Photo of the "Rock Church"

This is Saint Alphonsus Ligouri church in Saint Louis. It is called the "Rock Church", located at 1118 North Grand Avenue at Cook, just north of Saint Louis University.

The church is staffed by the Congregatio Sanctissimi Redemptoris, Redemptorists of the Denver Province; the church is named after the founder of the order. The Redemptorist also locally run Liguori Publications, in the northern Jefferson County town of Liguori, Missouri.

Martin Duggan Gives Talk on Educational Freedom

Martin Duggan, former editorial page editor of the Saint Louis Globe-Democrat and host of the Emmy-award winning KETC Channel 9 discussion show Donnybrook, gave a talk on freedom of education in Missouri.

Public education originally meant public funding for all schools. Until the 1950s, private and parochial elementary and high school children had textbooks and transportation paid for by public funding, just like the public schools. An activist Supreme Court and agitation from groups—including most notably the Klan—eliminated this funding. Now state funds go to publicly-owned schools. The status quo is now supported by the teachers' unions and allied politicians, leading to great injustice, namely, the lack of parental control over education.

Martin said that parents have the primary right of educating children, which is very much under attack now.

In 1959, Martin's wife Mae Duggan founded Citizens for Educational Freedom (http://www.educational-freedom.org), the first organization in the United States dedicated to educational freedom. This organization promotes school vouchers, which will allow parents to send their children to any school. The organization was praised by President Ronald Reagan and by Milton Friedman.

Martin noted that today, November 18, is the feast day of Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne, Saint Louisan and founder of the first free school west of the Mississippi River.

Martin made the analogy between the fight for educational freedom and the creed of the United States Marine Corps. He also quoted Churchill, in stating that we will never, never, never, give up.

Closing remarks were made by Victor Wendl. He noted that public schools are the only government entitlement that requires spending in government-owned institutions, unlike Medicare, Food Stamps, or even higher education. The spending on public schools is the largest part of the state budget, and is growing quickly. Victor stated that a major problem with promoting school vouchers is the view of many rural Missourians who are happy with the unity of their local institutions: in many small towns, everyone goes to the high school football game on Saturday, and then worship in the same Protestant church on Sunday morning. In these towns, there is a great fear that under a voucher system, children may leave the area to go to city Catholic schools, and then eventually Catholic schools will move in and start making converts, disrupting the social order. Victor also said that local school superintendents have great power and influence over state legislators.

Invocation and Benediction was given by Rev. Msgr. Jerome Sommer, new pastor at St. Alphonsus Liguori Parish (the Rock Church), who mentioned the great success at Cardinal Ritter College Prep, Central Catholic, and the Jesuit St. Matthew School, all in north Saint Louis. These schools educate urban children to a far higher standard than the un-accredited St. Louis public school system, at a far lower cost per child.

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About Citizens for Educational Freedom:

Our membership consists of citizens and supporting groups of every race, color, creed, and party.

Our purpose is to promote the primary rights of parents to freedom of choice, justice and quality in education for all.

We support policies which will allocate a fair share of educational tax dollars for each child to take to the school their parents choose, while protecting parents and schools from undue government regulation and control.

Educational Freedom means:

• Parental choice


• Equal treatment under the law for all families


• Fair Competition among schools


• improved educational quality


• Taxpayer savings


• Religious liberty

Citizens for Educational Freedom
9333 Clayton Road
Saint Louis, MO 63124-1511

Phone: (314) 997-6361
Email: CitEdFree@Educational-Freedom.org
Website: http://www.Educational-Freedom.org

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Nationalism in our country has led to education being controlled and funded at ever-higher levels of government, and ends up promoting philosophies that are popular with the political elite. With the new Foundation Formula of funding in the State of Missouri, funds are no longer controlled at even the school board level, but are controlled by the State. The Federal Government is also spending much money and is adding additional layers of control. A recent Federal District Court ruling even says that parents have no say in the education of their children.

