[Rorate thanks Roger McCaffrey for sharing with us these letters from his father's archives from January 1977 and for providing the following introduction.]
The letters below are part of an epistolary exchange between Neil McCaffrey, Jr. and one of his oldest friends from minor-seminary days in New York, Msgr. Eugene Clark, both protégés of Msgr. Florence Cohalan, noted New York archdiocesan historian and pastor. Both men rather quickly succeeded in their chosen paths, Neil as an executive at Doubleday and Macmillan publishers before founding his own companies; Gene Clark as secretary to Cardinal Spellman and then communications director and aide de camp for Cardinal Cooke. Vatican II liturgical changes were embraced by neither man at first, but Clark eventually took up the party line, and the two old friends quarreled, eventually committing their thoughts to a letter exchange that had several back-and-forths, of which we publish below a pair. The reference to The Wanderer was to the way that newspaper leveled criticism at traditional Mass partisans like Michael Davies while not, McCaffrey complained, giving equal time for responses. The full exchange between Neil and Msgr. Clark will be published in the next print edition of The Traditionalist magazine, in Spring 2017. For the current edition of The Traditionalist, visit BooksForCatholics.com. -- Roger McCaffrey
January 19, 1977
Dear Neil:
Back to the question of Pope Pius V and the Tridentine Mass.
Dear Neil:
Back to the question of Pope Pius V and the Tridentine Mass.
