An illustration by Fabiola Garza (left) and the cover of Ascension Press’ book, “Catholic Princess Saint Stories, Volume I.” / Images courtesy of Fabiola Garza and Ascension Press
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Nov 22, 2022 / 17:30 pm (CNA).
A major Catholic publishing house is pulling a book on Catholic princess saints days after an illustrator took to social media saying that the company had published the book based on her ideas and illustrations.
Ascension, a publisher of Catholic books and digital media, including Father Mike Schmitz’s “Bible in a Year” podcast, emailed a statement to CNA Tuesday announcing that it would no longer be selling the book, “Catholic Princess Saint Stories, Volume I,” which was released earlier this month.
Fabiola Garza, the illustrator who is at odds with Ascension, posted on social media that she had spent months talking with the publisher about plans for a book on princess saints. When those talks did not lead to a contract, she decided to shop her idea around, and eventually signed a contract with Word on Fire to publish a book on princess saints.
Garza, who works as an illustrator for the Disney Design Group in Orlando, Florida, published an account of her dealings with Ascension on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter following the publication of the publisher’s book on princess saints.
“PLEASE SHARE Hold Ascension accountable,” Garza wrote. “MY EXPERIENCE WITH ASCENSION HAS BEEN THE MOST AWFUL OF MY CAREER. I like many artists cannot afford a lawyer, and my hope is that by making this known no other Catholic creative will have to go through this,” she wrote.
In her social media post, Garza said that in 2019 she was approached by an editor at Ascension about a book on saints who were princesses.
“Ascension contacted me because he heard me speaking on Leah Darrow’s Podcast about my idea to do a PRINCESS SAINTS BOOK,” she wrote, adding that she signed a mutual non-disclosure agreement with the publisher.
“In the end, I decided not to sign with ASCENSION,” she wrote in the social media post.
In its statement, Ascension said it had decided to pull the book after Garza went public with her story.
“An illustrator Ascension worked with several years ago recently posted on social media about her experience working with us. We strongly disagree with the allegations in her post and we are confident that our approach was consistent with the law and industry standards,” the statement said.
“Nevertheless, as a leader in Catholic publishing, Ascension aspires to hold itself to a higher standard and we will therefore be voluntarily discontinuing sales of the book in question,” the statement said.
‘Different creative visions’
In its statement Ascension said that after Garza told the publisher that she had decided not to work with the company it went ahead with plans to come out with a book about princess saints by a different author and illustrator. Ascension maintains that the book it published was different from the one it had discussed with Garza.
Over the eight months Ascension had discussed the project Garza had provided one illustration of St. Joan of Arc, and when it went with a new illustrator, it chose different saints to highlight, Ascension said.
“As we each had different creative visions for the project, we continued our vision with a new illustrator. We chose different saints for our book alongside a different storytelling style and different illustrations,” Ascension said.
“For background on the project, we provided the new illustrator with the single image of St. Joan of Arc that Fabiola had shared publicly. Our new illustrator went on to create illustrations for 80 pages of stories about St. Margaret of Scotland, St. Bathild of France, and St. Jadwiga of Poland,” read the statement.
Garza posted photos of her illustration of St. Joan of Arc alongside an illustration from Ascension’s book, noting the similarities between the two. Both illustrations feature blue ribbons and banners surrounding the drawings of the saints.
In its statement, Ascension denied any wrongdoing but said it regretted showing the new illustrator Garza’s original drawing.
“Any similarities between Fabiola’s St. Joan of Arc drawing and our illustrator’s depiction of St. Margaret of Scotland (such as a banner, ribbons, a crown, and a blue garment) are incidental and common in portraits of princesses in works by other artists,” the company said.
“Nevertheless, we understand and respect that Fabiola is deeply invested in her artwork, and we acknowledge that a better course of action would have been to use other public sources rather than her drawing as a reference for our illustrator.”
Garza posted emails she had exchanged with Ascension. In their correspondence, she says that on Oct. 7, 2020, she decided to discontinue talks on the book because no contract had been signed.
Garza wrote to Ascension explaining her reason for looking for another publisher.
She said she had asked for “some details on contract and compensation before I continued to work.” She said she was told “that we hadn’t got to the contract stage because we didn’t yet have a complete sample chapter.” She said she was told that the firm was “contemplating bringing in another author entirely, who I would have no ability to vet, interview, or apparently control in any way.”
