Frequently Asked Questions

Below are common questions that we are asked. If you have other questions, please search for that topic at right or contact us. For questions particular to vocations, see the Frequent Vocations Questions page.

About the Institute

Does the Institute have its own seminary?

Yes. Located in the Archdiocese of Florence, Italy, it is named St. Philip Neri Seminary. You may learn more on the International Seminary page.

What is the location of the Institute’s seminary and motherhouse?

The Institute’s motherhouse is located in located in Gricigliano, Italy, near Florence in Tuscany. The motherhouse also serves as the Institute’s seminary, where young men are formed for the priesthood and minor orders.

What is the Institute’s mission statement?

“The mission of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest is to spread the reign of Christ in all spheres of human life by drawing from the millennial treasury of the Roman Catholic Church, particularly her liturgical tradition, the unbroken line of spiritual thought and practice of her saints, and her cultural patrimony in music, art and architecture. The Institute accomplishes this primarily through a solid and well-rounded formation of its priests, rooted in Catholic tradition and carried out at its international seminary in the Archdiocese of Florence. Our priests, conscious of the need for their own sanctification, strive to be instruments of God’s grace through their apostolic work discharged in the churches assigned to the Institute, its schools, its missions in Africa, by preaching retreats, teaching catechesis, and providing spiritual guidance. The Institute of Christ the King operates under the patronage of the Immaculate Conception, to Whom it is consecrated.”

What sort of active apostolate does the Institute exercise?

In addition to serving the spiritual needs of the faithful from day to day through the celebration of Holy Mass, hearing confessions, administering the Sacraments to the dying and infirm, teaching catechism, etc., the Institute also offers spiritual retreats, and organizes activities for youth, especially summer camps, and operates schools (in Lille and Montpellier in France and in Brussels, Belgium). There has been rapid growth of the Institute in locations across our nation, and the Institute will continue with the help of Divine Providence to develop here in the United States the broad spectrum of its apostolate as it seeks to promote the Reign of Christ for people of all ages and walks of life. The Institute also has several missions in Africa, where its missionary priests work amid very difficult conditions to bring the truth and charity of Christ the King to those souls who do not yet know Him.

Who belongs to the Institute?

The Institute of Christ the King is a society of apostolic life which has a whole range of possibilities for membership.
Currently, we have about 50 priests who are full members of the Institute, but there is also the possibility for priests incardinated in a diocese to become affiliated with the Institute and thus share in its spirituality without any further canonical bonds.
The Institute of Christ the King also has a growing number of non-ordained members that help our priests in their apostolic life, similar to the way of religious brothers. Our oblates, as we call them, are working with their respective talents and are members of the clergy in a broader sense through the minor orders they receive during their training.
Fledgling members of the Institute are our seminarians, which count 80 worldwide. For two years, the Institute has also had a female branch called the Sisters Adorers of the Royal Heart of Jesus and already count 14. In addition, the Society of the Sacred Heart offers the laity an association with the spirituality of the Institute and has already assembled hundreds of our friends under the patronage of the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Conception.

Is the Institute a French community?

No, it is not. Msgr. Gilles Wach, the founder and prior general of the Institute, being himself of French origin but trained in Italy, has always stressed that the Institute is neither French, German, English, Swedish, Italian, American, nor European, African, nor Asian, but Roman Catholic. Next to Latin, which is used for the sacred liturgy, French is our common language, used for studies and conversation. This gives our members exposure to at least one other modern language and makes it easier for everyone to communicate with the founder for the sake of becoming exposed to the proper charism of the Institute. Most of our seminarians also speak English well, and many are eager to learn more languages, such as Italian or German, which is not obligatory.

Does the Institute have a preference for the baroque style?

