Sunday, June 24, 2018

Tridentine Community News - The Napa Institute; TLMs this coming week


"I will go in unto the Altar of God
To God, Who giveth joy to my youth"

Tridentine Community News by Alex Begin (June 24, 2018):
June 24, 2018 – Nativity of St. John the Baptist

The Napa Institute

Perhaps you’ve heard of various gatherings of über-wealthy individuals, in places such as Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Folks like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett meet up to discuss weighty issues of global concern. Did you know there’s a Catholic equivalent to those elite retreats?

One of America’s most interesting yet low-profile Catholic philanthropists is Southern California’s Tim Busch. Tim owns a sizable law firm in Irvine, California, eight resort hotels, and believe it or not, co-owns the Busch’s Family Market chain here in suburban Detroit, where he was born.

Inside his law firm’s offices is the Queen of Life Chapel (http://www.queenoflifechapel.org/), which offers a well-attended daily Mass and is home to an Anglican Ordinariate parish on the weekends. Rare for a privately-owned chapel, Tim received permission to reserve the Blessed Sacrament there. Tim did the legal work for the sale of Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral to the Diocese of Orange, where it now serves as Christ Cathedral. Tim is the founder or co-founder of numerous grand-scale Catholic ventures, including JSerra High School in San Juan Capistrano. In a way one can think of him as California’s version of Michigan’s Tom Monaghan; in fact Tim cites Monaghan as a role model. In 2016 Tim made the largest donation ever to Washington, DC’s Catholic University of America: $15 million.

One of Tim’s most interesting ventures is The Napa Institute. The name doesn’t give away much, and perhaps that’s intentional. It happens to be the Catholic version of one of those aforementioned conferences of wealthy people. Every summer, some of the country’s most financially blessed Catholics gather at one of Tim’s hotels, the Meritage Resort and Spa, along with some of the biggest names in the global Church, for seminars, for social events such as a Cigar Bar evening, for golf, and yes, for the Tridentine Mass.


Various clerics ranging from Norbertine priests who serve Tim’s Queen of Life Chapel up to Madison, Wisconsin Bishop Robert Morlino [pictured above, photo by the Traditional Latin Mass Society of San Francisco], and San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone offer the Extraordinary Form for those attending the conference, in the Our Lady of the Grapes Chapel or the grotto-like Estate Cave on the grounds of the Meritage Resort. Stop and think about that for a moment: High profile clerics offering the Traditional Mass for America’s wealthiest Catholic elite.

This year attendees can hobnob with Cardinal Gerhard Müller, Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput, and Anglican Ordinariate Bishop Steven Lopes, among others.


The talks are more conservative than traditional in subject matter, and rather big-picture oriented, as seen above.

Not surprisingly for such an ambitious entrepreneur, Tim is expanding The Napa Institute: A European conference took place in Vienna in 2017, and a tour of historic churches in Chicago – with talks by traditional architectural experts Duncan Stroik and Denis McNamara – is planned for August.

How can one attend The Napa Institute? It’s actually open to all, if you can afford it. Tickets are $2,500 per person. For more information visit: www.napa-insitute.org

Tridentine Masses This Coming Week
  • Tue. 06/26 7:00 PM: Low Mass at Holy Name of Mary, Windsor (Ss. John & Paul, Martyrs)
  • Sat. 06/30 8:30 AM: Low Mass at Miles Christi (Commemoration of St. Paul, Apostle)
[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@detroitlatinmass.org. Previous columns are available at http://www.detroitlatinmass.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Albertus (Detroit), Academy of the Sacred Heart (Bloomfield Hills), and St. Alphonsus and Holy Name of Mary Churches (Windsor) bulletin inserts for June 24, 2018. Hat tip to Alex Begin, author of the column.]

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