In an email to CNA, Ascension said that it never signed a contract in part because Garza “wanted to be both the author and illustrator.”
“This creative difference was one of the key reasons that Fabiola and Ascension never signed a contract together,” Ascension said in its statement.
Garza told CNA that she decided to break off talks with the publisher because she began to get nervous when no contract was proposed.
After emailing Ascension earlier this month to express her disappointment that it had published a book on princess saints, the publishing house offered to compensate her for the time spent on the project.
Garza then took to social media because, she told CNA, she could not afford to get legal help. She explained that she felt that by going public she could help other “Catholic creatives” facing similar situations.
“So many people have emailed me with similar stories, and nobody has ever talked about it publicly. I could see that I’m in a position to do this, and perhaps I owe it to the community to start a conversation on it,” she said. “But if everything has always been treated in a very hush hush way, I was like, ‘There’s never going to be any change.’”
Upon being informed by CNA that Ascension had pulled its book, Garza said she was relieved.
“Oh, my gosh, I’m gonna cry,” she said after reading Ascension’s statement. “I know that it’s not a direct apology. I mean, it’s corporate speak, you know. I understand that they have to protect themselves as much as possible. I would have loved a direct apology,” she said.
“But even the fact that because of people helping this is able to happen without having to go to court is amazing, because that sounded awful. Yeah, that sounded awful,” Garza said. Later, Garza thanked Ascension for pulling the book.
Her book with Word on Fire is written but still being edited and won’t be published for over a year, adding that she works full-time.
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Washington D.C., Nov 2, 2019 / 04:00 am (CNA).- The disrespectful treatment of aborted babies’ human remains by abortion doctors, demands federal action, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has said in the wake of news reports about abortion … […]
Maureen McKinley milks one of her family’s goats in their backyard with help from three of her children, Madeline (behind), Fiona and Augustine on Monday, Aug. 2, 2021. McKinley and her family own two goats, chickens, a rabbit, and a dog. / Jake Kelly
Denver Newsroom, Aug 10, 2021 / 16:32 pm (CNA).
With five children ages 10 and under to care for, and a pair of goats, a rabbit, chickens and a dog to tend to, Maureen and Matt McKinley rely on a structured routine to keep their busy lives on track.
Chores, nap times, scheduled story hours – they’re all important staples of their day. But the center of the McKinleys’ routine, what focuses their family life and strengthens their Catholic faith, they say, is the Traditional Latin Mass.
Its beauty, reverence, and timelessness connect them to a rich liturgical legacy that dates back centuries.
“This is the Mass that made so many saints throughout time,” observes Maureen, 36, a parishioner at Mater Misericordiæ Catholic Church in Phoenix.
“You know what Mass St. Alphonsus Ligouri, St. Therese, St. Teresa of Avila and St. Augustine were attending? The Traditional Latin Mass,” Maureen says.
“We could have a conversation about it, and we would have all experienced the exact same thing,” she says. “That’s exciting.”
Recent developments in the Catholic Church, however, have curbed some of that excitement. On July 16, Pope Francis released a motu proprio titled Traditiones custodis, or “Guardians of the Tradition”, that has cast doubt on the future of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) – and deeply upset and confused many of its devotees.
Pope Francis’ directive rescinds the freedom Pope Benedict XVI granted to priests 14 years ago to say Masses using the Roman Missal of 1962, the form of liturgy prior to Vatican II, without first seeking their bishop’s approval. Under the new rules, bishops now have the “exclusive competence” to decide where, when, and whether the TLM can be said in their dioceses.
In a letter accompanying the motu proprio, Pope Francis maintains that the faculties granted to priests by his predecessor have been “exploited to widen the gaps, reinforce the divergences, and encourage disagreements that injure the Church, block her path, and expose her to the peril of division.”
Using the word “unity” a total of 15 times in the accompanying letter, the pope suggests that attending the TLM is anything but unifying, going so far as to correlate a strong personal preference for such masses with a rejection of Vatican II.
Weeks later, many admirers of the “extraordinary” form of the Roman rite – the McKinleys among them – are still struggling to wrap their minds and hearts around the pope’s order, and the pointed tone he used to deliver it.
Maureen McKinley says she had never considered herself a “traditionalist Catholic” before. Instead, she says she and her husband have just “always moved toward the most reverent way to worship and the best way to teach our children.”