Beauty is the outward expression of truth’s perfection. Although the richness of the baroque style admirably expresses the sublimity of the divine truths of our Faith, there are also other artistic styles which, each in their own way, contribute to give us a little glimpse of the heavenly beauty of the eternal Truth. For example, the Institute’s church in Wausau, Wisconsin, Saint Mary’s Oratory, which enshrines a beautiful statue of the Virgin and Child which dates back to the 1470’s, has undergone complete restoration in an authentic Gothic style. The Oratory of Saint Francis de Sales in St. Louis is a very remarkable representation of Neo-Gothic splendor, while the recently restored Old Saint Patrick’s Oratory in Kansas City, Missouri, is a fine example of late-period Classical style and architecture.

Why do the Institute priests wear their own choir dress?

The Institute has its own strong identity due to its holy patrons and canonical life. In 1994, the Institute was placed under the patronage of the Immaculate Conception, and since its foundation, it has been inspired by St. Benedict, St. Thomas Aquinas, and especially St. Francis de Sales.
Traditionally, priests living in a community attached to a church and dedicated to the celebration of the solemn Latin liturgy but without religious vows have been called secular canons and were distinguished by their own choir dress.
In 2006, the Cardinal Archbishop of Florence, responsible for the overview of the Institute’s life, bestowed upon our priests and oblates their specific choir dress. The choir dress consists of a rochet, a mozzetta, the cross of St. Francis de Sales on a blue and white ribbon, and a biretta with a blue pom-pom. The superiors have a blue mozetta, the priests have a black mozetta with blue piping, and the oblates wear the cross and ribbon on the surplice. The blue stands for our complete dedication to the Blessed Mother and is traditionally the color shown on St. Francis de Sales in most paintings of him. The choir dress expresses the strong unity, spiritually, and identity of the Institute and adds solemnity to the liturgy.

What does the Institute’s coat of arms symbolize?

The motto of the Institute is expressed in its coat of arms. At the service of Christ the King, the Institute is totally committed to working for His Reign over the minds and hearts of all people. Thus the globe, or orbis, represents the universal Kingship of Christ. This globe, or orbis, is set on a blue background, since Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception is the principal Patron of the Institute, and all of its members are especially consecrated to her. The fleur de lys, symbol of purity, further expresses the patronage of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, while being at the same time, the symbol of the city of Florence, near which the Motherhouse and Seminary of the Institute are located.

Answers to Questions about the Sacred Liturgy

The Holy Mass

• What is the Mass?

Is the Mass a work of art, a gathering of the Christian community, or a memorial of Our Lord’s life? Yes, all of these – but in essence the Mass is so much more! The Mass is at the heart of our life as Catholics, as it is the principal act of worship in the Christian religion, the main way we give honour to God. The Mass is a TRUE SACRIFICE in which Jesus Christ offers himself to his heavenly Father, under the outward appearances of bread and wine, through the ministry of an ordained priest. Jesus Christ is the eternal high priest who offers every Mass; the human priest merely acts as his instrument.
In the Mass, the mystery of our Redemption is renewed. The Redemption is the act by which Jesus Christ restored our fallen human race to a state of friendship with God. Our Lord redeemed us when he offered himself on the Cross as a sacrifice for our sins, and thus opened the possibility of salvation for us. Like any sacrifice, the Mass is offered for four ends or purposes: to adore God, to thank him for his blessings, to ask him for what we need, and to beg pardon for our sins. The Mass may be offered for the people, both living and dead; the Mass may be offered in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints; but the Mass, as an act of adoration, is offered to God alone. An important distinction!
Our Lord Jesus Christ instituted the Mass on the occasion of the Last Supper, on the night before he died. The sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross and the sacrifice of the Mass are one and the same, because in each it is the same priest who offers the sacrifice (Jesus Christ) and the same perfect victim that is offered (again, Jesus Christ: truly present in the Eucharist – with his Body, his Blood, his Soul and his Divinity). Of course Our Lord Jesus Christ offered himself once and for all on the Cross: the Mass is not a repetition of the sacrifice of the Cross but rather renews this sacrifice in an unbloody manner. It is only an outward difference.
This sacrifice does not exist in a void, but is encased in a beautiful progression of ceremonies called the rite or liturgy of the Mass. Everything in the rite of Mass raises our minds and hearts to these heavenly realities. (To be continued …)

• Why are there different ways of celebrating the Mass?

