News & Press Notes

Holy Mass for the External Solemnity of Saint Francis of Paola, Patron of the Two Sicilies, was celebrated Saturday, April 17 in Brooklyn, New York, organized by the American Delegation of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St. George. The Mass was celebrated at St. Francis of Paola Church (part of Divine Mercy Parish) by Most Rev. James Massa, auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Brooklyn and rector of St. Joseph’s Seminary in Dunwoodie (Yonkers), New York, Ecclesiastical Knight Grand Cross of Grace, and concelebrated by the pastor Fr. Thomas Vassalotti, Ecclesiastical Knight of Grace. Assisting in choir was Fr. Edmund Luciano of the Diocese of Metuchen, Ecclesiastical Knight of Grace, and other local knights and dames. After the Mass, Bishop Massa received his new diploma of the Order, indicating his new rank as Ecclesiastical Knight Grand Cross of Grace, having been received into the Order in 2019 as Ecclesiastical Knight Grand Officer of Grace.

The Solemn Blessing and Opening of the new Saint Francis de Sales Oratory in Sulphur (Lake Charles), Louisiana, took place on Saturday, March 27, 2021. The celebrant was the ordinary of the Diocese of Lake Charles, His Excellency Bishop Glen J. Provost, Knight Grand Cross of Grace of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of St. George. The Bishop was assisted by Canon Matthew Talarico, Provincial Superior of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, also an Ecclesiastical Knight of Grace, and Canon Jean-Marie Moreau, also of the Institute, a friend of the American Delegation and the new rector of the Oratory. Despite the pandemic, two other knights of the Order were also able to attend in mantle. The blessing was followed by the Solemn Votive Mass of the Oratory’s titular patron, St. Francis de Sales.

A considerable presence of the Constantinian Order has existed in Lake Charles (as is also the case in New Orleans) for almost three decades, the city and Diocese have also hosted an investiture and Delegation meeting in May of 1994, at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, presided by the-then Grand Prefect, HRH Prince Carlo of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Grand Master and Head of the Royal House since 2008.

The church was completed and blessed in 1924, under the patronage of Our Lady of Prompt Succor (Notre Dame du Prompt Secours, Patroness of the state of Louisiana) but the parish was transferred, and the church building was reduced to profane use, becoming a courthouse in 1985. In 2019, the city of Lake Charles began the process of acquiring a new building for a courthouse, and the Institute of Christ the King was invited by the Bishop to come to his Diocese to begin an apostolate and to restore the former church to its original purpose, now under the name of St. Francis de Sales, Bishop and Doctor of the Church, and principal Patron of the Institute to which the Oratory is entrusted.

The American Delegation of the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George organized various Masses for the repose of the soul of the 58^th master of the Order, HRH Prince Ferdinand of Bourbon Two Sicilies, on the occasion of his 13^th anniversary of death, on March 20, according to the Order’s Statutes.

The American Delegation is particularly grateful and tied to the person of Prince Ferdinand, because it was under his grand mastership that the Delegation began in 1979 and definitively established ten years later. In fact, the Grand Master named the first delegate, and always showed his solicitude for the first Delegation in the new world. The Prince visited the United States with his family in 1981, for the opening of the art exhibition ‘The Golden Age of Naples: Art and Civilization Under the Bourbons, 1734-1805,’ which after having shown at the Capodimonte Museum in Naples, was brought to The Detroit Institute of Arts and the Art Institute of Chicago.  The Masses were celebrated in cities with the greatest presence of knights and dames of the Order: Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Lake Charles, Newark, New Orleans, New York and Washington, DC. The annual gathering was also an opportunity to pray for all the deceased of the Order, especially the almost-100 American knights and dames who have passed away over the years, and in a particular way all of those who have died in the last year because of the pandemic.