“It didn’t feel like I became a particular type of Catholic by going to Mater Misericordiæ. But since the motu proprio came out, I feel like I have been categorized, like I was something different, something other than the rest of the Church,” she says.
“It feels like our Holy Father doesn’t understand this whole group of people who love our Lord so much.”
McKinley isn’t alone in feeling this way. Sadness, anger, frustration, and disbelief are some common themes in conversations among those who regularly attend the TLM.
They want to understand and support the Holy Father, but they also see the restriction as unnecessary, especially when plenty of other more pressing issues in the Church abound.
Eric Matthews, another Mater Misericordiæ parishioner, views the new restrictions as an “attack on devout Catholic culture,” citing the beauty that exists across the rites recognized within the Church. There are seven rites recognized in the Catholic Church: Latin, Byzantine, Alexandrian or Coptic, Syriac, Armenian, Maronite, and Chaldean.
“It’s the same Mass,” says Matthews, 39, who first discovered the TLM about eight years ago. “It’s just different languages, different cultures, but the people that you have there are there for the right reasons.”
Eric and Geneva Matthews with their four children. / Narissa Lowicki
Different paths to the TLM
The pope’s motu proprio directly affects a tiny fraction of U.S. Catholics – perhaps as few as 150,000, or less than 1 percent of some 21 million regular Mass-goers, according to some estimates. According to one crowd-sourced database, only about 700 venues – compared to over 16,700 parishes nationwide – offer the TLM.
Also, since the motu proprio’s release July 16, only a handful of bishops have stopped the TLM in their dioceses. Of those bishops who have made public responses, most are allowing the Masses to continue as before – in some cases because they see no evidence of disunity, and in others because they need more time to study the issue.
But for those who feel drawn to the TLM – for differing reasons that have nothing to do with a rejection of Vatican II – it feels as if the ground has shifted under their feet.
Maureen McKinley wants her children to understand the importance of hard work, of which they have no shortage when it comes to their urban farm. After morning prayer, Maureen milks the family’s goats with the help of the children. Madeline (age 10) feeds the bunny; Augustine (7) exercises the dog; John (6) checks for eggs from the chickens; and Michael (4) helps anyone he chooses.
With a noisy clatter in the kitchen, the McKinleys eat breakfast, tidy up their rooms, and begin their daily activities. They break at 11 a.m. to head to daily Mass at Mater Misericordiæ, an apostolate of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP), where they first attended two years ago.
Matt, 34, wanted to know how the early Christians worshipped.
“The funny thing about converts is they’re always wanting more,” says Maureen, who was, at first, a little resistant to the idea of attending the TLM because she didn’t know Latin. “Worship was a big part of his conversion.”
Maureen agreed to follow her husband’s lead, and they continued to attend the TLM. What kept them coming back week after week was the reverence for the Eucharist.
“Matt had a really hard time watching so many people receive communion in the hand at the other parish,” says Maureen. “He says he didn’t want our kids to think that that was the standard. That’s the exception to the rule, not the rule.”
Reverence in worship also drew Elizabeth Sisk to the TLM. A 28-year-old post-anesthesia care unit nurse, she attends both the Novus Ordo, the Mass promulgated by St. Paul VI in 1969, and the extraordinary form in Raleigh, North Carolina, where her parish, the Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral, offers the TLM on the first Sunday of the month.
Sisk has noticed recently that more people in her area — especially young people who are converts to Catholicism — are attending both forms of the Mass. While the Novus Ordo is what brought many of them, herself included, to the faith, she feels that the extraordinary form invites them to go deeper.
“We want to do something radical with our lives,” Sisk says. “To be Catholic right now as a young person is a really radical decision. I think the people who choose to be Catholic right now, we’re all in. We don’t want ‘watered-down’ Catholicism.”
Elizabeth Sisk stands in front of Holy Name of Jesus Cathedral in Raleigh, North Carolina.
With the lack of Christian values in the world today, Sisk desires “something greater,” which she says she can tell is happening in the TLM.
Many TLM parishes saw an increase in attendance during the pandemic, as they were often the only churches open while many others shut their doors or held Masses outside. This struck some as controversial, if not disobedient to the local government. For others, it was a saving grace to have access to the sacraments.
The priests at Erin Hanson’s parish obtained permission from the local bishop to celebrate Mass all day, every day, with 10 parishioners at a time during the height of the COVID pandemic.