In the Old Covenant (Judaism), God himself prescribed the ceremonies that were to be used in offering the various sacrifices and regulated the details related to the Temple and the sacred vessels, the vestments of the high priest, and so on. In the New Covenant (Christianity), God has left the arrangement of such details to the Church he founded. Thus, over time the Church has implemented various ceremonies – or rites – to accompany the sacrifice of the Mass and to underline its dignity and importance. As Christianity spread to different regions, the early Christian communities, whilst always following more or less the same basic structure in the celebration of Mass, developed different ceremonies and liturgical customs. Neighbouring cities often adopted the liturgical customs of the more important regional centres like Rome, Alexandria and Antioch. This is the origin of the different rites used in the Church today: the Roman rite, the Byzantine rite, and so on. Regardless of the ceremonies used, however, the heart of every Mass is the consecration of the bread and the wine, which then become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. The Mass consists of a preparatory service of prayers and readings (called the Mass of the Catechumens, because in the early Church the catechumens, those who had not yet been baptised could attend only this first part) and then the Eucharistic sacrifice itself (called the Mass of the Faithful), consisting of three essential parts: the Offertory, the Consecration and the Communion. This is the same general structure of every Mass, regardless of the rite being followed.

• What is origin of the traditional Roman rite of Mass?

Drawing upon customs sanctioned by the early popes, the basic form of the Roman Mass was well established by the time of Pope St. Gregory the Great (590-604), before being embellished in succeeding centuries, especially at the time of Charlemagne (circa 800). In the aftermath of the Protestant Reformation, the Church naturally wished to take special care to guarantee that the sacred liturgy should be celebrated with all due reverence and devotion. In order to correct liturgical abuses, in 1570 Pope St. Pius V published a purified version of the Roman missal (the book containing the prayers of the Mass). Hence the traditional Latin Mass is sometimes – though not entirely accurately – called the ‘rite of St. Pius V’ or the ‘Tridentine Mass’. The word Tridentine comes from the Latin version of the name for Trent, a city in northern Italy. The Council of Trent (1545-1563) met in order to clarify and reiterate Catholic doctrine in the wake of the Protestant revolution of the sixteenth century, as well as to address legitimate practical concerns that had arisen. We must emphasise that the so-called Tridentine missal was not created by the Council of Trent or by St. Pius V but is really much older. The Mass contained in the missal of St. Pius V is simply the Mass as it had been celebrated for many centuries in the papal court at Rome and in the places evangelised by Roman missionaries. The Tridentine reform merely codified the existing liturgy, whose prayers and ceremonies had developed slowly since the time of the first Christians.

     The traditional Latin Mass has thus been handed down to succeeding generations of Catholics by popes and saints from the very mists of Christian antiquity. The word ‘traditional’ comes from the Latin word tradere, ‘to hand on,’ and so the traditional Latin Mass is quite simply the form of Mass that has been handed on to us by our ancestors in the faith who have celebrated this Mass the way it developed centuries ago in Rome, at the heart of Christendom. This timeless liturgy is a precious reminder for us that through all the vicissitudes of history, our Mother the Catholic Church is, like Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever.

• Why is the Mass Celebrated in Latin?

Historically most major religions have had the practice of reserving a special “sacred” language for divine worship. We ought not to be surprised that the Church uses a sacred language for the holy Mass, instead of necessarily using the modern languages employed by people in their daily life. This is a custom which was already known by the Jews of the Old Covenant and which was accepted by Our Lord and his Apostles. In fact, the Jews of Palestine at the time of Our Lord two thousand years ago had already lost the use of the Hebrew tongue several centuries beforehand, during the Exile in Babylon (sixth century b.c.), and so they used a common dialect called Aramaic in their day-to-day life. Nonetheless, for liturgical worship in the Temple they retained the use of Hebrew.