The educational cost per child is more than $11,000 per year in the City of Saint Louis. These schools are not accredited, are dangerous, and provide some of the worst education in the world.

By contrast, the Catholic educational system, although a part of an international heirarchical organization, is funded locally by parents at the level of the individual school. Some of these Catholic schools are bad and are closed, while others flourish. These schools are inexpensive, and the level of education is second only to the most expensive of private schools.

The United States has the best university system in the world, while our public primary and secondary education is worse than even many desperately poor African countries. Money has never been a solution to fixing this problem. This came about because of the monopoly in early education: higher education does not have a monopoly, so each school must be careful to provide a good education, otherwise it will fail. Primary and secondary education, however, is not allowed to fail, no matter how bad it gets; it just gets more funding. Even atheists, long-time proponents of public education, are getting disgusted by low quality and political meddling, and are setting up their own private schools.

I am convinced that every type of education and educational philosophy has at its core a religious element to it—or the philosophical equivalent to the basic beliefs of religion.

Originally, schools were funded without regard to religion, so we had mainly Protestant schools and Catholic schools, with a prominent number of "progressive" or atheist schools in the mix, all funded by the taxpayer. School consolidation and lawsuits led to the adoption of the philosophy of Deism, where the abstract God of the Enlightenment is invoked; it is this conception of God that is on our money and in our Pledge of Allegiance. Lawsuits by atheists led to wholesale adoption of the "progressive" philosophy of education. Very quickly the Marxist roots of this type of education lost support due to the horrors of Communism, while a new Environmentalist world-view, which is a form of pantheism, became popular.

Our current public school philosophy tends to atheism or indifferentism, and now is becoming pantheistic or syncretic. Is it a surprise that large numbers of our youth say that they are "spiritual but not religious"? Where did they get this idea? Schools that attempt a philosophy of pluralism necessarily falls into the trap of promoting or assuming one of these philosophies which is incompatable with Christianity. Religious liberty demands parental freedom of school choice.

Never surrender.

Feast of Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne

Today is the Feast of Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne, co-patroness of the Archdiocese of St. Louis and the Diocese of Kansas City in Kansas, as well as the principal patroness of the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau.

Photos of the shrine.

From the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1917:

Founder in America of the first houses of the society of the Sacred Heart, born at Grenoble, France, 29 August, 1769; died at St. Charles, Missouri, 18 October, 1852. She was the daughter of Pierr-Francois Duchesne, an eminent lawyer. Her mother was a Périer, ancestor of Casimir Périer, President of France in 1894. She was educated by the visitation Nuns, entered that order, saw its dispersion during the Reign of Terror, vainly attempted the re-establishment of the convent of Ste-Marie-d'en-Haunt, near Grenoble, and finally, in 1804, accepted the offer of Mother Barat to receive her community into the Society of the Sacred Heart. From early childhood the dream of Philippine had been the apostolate of souls: heathen in distant lands, the neglected and poor at home. Nature and grace combined to fit her for this high vocation; education, suffering, above all, the guidance of Mother Barat trained her to become the pioneer of her order in the New world. In 1818 Mother Duchesne set out with four companions for the missions of America. Bishop Dubourg welcomed her to New Orleans, whence she sailed up the Mississippi to St. Louis, finally settling her little colony at St. Charles. "Poverty and Christian heroism are here", she wrote, "and trials are the riches of priests in this land." Cold, hunger, and illness; opposition, ingratitude, and calumny, all that came to try the courage of this missioner, served only to fire her lofty and indomitable spirit with new zeal for the spread of truth. Other foundations followed, at Florissant, Grand Côteau, New Orleans, St. Louis, St. Michael; and the approbation of the society in 1826 by Leo XII recognized the good being done in these parts. She yearned to teach the poor Indians, and old and broken as she was, she went to labour among the Pottowatomies at Sugar Creek, thus realizing the desire of her life. Stirred by the recitals of Father De Smet, S.J., she turned her eyes towards the Rocky Mountain missions; but Providence led her back to St. Charles, where she died. Thirty-four years of mission toil, disappointment, endurance, self-annihilation sufficed, indeed, to prove the worth of this valiant daughter of Mother Barat. She had opened the road, others might walk in it; and the success hidden from her eyes was well seen later by the many who rejoiced in the rapid spread of her order over North and South America. Sincere, intense, generous, austere yet affectionate, endowed with large capacity for suffering and work, Mother Duchesne's was a stern character that needed and took the moulding of Mother Barat.