“We were being told by the world that church is not necessary,” says Hanson, a 39-year-old mother of three. “Our priest says, ‘No, that’s a lie. Our church is essential. Our salvation is essential. The sacraments are essential.’”
Andy Stevens, 52, came into the Church through the TLM, much to the surprise of his wife, Emma, who had been a practicing Catholic for many years. Andy was “very adamantly not going to become Catholic,” but was happy to help Emma with their children at Mass. It wasn’t until they attended a TLM that Andy began to think differently about the Church.
“He believed that you die and then there is nothing, and he never really spoke to me about becoming a Catholic,” says Emma, 48, who was pregnant with their seventh child at the time.
Andy noticed an intense focus among the worshippers, which he recognized as a “real presence of God” that he didn’t see anywhere else. After the birth of their 7th child, he joined the Church.
All 12 of the Stevens’ children prefer the TLM to the Novus Ordo.
Emma and Andy Stevens with their 12 children in Oxford, England.
“It’s a Mass of the ages,” says their eldest son, Ryan, 27. “I can feel the veil between heaven and earth palpably thinner.”
A native of Chicago, Adriel Gonzalez, 33, remembers attending the TLM as a child, which he did not particularly like. It was “very long, very boring,” and the people who went to the TLM were “very stiff and they could come off as judgmental” towards his family, he says.
Gonzalez, who also attended Mass in Spanish with his family, didn’t understand the differences among rites, since Chicago was a sort of “salad bowl, ethnically,” he says, and Mass was celebrated in many languages and forms.
He took a step back from faith for some time, he says, noting that he had a “respectability issue” with the Christianity he grew up with. He watched as some of his friends were either thoughtless in the way they practiced their faith, or were “on fire,” but lacked intentionality. When he did come back to the faith, it was through learning about the Church’s intellectual tradition.
He spent time in monasteries and Eastern Catholic parishes with the Divine Liturgy because there was “something so obviously ancient about it.” He decided to stay within the Roman rite with a preference for a reverent Novus Ordo.
When he moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, Gonzalez committed to his neighborhood parish, which had a strong contingent of people who loved tradition in general. The parish instituted a TLM in the fall of 2020, when they started having Mass indoors again after the pandemic.
Hallie and Adriel Gonzalez.
“If I’m at a Latin Mass, I’m more likely to get a sense that this is a time-honored practice, something that has been honed over the millennia,” he says. “There is clearly a love affair going on here with the Lord that requires this much more elaborate song and dance.”
For Eric Matthews, the TLM feels a little like time travel.
“It could be medieval times, it could be the enlightenment period, it could be the early 1900s, and the experience is going to be so similar,” he says.
“I just feel like that’s that universal timeframe – not just the universal Church in 2021 – but the universal Church in almost any time period. We’re the only church that can claim that.”
What happens now?
The motu proprio caught Adriel Gonzalez’ attention. He sought clarity about whether his participation in the extraordinary form was, in fact, part of a divisive movement, or simply an expression of his faith.
If it was a movement, he wanted no part of it, he says.
“As far as I can tell, the Church considers the extraordinary form and the ordinary form equal and valid,” says Gonzalez. “Ideally, there should be no true difference between going to one or the other, outside of just preference. It shouldn’t constitute a completely different reality within Catholicism.”
With this understanding, Gonzalez says he resonated with some of the reasoning set forth in the motu proprio because it articulated that the celebration of the TLM was never intended to be a movement away from the Novus Ordo or Vatican II. Gonzalez also emphasized that the extraordinary form was never supposed to be a “superior” way of celebrating the Mass.
Gonzalez believes the Lord allowed the growth in the TLM “to help us to recover a love for liturgy, and to ask questions about what worship and liturgy looks like.” He would have preferred if what was good was kept and encouraged, and what was potentially dangerous “coaxed out and called out.”
Mater Misericordæ Catholic Church in Phoenix, Arizona. / Viet Truong
Erin Hanson, of Mater Misericordiæ, agrees.
“If [Pope Francis] does believe there is division between Novus Ordo and traditional Catholics, I don’t think he did anything to try to fix that division,” she says.
Hanson would like to know who the bishops are that Pope Francis consulted in making this decision, sharing that she doesn’t feel that there is any of the transparency needed for such a major document. If there are divisions, she says, she would like the opportunity to work on them in a different way.
“This isn’t going to be any less divisive if he causes a possible schism,” Hanson says.