The early Church did not continue the custom of using Hebrew as the liturgical language because Christianity had now fulfilled the promises of the Old Law and the old Jewish religious practices were henceforth abrogated. Even so, the Church retained the custom of using a dignified language in her services even though it might not be understood perfectly by the people, first Greek then Latin.

As providence led Saint Peter, the first pope, to establish the seat of the Church in Rome, it is understandable that in time Latin, the language of Rome, should become also the language of the Church. The Mass continued to be celebrated in Latin even after the development of modern languages, when Latin was no longer widely spoken.

We can follow the translations in our missals, and it is easy to get used to the general parts of the Mass. The Latin tongue not only unites Catholics of all races and backgrounds, but it also unites us across time with our distant ancestors in the faith. 

• Why does the priest face the altar during Mass?

It is sometimes said that the priest offers the Mass ‘with his back turned to the people,’ but this is rather misleading. In reality, the priest and people turn together in the same direction, looking towards God, represented by the altar cross. This is quite sensible, since the prayers of the Mass are offered to God.

Moreover, the common direction of liturgical prayer unites the priest and people looking symbolically towards the east, the direction from which Christ will return at the end of time. The priest and people look together towards the altar because they are engaged in a common act of worship at holy Mass, each in their own way but closely united to each other.

Whenever the priest addresses the people (usually by saying, Dominus vobiscum, ‘the Lord be with you’), he turns briefly to face the congregation. On the other hand, when he prays to God at the altar in his capacity as the ordained representative of the whole Church, he remains facing towards the altar: like a shepherd leading his flock.

In the words of Cardinal Ratzinger, later Pope Benedict XVI: “Looking at the priest has no importance.  What matters is looking together at the Lord. It is not now a question of dialogue but of common worship, of setting off toward the One who is to come.  What corresponds with the reality of what is happening is not the closed circle, but the common movement forward, expressed in a common direction for prayer.”

The Liturgical Year

• What is the Liturgical Year?

The Church’s year, unlike the civil calendar, begins not with January but with Advent Sunday four weeks before Christmas (between 27th November and 3rd December). The sacred liturgy is the public worship rendered to God by his Church. The liturgy follows a yearly cycle intended to help us participate in the mysteries of Christ and in the glory of his saints. The liturgical year is made up of two parallel cycles: the Temporal Cycle (or ‘Proper of the Time’), which recalls the principal mysteries of Our Lord’s life and mission, and the Sanctoral Cycle (or ‘Proper of the Saints’), which recalls Christ’s triumph through the ages in the holiness of his saints. The major contours of the liturgical year come from the Temporal Cycle, with the feasts of the Sanctoral Cycle being inserted into the liturgical calendar on set dates, like jewels in a crown.

     The Temporal Cycle brings before our eyes – and above all to our souls – the mysteries of Christ who became man to save us from our sins and open the way of heaven. Therefore, the liturgical year is divided into two parts dedicated to these two aspects: the ‘cycle of the Incarnation’ (the Christmas cycle), dedicated to the mystery of the taking on of a human nature by the eternal Son of God, and the ‘cycle of the Redemption’ (the Easter cycle), dedicated to the mystery of the restoration of our fallen human race to a state of friendship with God through the triumphant sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

     Because these sacred mysteries are too profound for us to contemplate all at once, each of these cycles comprises an initial period of preparation and penance, then the celebration of the feast itself, then a season of ‘after’ time that prolongs our recollection of the feast. Thus for the cycle of the Incarnation we have: Advent, Christmas and the Epiphany, and then the time after Epiphany. For the cycle of the Redemption, which by far makes up the major part of the liturgical year, we have: Septuagesima (remote preparation), Lent (proximate preparation) and Passiontide (immediate preparation), Easter followed by the great feasts of the Ascension and Pentecost, then the time after Pentecost. The greatest feasts of the year are prolonged by a week of celebration called an octave; certain feasts are preceded by a day of penance called a vigil.

