OTHER
In memoriam of Mgr Richard Soseman, another tireless promoter of the traditional liturgy
The Old Rite at St Peter’s
If the Catholic clergy and the faithful worldwide have reacted with consternation and dismay at the ban on the celebration of private individual Masses in St Peter’s basilica, all the more so for those who used to celebrate and attend those Masses. Mgr Richard Soseman (1963-2020), a native of the diocese of Peoria, Illinois, was one of those celebrants throughout his stint in Rome, but Providence spared him the pain of the ban, since he died of covid on 9 December 2020.
In the spring issue of Mass of Ages I paid tribute to Fr Giuseppe Vallauri, noting that “sometimes it happens that in the times and circumstances in which the death of a person occurs, it is possible to see indications of the extent to which he or she was appreciated by the Lord."
If this applies to Father Vallauri, all the more so to Mgr Soseman, who as a close friend and collaborator of Father Valluari embodied another bastion of traditional liturgy.
In fact, Mgr Richard R. Soseman passed away on the anniversary of the death of Archbishop Fulton Sheen, for whose cause of beatification he was vice-postulator. So the early morning Mass celebrated in the Cathedral of Santa Maria in Peoria on the 41st anniversary of Archbishop Sheen’s death, was also a first opportunity for the Diocese of Peoria to mourn the death of Mgr Soseman, which took place a few hours earlier. “In some ways it is providential and fitting that on the same day that Sheen went home to God, so does Mgr Soseman", declared the celebrant, the coadjutor bishop, Louis Tylka.
Mississipi River
In an interview in the traditionalist blog Messa in Latino on 14 November, 2019, Mgr Soseman provides us with some biographical data. Born and raised on an island in the Mississippi River on the border with Iowa, he received a good formation in the faith from his parents, then in the parish school of St Anne, then in the P. Alleman High School and finally at Marquette Jesuit University in the state of Wisconsin.
Trained at Mount St Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg, Maryland, the oldest in the United States, he was ordained priest in 1992.
After further studies at the Pontifical Lateran University, he served as Judicial Vicar in Peoria for 14 years and then as an official for almost 10 years in Rome at the Congregation for the Clergy, and for 14 years as parish priest (also simultaneously with the other posts). Latterly, in fact, he was in charge of three parishes in the diocese of Peoria.
Many years have passed, but as far as I can remember, we met in Rome in the church of Gesù e Maria al Corso, one of the very few churches where in those days the Vetus Ordo was regularly celebrated on Sundays, and which the then young Father Soseman had begun to attend since 1993.
He immediately distinguished himself for his great zeal in promoting the ancient rite, often celebrating in the above church and always open to maximum cooperation with his confreres for the Mass to be always made available to the Traditionalist faithful. A great friend of Una Voce Italia, he used to celebrate Mass every morning in the Extraordinary Form, even in St Peter's Basilica.
Three parishes
This zeal continued after his return to Peoria where he often celebrated Solemn Masses in the Traditional Rite. Every week his three parishes served between 2000 and 3000 faithful, who attended not only the Novus Ordo, but also the ancient rite Masses every Sunday and every Tuesday.
“We Americans are much more open to liturgical variety", the Monsignor stressed. "For this reason now in most of our dioceses there are at least four or five churches in which the ancient Mass is celebrated."
He was enthusiastic as vicepostulator of the beatification cause of Archbishop Sheen. “His contribution in our work concerning the cause of the Servant of God Archbishop Fulton Sheen was of inestimable value", read an obituary in the National Catholic Register. “Monsignor Soseman was a great man and he will be deeply missed."
One of the most significant events that characterised this work, as Mgr Soseman himself revealed in the above interview, was the translation of the Venerable's mortal remains from St Patrick's Cathedral in New York, where he was buried as auxiliary bishop of that diocese, to St Mary's Cathedral in Peoria on 27 June, 2019. But why this transfer? As the Monsignor explained, despite being very beautiful, St Patrick's Cathedral was not suitable for housing the tomb of a saint. In New York it was normally impossible for the faithful to visit the tomb, because it had been placed under the main altar, and even family members had not been able to visit it. Therefore they asked for canonical and civil permission to move the body to the cathedral of Peoria. After a long judicial process, the permission was finally granted in June 2019 and now the Archbishop's tomb is the destination of an uninterrupted pilgrimage: during the week it is visited daily by more than 200 faithful, who number about a thousand during weekends.
Popular devotion
This popular devotion may indicate that Archbishop Sheen is destined to play a major role in the future of America. This is exactly the conviction of Dr Peter Howard, (Doctorate in Sacred Theology STD), President of the Fulton Sheen Institute, as quoted in the above obituary. He never met Mgr Soseman, but closely followed his work for the cause of Archbishop Sheen and noted the significance of 9 December on the Catholic calendar.
The institute’s webinar, The Final Hour: Fulton Sheen's Plan to Save America and the World, Dr Howard pointed out, ‘was based on Sheen’s statement that ‘nothing happens out of heaven without the greatest finesses of detail.
‘So why would God choose to bring Venerable Fulton Sheen to his heavenly reward on the anniversary of the same day that He would send His Immaculate Mother to begin the evangelization of the Americas and the New World at Tepeyac Hill in Mexico City in 1531? What connection is heaven wanting us to make? It’s clear to me that God chose Fulton Sheen to be the most important prophet and general for bringing America back to God in its final hour of the great confrontation for its very soul. I believe Monsignor Soseman understood this; and all the work he did to bring Sheen and his teaching back to the forefront of the Church’s reflection is something we Catholics in America need to be thankful for and pray and spiritually fight for in order to remove the devil’s attempt to keep Sheen from being beatified. We hope to see finished what Monsignor helped us start, because America needs Sheen now more than ever!’ What a gift to Mgr Soseman, Dr Howard went on, ‘that he died on the same day Sheen did. That day will eventually be Sheen’s feast day... a day that Mgr Soseman's tireless work for his cause brought about for the Church, especially in the United States. What a gift, and what a divine stamp of approval on the life of Our Lord’s faithful priest-victim who lived a life in the footsteps of Venerable Sheen.’
Venerable Fulton Sheen and Mgr Richard Soseman orate pro nobis!
The first version of this article originally appeared in Mass of Ages, the quarterly magazine of the Latin Mass Society, Summer 2021
https://issuu.com/latinmasssociety/docs/final_moa_summer_2021/s/12266858
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