Some exciting news about Thomas Aquinas College
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    I just head some exciting news today: Thomas Aquinas College of California is establishing a second campus in Northfield, Mass., at the former "girls campus" of the Northfield Mont Hermon School. This campus has a lovely stone gothic chapel (pictures below) -- and I must say that it will be great having another voice of Orthodoxy in the Diocese. Please pray for the success of this endeavor. RNS article here

    image
    image
    Thanked by 8CHGiffen bonniebede rich_enough CharlesW KyleM18 Kathy eft94530 JonathanLC
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,508
    What is the diocese?
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    Springfield (in Massachusetts) -- +Rozanski.
    Thanked by 1Kathy
  • KyleM18
    Posts: 150
    Consider me stupid, but when they say "Catholic liberal education", do they mean pro-choice and relativism? Or is it another term for liberal arts?
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    Liberal Arts.
    Thanked by 2KyleM18 canadash
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Kyle,

    The present school boasts something like 63 vocations in 40 years.

    You are not being "stupid" at all, just rightly concerned that you understand what an advertising blurb or a newspaper write-up means.

    Inter alia, the students are required to address each other as Mr. or Miss during class. If you see pictures of the Walk for Life West Coast, you will see current students at the front of the walk.

    So, no: it is not an indoctrination center at all, much less for "progressive" political causes.
    Thanked by 1KyleM18
  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    http://database.organsociety.org/OrganDetails.php?OrganID=7002
  • Ben Dunlap
    Posts: 48
    The liberal in 'liberal education', as used by TAC, means something like ordered to freedom -- in the good old Catholic sense of freedom from error and vice.

    And those 63 vocations are just the priests -- there are also a whole lot of religious sisters and a few non-ordained religious men. About 10% of the alumni are priests or religious (and often both).

    Almost a third of the monks at Clear Creek Abbey went to TAC, including the first cantor and the choirmaster/organist, who were both at the Colloquium last June in St. Louis.
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    Please pray for the success of this -- there are some issues from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts about pronouns and bathrooms...
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    PM me, please, more information.
  • lhouston58
    Posts: 52
    The organ is for sale through either the Organ Clearing House or Andover.

    The organ occupies the former chancel area at the front of the chapel. To suit their conservative Catholic worship, they plan to remove the organ and restore the chancel with a high altar. They intend to have the choir in the rear balcony, but the organ is too wide and tall for that space. A transept placement was suggested, but Thomas Aquinas College didn't go for that idea. I wonder if Christendom College might be interested:

    The Organ Clearing House
    63 East 9th Street #10R
    New York, NY 10003
    617-688-9290
    john@organclearinghouse.com


    Sage Chapel, Northfield, Massachusetts
    Hook & Hastings, Opus 1785, 1898
    Andover Organ Company, Opus R-267, 1996
    2 manuals – 31 stops – 38 ranks

    GREAT
    16’ Double Open Diapason
    8’ Open Diapason
    8’ Doppel Flute
    8’ Concert Flute
    8’ Viol de Gamba
    4’ Octave
    4’ Harmonic Flute
    2 2/3’ Twelfth
    2’ Fifteenth
    III-IV Mixture
    III Cornet
    8’ Trumpet
    Zimbelstern

    SWELL
    16’ Bourdon
    8’ Open Diapason
    8’ Spitz Flute
    8’ Stopped Diapason
    8’ Salicional
    8’ Celeste
    4’ Principal
    4’ Flauto Traverso
    2’ Piccolo
    III Mixture
    8’ Cornopean
    8’ Oboe
    8’ Vox Humana
    Tremolo

    PEDAL
    16’ Double Open Diapason
    16’ Bourdon
    8’ Violoncello
    8’ Flutebass
    4’ Choralbass
    16’ Trombone

    COUPLERS
    Coupling Manual (Man I)
    Great to Pedal
    Swell to Pedal
    Compass: 61/30
  • NihilNominisNihilNominis
    Posts: 1,021
    What is unsuitable about a liturgical quire from the perspective of conservative Catholic worship?

    It's this sort of thing that actually makes me fume.

    Just shift the pipes to the sides (or one side, if you wish to keep the action), the stalls are already in place, and you have a Hook in its natural environment with a more appropriate musical arrangement than 98% of Catholic churches built within the last 250 years. Say hello to Sung Vespers as they've never been sung before.
    Thanked by 2a_f_hawkins eft94530
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    NihilNominis,

    Nothing is unsuitable about a liturgical quire from the perspective of Catholic worship. I suspect that there is more to this than meets the eye.

  • JahazaJahaza
    Posts: 470
    The current arrangement and organ placement is not really suitable for the full variety of Catholic liturgy. (Especially if the bishop insists on the possibility of versus populum worship.)

    The current interior arrangement (https://goo.gl/images/R9vQU3) of the chapel is not original, so it's not a great architectural loss. See this previous arrangement: https://goo.gl/images/8fdyVg .
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,978
    Given its age, is it tracker? If so, those can be extremely difficult to reconfigure for another space. My parish was offered one of those historic, and very nice, instruments a few years ago. We couldn't make it fit with the building and had to turn it down.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,092
    It was originally the Sage Chapel of the Northfield School (Mount Hermon being the boy's prep school; they consolidated/merged in the early '70s).
  • Ken of Sarum
    Posts: 406
    They should look at the arrangement of St. Meinrad Abbey chapel. Although larger than this edifice, the organ is place in a similar location with everything else brought forward infront of the pipes.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,508
    Please pray for the College tonight because of a large, fast-moving fire nearby (California campus).
    Thanked by 2rich_enough Jeffrey Quick
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,508
    Apparently the campus is ok, thanks be to God. Many homes are not. It is a fast-moving fire now in a heavily populated area. Please continue to pray!
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen CharlesW
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has finally approved TAC in Northfield.

    https://thomasaquinas.edu/news/college-receives-approval-new-england-campus
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    It's tremendously good news.

    If I understand correctly, by the way, faculty will be moved from Santa Paula, and new hires will start their careers there, so that continuity not merely of academic program but of school culture is transmitted.

    Did anyone ever come up with an explanation as to why the organ is for sale?
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    Because the organ is on the "East" wall of the chancel, which is perfectly acceptable for Evangelical services, but the College wants the choir to sing from the rear gallery, and the organ is too large to fit there.

    I hope that they are going to replace the pipe organ with another pipe organ. There is a smaller instrument in the recital hall, I had suggested that they consider simply switching the instruments...not that simple, really, but, you know. Luckily, they have good funding, so I don't think that acquiring a new but smaller instrument that suits their needs will be a difficulty.
  • Regis
    Posts: 9
    Does anyone know if they have a music person on staff? Or if they will be searching for one?
  • CHGiffenCHGiffen
    Posts: 5,192
    Does anyone know if they have a music person on staff? Or if they will be searching for one?
    Would one search a 4 line staff or 5 line staff ... or perhaps a grand staff?
    Thanked by 1eft94530
  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    purple=on
    Given the organ-related posts to this Discussion,
    the grand staff would be two-thirds of the search space.
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • teachermom24
    Posts: 327
    Especially happy as my son, our parish organist before he left for college, is at TAC now and will move to the new campus for his sophomore year.
    Thanked by 3Salieri StimsonInRehab CHGiffen
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