• What is Advent?

Advent marks the beginning of the liturgical year. Based on the Latin word for “coming”, the liturgical time of Advent prepares us for Christ’s triple coming: his coming in the flesh at Christmas, his coming in grace now, and his coming in glory at the end of time. These themes are constantly intermingled in the Advent liturgy, which invites us to prepare for Christ’s coming. In Advent we unite our voices to those of the patriarchs of old, who waited during long centuries for the coming of the promised Messiah. As St Thomas Aquinas explains, “As the ancient Fathers were saved through faith in Christ’s future coming, so are we saved through faith in Christ’s past birth and Passion.”

Advent includes four Sundays: if the last Sunday falls on 24th December the office of the Vigil of Christmas replaces that of the Fourth Sunday. The liturgical texts of Advent express a feeling of anticipation, or what might almost be called “holy impatience”. At the beginning of Advent, at the First Vespers of Advent Sunday, the liturgy tells us that “the name of the Lord cometh from afar”. We sense Christ slowly getting closer as the liturgy invites us to adore “the king who is to come” (Matins, first two weeks of Advent) and then tells us, “the Lord is now near” (last two weeks). Finally, just hours away from Christmas, the Introit of the Mass of the Vigil, quoting Exodus, tells us: “This day you shall know that the Lord will come, and save us: and in the morning you shall see His glory.”

Although the penitential character of Advent is not as pronounced as that of Lent, the theme of penance is still present during this season. As during the other periods of the year, the Advent Ember Days (third week of Advent) are traditionally days of fasting, as is the Vigil of Christmas. Violet vestments are worn and flowers do not decorate the altar (except on Gaudete Sunday). The Gloria is not sung at Advent Masses; the joyful Alleluia is still sung on Sundays (unlike in Lent) but it is not recited on weekdays (unlike during the rest of the year). In the final week of Advent, the singing of the Magnificat at Vespers is accompanied by seven very beautiful antiphons (called the Great ‘O Antiphons’), applying to Christ various Old Testament titles for the Messiah. Advent is a reminder for us that the Promised One has truly come, but also that we must prepare for his Second Coming.

• The Liturgy of Christmas and its Octave

At Christmas every priest has the privilege of celebrating three Masses. The first Mass, the Midnight Mass, commemorates the eternal birth of Christ from God the Father. The second Mass, at dawn, commemorates Christ’s birth in time of the Virgin Mary. The third Mass, during the day, commemorates Christ’s birth into our hearts by grace. The first Christmas Mass is celebrated in the midst of the night to show that Christ came to dissipate the darkness of error and to save us from our sins. Like the other great feasts of the liturgical year, Christmas has an octave, a week-long celebration prolonging the feast. All during the Octave, a second Collect is added at Mass (and the liturgical hours of Lauds and Vespers) to commemorate the Octave, and in the Canon of the Mass there is a special version of the prayer called the Communicantes (this happens only on the five greatest feasts of the year), “keeping this most holy day, on which the spotless virginity of blessed Mary brought forth a Saviour to this world.” The three days following Christmas are dedicated to the saints called the comites Christi, or ‘companions of Christ’, who form a sort of honour guard around the crib of the Divine King: S. Stephen the first martyr (a martyr in fact as well as in will), S. John the Evangelist (a martyr in will but not in fact, since he was the only Apostle not to die a martyr’s death – his ancillary feast on 6th May commemorates a failed attempt to kill him in boiling oil!), on whose feast wine is blessed, and the Holy Innocents (who were martyrs in fact but not in will, since they were killed by King Herod at such a young age they did not understand what was happening – the liturgy on their feast rather charmingly sings of ‘first victims of the martyr bands, with crowns and palms in tender hands, around the altar seem to play’).

• What is the season of Septuagesima?