According to the motu proprio and the accompanying letter, the TLM is not to be celebrated in diocesan churches or in new churches constructed for the purpose of the TLM, nor should new groups be established by the bishops. Left out of their parish churches, some are worried their only option to attend Mass will be in a recreation center or hotel ballroom.
Eric Matthews hopes that everyone is able to experience the extraordinary form at least once in their life so they can know that this is not about division.
“I can’t imagine someone going to the Latin Mass and saying, ‘This is creating disunity,’” he says. “There’s nothing to be afraid of with the Latin Mass. You’re just going to be surrounding yourself with people that really take it to heart.”
Maureen McKinley was home sick when her husband Matt found out about the motu proprio. He had taken the kids to a neighborhood park, where he ran into some friends who also attend Mater Misericordiæ. They asked if he had heard the news.
“I felt disgust at a document that pretends to say so much while actually saying so little and disregards the Church’s very long and rich tradition of careful legal documents,” Matt McKinley says.
Bishop Thomas Olmsted of Phoenix stated that the TLM may continue at Mater Misericordiæ, as well as in chapels, oratories, mission churches, non-parochial churches, and at seven other parishes in the diocese. Participation in the TLM and all of the activities of the parish are so important to the McKinleys that they are willing to move to another state or city should further restrictions be implemented.
For now, their family’s routine continues the same as before.
At the end of their day, the McKinleys pray a family rosary in front of their home altar, which has a Bible at the center, and an icon of Christ and a statue of the Virgin Mary. They eat dinner together, milk the goat again, and take care of their evening animal chores. After night prayer, the kids head off to bed, blessing themselves with holy water from the fonts mounted on the wall before they enter their bedroom.
“The life of the Church springs from this Mass,” Maureen says. “That’s why we’re here—not because the Latin Mass is archaic, but that it’s actually just so alive.”
Father Ivan Levystky (left) and Father Bohdan Geleta (right) / Credit: Donetsk Bishop’s Exarchy
CNA Newsroom, Nov 28, 2022 / 13:30 pm (CNA).
The Russian National Guard occupying the coastal city of Berdyansk, Ukraine, last week captured two priests of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and accused them of having committed “subversive” and “guerrilla” activities.
Redemptorist priests Father Hieromonk Ivan Levystky, abbot of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary church, and Father Bohdan Geleta, who also serves at the church, were accused of allegedly possessing weapons, ammunition, and books on Ukrainian history that were in a parish building.
The Donetsk Exarchate denied the accusations, calling the detention “unfounded and illegal,” and demanded the prompt release of the clerics.
“From the beginning of the large-scale war of the Russian troops on the territory of Ukraine until the day of their arrest, the activities of both priests did not go beyond the scope of their pastoral duties,” a Nov. 25 statement from the exarchate affirmed.
“At the time of the search of the church and the adjacent rectory and premises of the parish, both priests were already under arrest; that is, they could not control these premises and the actions of the Russian National Guard in any way,” the statement pointed out.
“They cannot bear any responsibility for the weapons and ammunition allegedly found in those places. This is clear slander and a false accusation,” the local Church stressed.
The Donetsk Exarchate said that the behavior of the Russian local authorities toward the Ukrainian clergy “can only have one assessment: complete disregard for the fundamental principles of human rights.”
“Only because of their loyalty to God and the Church [have] the aforementioned ‘accusations’” been leveled against the priests, the exarchate said.
“Considering the above,” the exarchate said, “we demand the prompt release from custody and imprisonment of our priests, as well as ensuring their unhindered legal service to the spiritual needs of the faithful of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church who live in Berdyansk.”
“We ask for the maximum dissemination of information in order to free the captive fathers. We appeal to the authorities and all people of goodwill with a request to join the cause for the release of priests, as well as for increased prayer in this regard. Merciful God, hear our prayers!” the Donetsk Exarchate’s statement concluded.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
“Garza, who works as an illustrator for the Disney Design Group”
It shows.
Both of the books are just – blecccchhhhhhhhhh. So many of the books for Catholic children have these dreadful, cartoon drawings as illustrations. They trivialize the subject matter.
“Garza, who works as an illustrator for the Disney Design Group”
It shows.
Both of the books are just – blecccchhhhhhhhhh. So many of the books for Catholic children have these dreadful, cartoon drawings as illustrations. They trivialize the subject matter.