Into Great Silence - a film

Coming soon to theaters near you! The documentary, Die Große Stille (Into Great Silence), by German filmaker Philip Gröning, was filmed inside of the Great Chartreuse monastery in the French Alps. This was the first Carthusian monastery, founded in 1084 by St. Bruno. The first twenty minutes of the film is mainly silent, while the only music on the soundtrack is of the monks themselves chanting.

Website: http://www.diegrossestille.de/english/
The Carthusians: http://www.chartreux.org

On the Holy Icons

We appear to be nearing the end of an iconoclastic age of that has stripped our churches bare of ornament and objects of reverence. This smashing of sacred images has happened before, and the Second Council of Nicea in A.D. 787 was called by the Church to condemn this.

Excerpt from the decrees of the Council, from the EWTN library:

...We declare that we defend free from any innovations all the—written and—unwritten ecclesiastical traditions that have been entrusted to us.

One of these is the production of representational art; this is quite in harmony with the history of the spread of the gospel, as it provides confirmation that the becoming man of the Word of God was real and not just imaginary, and as it brings us a similar benefit. For, things that mutually illustrate one another undoubtedly possess one another's message.

Given this state of affairs and stepping out as though on the royal highway, following as we are the God-spoken teaching of our holy fathers and the tradition of the catholic church — for we recognize that this tradition comes from the holy Spirit who dwells in her—we decree with full precision and care that, like the figure of the honoured and life-giving cross, the revered and holy images, whether painted or made of mosaic or of other suitable material, are to be exposed in the holy churches of God, on sacred instruments and vestments, on walls and panels, in houses and by public ways, these are the images of our Lord, God and saviour, Jesus Christ, and of our Lady without blemish, the holy God-bearer, and of the revered angels and of any of the saintly holy men.

The more frequently they are seen in representational art, the more are those who see them drawn to remember and long for those who serve as models, and to pay these images the tribute of salutation and respectful veneration. Certainly this is not the full adoration (latria) in accordance with our faith, which is properly paid only to the divine nature, but it resembles that given to the figure of the honoured and life-giving cross, and also to the holy books of the gospels and to other sacred cult objects. Further, people are drawn to honour these images with the offering of incense and lights, as was piously established by ancient custom. Indeed, the honour paid to an image traverses it, reaching the model, and he who venerates the image, venerates the person represented in that image.

So it is that the teaching of our holy fathers is strengthened, namely, the tradition of the catholic church which has received the gospel from one end of the earth to the other.

So it is that we really follow Paul, who spoke in Christ, and the entire divine apostolic group and the holiness of the fathers, clinging fast to the traditions which we have received.

So it is that we sing out with the prophets the hymns of victory to the church: "Rejoice exceedingly O daughter of Zion, proclaim O daughter of Jerusalem; enjoy your happiness and gladness with a full heart. The Lord has removed away from you the injustices of your enemies, you have been redeemed from the hand of your foes. The Lord the king is in your midst, you will never more see evil, and peace will be upon you for time eternal."

Therefore all those who dare to think or teach anything different, or who follow the accursed heretics in rejecting ecclesiastical traditions, or who devise innovations, or who spurn anything entrusted to the church (whether it be the gospel or the figure of the cross or any example of representational art or any martyr's holy relic), or who fabricate perverted and evil prejudices against cherishing any of the lawful traditions of the catholic church, or who secularize the sacred objects and saintly monasteries, we order that they be suspended if they are bishops or clerics, and excommunicated if they are monks or lay people.

