Name of Church Sonoma State Newman Center
Address 1798 East Cotati Avenue, Penngrove, CA 94951
Phone number 707-394-5582
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/NewmanClub/
Mass times Sunday, 6 p.m.
Confessions Sunday, 5:30 p.m.
Names of priests Fr. Jeffery Keyes, chaplain. Fr. Keyes is an orthodox, traditional priest who has been chaplain for the Newman Center at Sonoma State University since June 2019. He was formerly a member of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood (C.PP.S.), but since 2019 has been incardinated in the Diocese of Santa Rosa and is in residence at St. Eugene’s Cathedral, Santa Rosa. He also serves as chaplain for the Marian Sisters of Santa Rosa, a traditional community of nuns. Father is a musician and has long been a student of Gregorian chant, and celebrates the Extraordinary Form of the Mass as well as the Novus Ordo. He celebrates Mass ad orientem. Visit his blog to listen to him preach and to follow his activities. Listen to his thoughts on the Latin Mass here. Follow him on Facebook here. Watch him celebrate Mass in the Extraordinary Form here.
Special groups and activities Devotions, faith formation and meals, geared towards students.
Fellow parishioners Most are affiliated with Sonoma State University, including students, faculty and administration, which is across the street from the chapel.
Parking Behind the church.
Additional observations Fr. Keyes has been renovating the chapel to make it more appropriate for Catholic worship, including a more traditional altar and new pews.
Extraordinary Form and Ordinary Form. Not Novus Ordo.
Does Fr. Keyes still support the Democrat Party like he did in the 1990s? I hope not.
I’d like to hear from those who claim that the TLM and Latin and chant will solve the church’s problems and make parishes grow. Fr. Keyes used to be pastor at St. Edward in Newark, CA. He was a faithful, orthodox priest there and brought Latin and chant to the celebration of Mass, and he celebrated the old Latin Mass. The previously thriving parish suffered a loss of parishioners, which ultimately led to conflict with his former order, his removal as pastor and his departure from the order. If the TLM and Latin and chant are so popular as some traditional Catholics claim and if they are the answer to declining attendance at Mass as some people here have claimed, then why did it not succeed at St. Edward? Why did people not flock to the parish? Why did liturgical tradition fail? Why is an orthodox, faithful priest who celebrates the older rites and uses Latin and chant in the novus ordo Mass now relegated to a small university chapel after having been pastor of a once large parish?
Read this from past Cal-Catholic about the parish Fr. Keyes used to be at, and the reader comments:
https://cal-catholic.com/st-edward-church-newark-ca/
Kevin T. I remember Canisius who was one of the posters on the link you just gave. God bless Canisius, whether he is alive or dead. He was sorely wounded because his father committed suicide after his mother ran off with a lesbian. I could connect with his pain as I had a male relative who was molested by an uncle when about seventeen. Beaten on a city street he later disappeared. It was he who introduced me to Russian novels. He was the one I thought about when I mentioned “Symphony #3” by Gorecki with Dawn Shaw to the poster who claimed to be Russian. It always bring the gift of tears.
He posts under a different name now. Only he should tell his story.
You are right. I will leave it alone, but he and I both told our story way back then. Most likely several years before the date on that link. I might have posted mine in a third person scenario (as someone I knew), but it really happened to someone close to me. My remorse (tears) exists in always wondering what more I could have done to save my nephew, but I know I did what I could under the circumstances. His mother, may she rest in peace, must of felt far worse.
Kevin, while I often disagree with you, having friends at that parish and who know Fr. Keyes, I think you raise a legitimate and important question. While Fr. Keyes seems to be a fine priest, there were not many people drawn to the Extraordinary Form Mass there or even Masses with liberal use of Latin, even ad orientem. If the TLM is so popular, why didn’t many attend at St. Edward’s and why isn’t the TLM Mass at Five Wounds Church in San Jose filling the church to overflowing (pre-COVID19, of course)? As with many issues, there are no simple “sound bite,” slogan “answers.” While offering Mass in the Extraordinary Form is good and commendable, that alone is not the solution to the crisis in which we find ourselves.
Kevin T., I would have forgotten entirely about this history if it were not for your link to the prior Cal-Catholic article some years back. And I have to admit, it sent me down into a bit of a rabbit hole, trying to figure out what happened at St Edward, what happened since, etc. I listened to some of the homilies he gave back when St Edward was, for want of a better phrase, imploding.
What I remember back in that article (where I also opined) was that here was a man who differed from me in my liturgical leanings, but who was generally trying to listen to parishoners and give it his all to be a pastor of souls.
Now going into it in a bit more depth, I apprecieat that the reforms to the sanctuary at St Edwards were reasonable, not extreme. I liked that his re-installation of communion rails were liturgically on point in that they didn’t mis-use them to create a barrier between the People of God and the clergy. He didn’t fill the sanctuary with tons of distracting statues, he added one so as to remind the faithful of their inheritance. The homily I listened to – brilliantly delivered with his own beautiful voice – was interesting, informative, called us to reflect deeply, and even though it was delivered at the height of that crisis, was not defensive but a gentle call to appreciate the liturgical legacies we have been given. And he was very quick to dispel any notions of clericalism or deny the roles of the laity in the Sacred Mysteries or anything of the sort. The liturgy I watched wasn’t a TLM but a Cantata mass with lots of Latin, beautifully executed, kept the attention and participation of those in the pews, I don’t detect a militancy against the OF as much as I detect a love for excellency in liturgy and the use of the EF. So though his flavor of Catholic litiurgy isn’t my own, it seems to me theologically sound and ought to be among the styles of mass that is offered.
