Fr. Charles Fiore:
1934 -2003
Good-bye Father Paulinus. We will miss you!
by John Vennari
Father Charles Fiore, a close friend and contributor to Catholic Family News, died in Madison, Wisconsin on February 18, 2003. For years he suffered from congestive heart failure and progressively severe diabetes. After two weeks in the hospital, he died on Tuesday night at 7:30 p.m. He was 68 years old.
Father Fiore was well known in Catholic circles as a staunch defender of the traditional Catholic Faith, and of pro-life causes. He was a theologian of high caliber and taught at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas (The Angelicum) in Rome. A tireless advocate of home schooling, he helped to establish the Catholic home school movement in the United States.
More will be written about Father Fiore in future issues of Catholic Family News, including his ordination as a Dominican priest in 1962, his expert knowledge of the homosexual network within the Catholic clergy, and the brutal treatment he received from the post-Conciliar Dominicans under Provincial Father Donald Goergen, author of the perverse book The Sexual Celibate. Due to this persecution, Father Fiore left the Dominicans in the early 90s and later maintained his "regularized" status through the Fraternity of Saint Peter.
Though I knew Father Fiore by reputation, I first met him at a Voice Network International Conference in California in 1993 where we spent an enjoyable breakfast discussing the writings of Abbot Marmion. We were friends ever since. In later years, as his health grew worse, he didn't get out of the house often, and maintained most of his friendships by telephone. Thus Father and I were in touch with each other at least every two weeks.
He was an avid supporter of CFN and of our writers and he was always there for moral encouragement: As he was a theologian trained under the traditional Dominican school, I would occasionally send my own manuscripts for him to give a theological check-over before publication. In this regard, he was always generous with his time and talent (he would sometimes correct my grammar too!).
Father Fiore was a prolific writer and appeared in many publications. For a number of years, he published his own newsletter called Idea Inc. Father also contributed articles to Catholic Family News.
In 1996 he wrote for CFN a blistering critique of the United States Bishops proposed "guidelines" for Catholic home schoolers which, in effect, delivered home schooling parents into the hands of the modernist bishops whom they sought to escape. He was also critical of NACHE and TORCH, supposedly "Catholic" home school groups who seemed to favor the new NCCB guidelines.
It was at this point that Father Arnaud Devillers, the Superior of the Fraternity of Saint Peter in the United States, told Father Fiore that he did not want to see his name appear in a traditionalist publication such as CFN, especially if he was going to be firing salvos at guilty bishops. Father Fiore complied in this manner: he continued to write for CFN but under pseudonyms. He reviewed The Changing Face of the Catholic Priesthood under the pen-name Pater Similis, but Father Fiore is best-known to CFN readers as Father Paulinus.
"Father Paulinus" wrote articles of charm and simplicity such as "Have You Named Your Guardian Angel?" and last month's "Renewing This Old House". These writings reveal Father Fiore not only as a fine theologian, but as a pastor of souls. He tirelessly urged Catholics to develop strong Catholic family life. The fact that he came from such solid family ties is indicated in his choice of pen-name. Pauline was the name of his mother.
Father Fiore's love of Catholic family life, particularly Italian Catholic family life, exploded out of our fax machine this past October. Not only did he send his article on Italian family traditions, but the fax included pages of his Sicilian mother's (and grandmothers') home recipes such as Bistecca Sicilinana, Pasta Simplici cu Caciu and other Italian dishes. Perhaps I should publish these recipes in a future issue of CFN. No doubt, it will be one of the most popular features ever.
Yet for all his joy and buoyancy, he was deeply affected by the current malaise in the post-Conciliar Church. He understood fully the disastrous effects of Vatican II, and recognized that the problem was not in a misinterpretation of the Council, but in the liberal-leaning documents themselves. Appalled by aggorinamento and the "Spirit of Assisi", he was especially exasperated by Cardinal Ratzinger's irreverent treatment of Our Lady of Fatima during the June 2000 "release" of the Third Secret.
In fact, in what would be his final public apostolic act, he arranged last month for 100 copies of The Devil's Final Battle to be mailed to various friends and acquaintances (I know because I helped him to arrange it). Yet the initiative was all his and the magnificent letter he wrote accompanying the book will soon appear in Catholic Family News.
Father Fiore's death is not only a personal toss, but a loss for the whole Church. One of the saddest thoughts in connection with Father Fiore's death is the knowledge that this kind of manly, militant priest is not being replaced, except from a few traditional outposts. This is painfully obvious when we behold the walking smile-buttons now being ordained from post-Conciliar seminaries. Perhaps we will have to wait until the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart for priests such as Father Fiore to be the norm in the Church rather than the exception. May we all survive the Civilization of Love until then!
I will close these personal reminiscences of my friend by recounting an episode that occurred last summer. The July issue of CFN republished an interview by TobyWesterman with Father Fiore on the current homosexual and pedophile scandal in the priesthood. Father Fiore, of course, had been blowing the whistle on this problem for decades but too few listened.
Along with the interview, I published the photograph of Father Fiore that appears on this page. Father immediately called me about it.
"Where did you get that photograph?", he asked.
I reminded him that in the summer of 1998, my family attended a home school conference in Rochester, New York where he spoke. I had snapped the photo then.
"May I have a copy of it? There are not many photos of myself that I like."
He then explained, "Now don't think I am getting morbid, John, but I want that picture for my funeral card."
Clearly he sensed that I did not like the direction of the conversation, so he assured me that he was feeling fine and "not planning to go anywhere soon". Nonetheless, he insisted I send it.
He telephoned three weeks later and reminded me, with some heat, that I had yet to mail him the picture. Any friend of Father Fiore knows that he was a man you did not want to anger, so I dropped everything and mailed the photo. I do not know if he subsequently arranged everything, nor whether the photo will appear on his card, but I will learn when I attend his Tridentine Funeral Mass this Saturday in Rockford, Illinois.
I write these lines on February 19. It is not even 24 hours since Father Fiore's death and I already feel the loss of him, as do countless others whom he counseled and befriended in his life as a priest-----a heroic priest devoted to Christ, His Church, His Immaculate Mother, and to the souls that He redeemed.
Good-bye Father Paulinus, we will miss you. May you rest in peace. May Catholics around the world pray for your soul. And may you soon be received into Paradise by the God Whom you knew, loved and served in this world so as to be happy with Him forever in the next.
Traditional Italian Prayer
for the Holy Souls
My Jesus, by the Sorrows Thou didst suffer in Thine Agony in the Garden, in Thy Scourging and Crowning with thorns, in the way to Calvary, in Thy Crucifixion and Death, have mercy on the Souls in Purgatory, and especially on those that are most forsaken; do Thou deliver them from the dire torments they endure; call them and admit them to Thy most sweet embrace in Paradise.
Our
Father, Hail Mary, Eternal rest
grant unto them, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they
rest in peace. Amen.