Anathemas concerning holy images:

• If anyone does not confess that Christ our God can be represented in his humanity, let him be anathema.


• If anyone does not accept representation in art of evangelical scenes, let him be anathema.


• If anyone does not salute such representations as standing for the Lord and his saints, let him be anathema.


• If anyone rejects any written or unwritten tradition of the church, let him be anathema.

This is the authoritative teaching of the Church. The Eastern Churches celebrate this as a feast on the first Sunday of Great Lent, the "Triumph of Orthodoxy".

The first iconoclastic crisis started in 726, when Byzantine Emperor Leo III (the Isaurian) made an edict ordering the destruction of holy images and relics; he was directly influenced by Islam in this attitude. Countless holy pictures and relics of the Saints were destroyed, including items of clothing worn by the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Pope and Eastern monastics were the main opponents of the iconoclasts, and this led the emperor to destroy monasteries and torture and kill many monks. Things got even worse under subsequent emperors, but Irene, wife of Emperor Leo IV, remained steadfastly orthodox, and after his death, started the Ecumenical Council that restored the veneration of icons.

There were abuses with the images, for example, receiving the Eucharist from the hands of a statue of Our Lord. But this was not the reason why the Emperor acted, for he was mainly interested in ecumenical relations.

This is an example of someone, for the sake of ecumenism, saying that we must change in order to be acceptable to others. During the recent Synod in Rome, the heterodox group 'Call to Action' said that the Church needed to eliminate the doctrines of the Eucharist so that we could have better ecumenical relations with Protestants. Never mind that this would destroy relations with the Orthodox and the tens of millions of Traditional Anglicans who are considering changing loyalties from Canterbury to Rome.

Iconoclasm is often seen among heretics, especially those who think that matter is evil, and incapable of forming holy objects. I've noticed a trend among exclusively spiritual religions: they avoid holy images completely, but often end up reveling in the profane instead. Just look what happened to the Puritan movement: it started as a purely spiritual religion, plain, simple, with no ornament, then became fantastically wealthy, and now the tail-end of the movement uncritically embraces the sexually libertine lifestyle with all of its perverse art forms. The Cathars ended up the same way, starting with extreme asceticism, but ending in wild abandon. The Catholic position is anchored midway between the spiritual and the material, with the body on earth, and the head in heaven.

Orthodox churches I've seen have many portable icons and accessible reliquaries. The icons are often right there, easily picked up and venerated. Relics are also exposed for general veneration and not locked up in the sacristy safe. One reliquary I saw had dozens of Saints, right at waist level under glass. Icons are an integral part of Eastern Liturgy. Not surprisingly, the Orthodox say that Latin Catholics are semi-iconoclastic, because the icons are high up on the wall, cannot be directly venerated, and are only rarely used in the Liturgy. Actually, they musn't have seen modern Catholic churches, or otherwise they would have said that we are fully in iconoclastic heresy!

Pope Benedict XVI, in his book the Spirit of the Liturgy, agrees with the Orthodox theology of icons and says that it should be normative for the Catholic Church, although she shouldn't duplicate the Orthodox canons on making the images.

The traditional form of the icons, with the elongated shapes of bodies, is often unattractive to western eyes, even though the style traditionally goes back as far as Saint Luke the Evanglist, painting a portrait of the Blessed Virgin Mary. During the 1960s there was a great interest in all things Eastern in the Latin Church, but unfortunately artists thought that the icons looked like something Picasso might have made, and often ended up making pseudo-icons in the modern style.

The main point of eastern iconography seems to be lost on many westerners. The icon artist needs to be a virtuous person, morally, intellectually, and spiritually, and he makes a Platonic image of that which is in Heaven. In this way, the icon is not an end in itself, either for the icon maker or for the viewers of the icon. Westerners tend to see art as an end it itself, while western artists tend to see their art as the reason or meaning of their existence. Both these attitudes must change before the proper use and appreciation for the icons will be possible in the Latin Church.