The greatest feast of the year, the Resurrection of Our Lord, is preceded by a period of preparation called Lent. But in order that the rigours of Lent not come upon us unexpectedly, the Church has wisely instituted a brief liturgical season in order to prepare us for Lent itself: this is the period of Septuagesima. Coming from the Latin word for ‘seventy,’ Septuagesima calls to mind the 70 years the Jews spent in exile in Babylon and reminds us that, before our Risen Lord leads us into our heavenly homeland, we also are living in a land of exile. That is why the singing of the Alleluia, the chant sung eternally by the saints in heaven (cf. Apoc 19:1), is suspended during Septuagesima and Lent, for ‘How shall we sing the song of the Lord in a strange land?’ (Ps 136:4). At the end of the First Vespers of Septuagesima the Alleluia is solemnly sung twice; it will not be heard again until Holy Saturday. During this time the Alleluia is therefore replaced, even on feast days, by a text called the Tract at Mass and by the verse ‘praise to Thee, king of eternal glory,’ in the Divine Office. Just as in Advent and Lent, the Gloria in excelsis is omitted at Mass and purple vestments, a sign of penance, are worn. However, in Septuagesima the organ can still be played and flowers still decorate the altar; the deacon and subdeacon at High Mass still wear their dalmatic and tunicle, vestments of joy, instead of the folded chasubles traditionally worn on penitential days. In the readings of the Divine Office, the three weeks of Septuagesima recall the history of Adam, Noah and Abraham, the great patriarchs of the Law of Nature, with whom God made his covenants to prepare the world for the formation of the Chosen People and ultimately for the coming of the promised Messiah, Our Lord Jesus Christ.

     A long time ago, when the strict Lenten fast involved total abstinence from all meat, people would ‘ease into’ the Lenten fast during Septuagesima by giving up these goods, before the full fast began on Ash Wednesday. Although the discipline is no longer as strict as in the days of our ancestors, this pre-Lent season still affords us a valuable opportunity to think ahead and make our Lenten resolutions, so that we are not caught off guard on Ash Wednesday.

• What is the Forty Hours Adoration

As Catholics, our greatest treasure is the holy Eucharist: God himself truly present among us under the outward form of bread. Over the course of the centuries, different forms of adoration of the Blessed Sacrament have arisen in the Church, such as Eucharistic processions.

     The solemn three-day Adoration known as the Forty Hours Devotion (or in Italian, the Quarant’ore), in honour of the roughly forty hours that the body of Christ lay in the tomb, was started in Milan around the year 1527, as part of a ceremony in reparation for the sins committed during Carnival time (just before Lent many countries observe a period of feasting called Carnival, from the Latin words carne, vale, “goodbye, meat,” in reference to the strict Lenten fast followed by our pious ancestors: in some places unfortunately this legitimate pre-Lent celebration degenerated into a drunken spectacle, and so the Church instituted special prayers of reparation for these excesses). About ten years later the Forty Hours Devotion in more or less the form we now know it seems to have been instated by the Capuchin friar Father Giuseppe da Ferno – although other names have also been suggested – with the Devotion beginning in one church just as it ends in another. In 1575 St. Charles Borromeo laid down guidelines for the celebration of the Forty Hours in his diocese of Milan, and in 1731 Pope Clement XII set down norms for Rome; these are essentially the norms followed throughout the Church today.

     Although the Forty Hours is still customary in many places during Carnival just before Lent, this Adoration can be held any time during the year (except the Easter Triduum). Ideally the devotion runs for roughly forty continuous hours, but often the Blessed Sacrament is reposed in the tabernacle at the end of the day if no one is available to watch during the night. Where the full ceremonies are held, the Forty Hours begins and ends with a votive Mass of the Blessed Sacrament, the singing of the Litany of the Saints and a procession. On the second of the three days, a special Mass for Peace is said: the peace of Christendom has always been one of the main intentions of the Church’s prayer during the Forty Hours.

• What is Lent?