, January 5 after a brief illness. He was in Hawaii, where he had been living with his wife for several years. He had served as a leader battling for the TLM many years ago when the fight was still new.

Una Voce America adds:

Mr. Opelle was President of the Traditional Mass Society, headquartered in San Juan Capistrano, for many years. The TMS was successor to the original Una Voce in the United States association that was founded and led by Dr. Dietrich von Hildebrand. After von Hildebrand died in 1977, Bob diligently represented the U.S. at meetings of the international Una Voce Federation. The TMS produced a bimonthly newsletter that focused on raising consciousness of Catholics of their liturgical patrimony. Bob led national petition drives to awaken the Curia to the desires, and indeed the rights, of Catholics to have access to the traditional Mass. His final petition effort netted nearly 50,000 names and was placed directly into the hands of Pope John Paul II in 1994 by Bob himself.

I had the honor of meeting Bob while in Huntington, CA for the UVA leadership conference there in 2002. He very graciously took me on a private tour of the beautiful San Juan Capistrano area, culminating in a visit to the Mission there, and made sure I would have a place to sit for Mass on Sunday morning in the crowded historic chapel.

Requiem aeternam dona ei, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat ei. Requiescat in pace.

Thank you, friend.

Byron Smith,
Secretary, Una Voce America

Una Voce Ventura Conference, Saturday, September 10, 2011

Conference: “Applying the Fruits of the Extraordinary Rite to Family Life”

The manifest fruits of the Mass of Ages can provide a solid foundation for the spiritual life of your family. In this one-day conference, our two distinguished speakers will address what Catholic families can do and gain from a deeper appreciation of the traditional Latin Mass. Deep experience has shown that the reverence, solemnity, quiet and beauty of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman rite can produce rich spiritual growth and foster the formation of saints.
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With permission of Carolyn Schuk, Santa Clara Weekly:

Michael Hey was four years old when the Roman Catholic Church convened the Second Vatican Council. So you can hardly describe his love for western Christianity’s traditional Latin liturgy and music as a die-hard’s nostalgia for the past.

And you can’t say it about the choir he directs every Sunday at Our Mother of Perpetual Help Oratory in Santa Clara, either. The famous 1962-1965 gathering of leaders of the Roman Catholic Church – the world’s largest single Christian body – was long over by the time most of Hey’s singers were born. Arguably, these days the reactionaries are their tambourine-toting, Birkenstock-shod, stuck-in-the-70s baby boomer parents.

The recently retired Cisco engineer began singing Gregorian chant with Palo Alto’s St. Ann Choir (www.stannchoir.org) and its director, Stanford professor and early music titan Dr. William Mahrt, at Our Lady of Peace. The Santa Clara parish celebrated a traditional Latin mass on Saturday evening for many years.

When the traditionalist Oratory of Our Mother of Perpetual Help (www.institute-christ-king.org/santaclara) acquired the historic Elim church on Homestead Road, Santa Clara’s Latin mass made its home there and the choir brought its talents to the chapel’s 9:30 a.m. liturgy. The Oratory now celebrates four Latin masses every Sunday.

With support over the years from St. Ann choir member David Webb, the Oratory’s choir is now a capable group of about a dozen with a solid repertory of Gregorian chant and medieval and Renaissance polyphony.

“These young people love good music and they see the importance of worshipping in a reverent way,” explains Hey. “There are now there are so many resources available online that there’s no excuse for not doing this music.”

*”Mass” is the principal worship service of the Roman Catholic Church. The name derives from the final words of the liturgy: Ite missa est, deo gratias.

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