So I’m at a loss to explain things in his CV (as posted on his own blog). So that his parish didn’t “take to” his style of the liturgy is clear. Why it created such a dustup that he seems to have had a major break with his former congregation, then his claim that he was “discarded” by his own diocese and “denied” by Archbishop Cordilene (his words not mine), seems not in keepting with that mild mannered but persistent cleric at St Edwards. It seems he went into a kind of exhile, only recently being picked up in Santa Rosa, and here he is celebrating Mass at a major public university with a chapel that can’t possibly hold more than about 40 people, and only if he celebrates ad orientum. Like the catacombs, it seems crowded in there!
So I’m just left to wonder what happened here? Pastors get into disagreements with their parishoners over style and even substance all of the time, but they aren’t left to wonder around looking for Bishops for 4 or 5 years. And during this time, Archbishop Cordileone, who shares a mutual friend in Father Illo, didn’t pick him to lead or work for his then-new Benedict XIV Institute for Music and Liturgy, even though Father Keyes is by any accounting, an accomplishe musician, composer, teacher, and advocate of Chant and the use of Latin. The Archbishop picked a woman who lives thousands of miles away with no credentials in liturgy to lead the institute instead. She’s done little if any formal study of liturgical music, and by her OWN website, has never even so much as lead a parish in music ministry, Her’s is a BA in religious studies and a lifetime writing about tangential issues.. His is a lifetime of study, teaching, composing, leading.
These are a bunch of things that just don’t add up for me.
I believe that this is the Fr Keyes who celebrates the TLM at St. Eugene’s Cathedral in Santa Rosa at 1:30 on Sundays.. His Masses are beautiful.
This at my old Alma Mater?? Amazing!
Years ago I attended a 3-day parish retreat of his when he was still in the C.P.P.S. Community. He was great. I know of him from a friend and they are very orthodox. I wish him success in building a student community. SSU is in need of God!
Yes, Christ is everything to us —- or should be. It is not about us. We are only secondary. Without God we can do nothing.
There are those who say, “We did that. God did not do that.” That is arrogance, not confidence. Pure Satanic arrogance. “I will not serve”, says such people.
The Novus Ordonarians can keep their clown Masses, giant puppets, altar girls, female and male lay lectors, dancing girls and guys in leotards prancing around their so-called altar like they do at the Los Angeles REC, communion in the hand while standing, kiss of peace, hand holding, clapping, immodest dress, drums, guitars, pianos, rock, folk, jazz and Mariachi music, felt banners, Life Teen Mass, Eucharistic ministers mostly women, and we can have the real deal: Latin, Gregorian chant, altar boys only, Mozart, Palestrina, Bach, Hayden, Schubert, kneeling and communion on the tongue, proper attire, incense, organ, genuflecting, silence and reverence, the priest and people facing Our Lord, its not about the priest or us but all eyes are on the Lord, not the priest putting on a show as in the Novus Ordo.
It is great that you like the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. You should not blaspheme the Ordinary Form.
My question was that none of what you prefer was successful at St. Edward, so why should it be preferred or adopted? And your straw man characterization of the new rite of Mass is an unfair basis for comparison.
Why does the so-called “real deal” not attract and not work? It was tried at St. Edward, and it failed. Why?
RA, Calling those who attend the Ordinary Mass names is not particularly helpful, nor is it charitable. I’m in my 60’s and have attended some Masses that were poorly “done,” but I’ve never seen a “clown Mass,” giant puppets or guys in leotards. If you are one who calls the Extraordinary Form the Mass the Mass of all ages, it’s clear it’s not if you associate it with a particular time and culture, that of Mozart, Palestrina, Bach, Hayden and Schubert; as beautiful as that may be. The Mass precedes them by a long time and continues after them by a long time. Jesus is true to His promises and the Holy Spirit guides the Church through all ages. And, I’ve seen many young people grow in their commitment to Christ and His Church through LifeTeen. (What is your specific criticism of LifeTeen, other than it does not utilize the Extraordinary Form of the Mass?)
Since March 2020, thousands of Masses have been put on youtube. You should pray one. There are no clowns or giant puppets.
Good to know, thanks! I need more TLM locations in that area when coming home to the Bay Area late from the Russian River.
FogBeltBoy, I hope you and your home are safe from the fires!
Fr Jeff Keyes is a fine courageous priest. I don’t attend Latin Mass, and I’ve been to the Masses where there have huge problems and people didn’t follow the GRIM. I remember SSU Newman Center from the early 80’s There was a campus police man there named Steve Brown who had been trained by the Dominicans. Sounds funny, but this man was a catechist par excellence. At the time Fr. David Brusky was the resident priest. God rest his soul.
Many times I would attend St. Joseph’s in Cotati, or St. Elizebeth Seaton’s in Rohner Park. There was so much controversy and so many problems. I pray for Fr. Jeff. He will need it as he ministers to the students at Sonoma State.
God Bless