Leslie and I at her parents' 50th wedding anniversary (June 2005)

But these past several months have been exceptionally over-busy. Since hastily posting that earlier "Gerry's Word" on June 30th in the midst of an already over-hectic summer, I’ve had several additional time-consuming trips: to New Orleans (as Providence would have it, shortly before Hurricane Katrina hit and the subsequent tragic flooding), California, New England, Switzerland, France, and Italy -- in fact, I've returned twice this summer to the last two countries mentioned.

Only one of these many trips was even mentioned on my website, in case you're wondering why you hadn't heard of them before now. With some of these trips virtually back-to-back, and 7-12 days long each, it’s taken me until now just to find the time to post a new "Gerry's Word" entry on my site. (I still can't afford to hire a secretary or staff to assist me in such matters, or to attend to them in my absence).  

In any case, I hope frequent visitors to my website will forgive me for how long the previous letter stayed up, with nothing replacing it until now (although changes and updates were made to other sections of the site). I’ll try to update "Gerry's Word" much more frequently from here on in; I may even attempt to post a new letter as often as once a week. (And since I'm aesthetically addicted to alliteration, the allure of altering its appellation to "Gerry's Weekly Word" is already providing a powerful incentive for punctuality, and against procrastination.) 

In that previous letter I had stated that in my next installment I was going to share with you a stunning discovery I made earlier this year — one that has brought about a major “paradigm shift” in my understanding of the current crisis in Catholicism, and as a result has radically altered the entire approach of my apostolate.  

As important as that is, however, it will have to wait a few more days -- until my next letter -- because I have something even more time-sensitive to tell you about right now, and it is this: in what is potentially the most important project so far in the fifteen years of this apostolate's operation, the St. Jerome Study Center opened its doors this summer, and has already received several students.  

Allow me to back up a bit. By mid-May, after nearly a year of fundraising, we had raised only about half the funds necessary to purchase the inexpensive (around $120,000) house near my own home, in which to set up the Study Center. (For other important background information on our vision for the Center and the reasons for setting it up, please click here.)

After much prayer and reflection I decided, in the interim, with so many eager to begin their studies with me, to use some of the funds we'd already raised to rent (for $550 a month) a 2-bedroom apartment to temporarily house the Center. On May 25 I signed the lease, and, despite a summer jam-packed with so many lengthy trips and other pressing projects -- including translating an explosive new book, just published in French, into English (more on that story in my next letter) -- in between trips I worked round the clock, emptying and moving 35 huge bookcases from my house, buying and assembling 34 additional ones, and then transporting as much of my 10,000+ volume library as these 69 bookcases could hold. All this took hundreds of hours of grueling labor.

The library, now logically organized and currently being completely cataloged, fills both bedrooms of the apartment (18 bookcases, arranged maze-like, in the larger bedroom, and 12, similarly arranged, in the smaller bedroom), the entire living room (17 bookcases) and dining room (13 bookcases), and even all the wall space in the kitchen (7 bookcases), plus both walls of the hallway to the bathroom (2 bookcases)!

As stated above, several people have already come to the Center, and more are on the way. And though I'm willing to deplete some of our funds to be able to go on renting this apartment as a temporary, stop-gap solution to accommodate these eager students who can’t wait several more months until, God willing, we are able to acquire a proper-sized home for the Center, the apartment is far too small for even our present purposes. Besides the abovementioned bookcases, which take up the lion’s share of all the floor space, as furniture the Center currently only has (because it only has room for) a 3-seat couch, a 2-seat smaller couch, and one armchair, all in the living room. The way the bookcases are arranged, the bedrooms have absolutely no room for any furniture whatsoever — not even an armchair!

A modest house with 4 bedrooms -- which is what we originally wanted to acquire all along -- would provide more space so that the bookcases could be spread out a bit more, allowing room for at least one armchair and writing desk per bedroom. (We’ve currently room for only one tiny desk — serving as a computer workstation in the dining room — in the entire apartment.) The additional two bedrooms would also enable us to have a chapel with the Blessed Sacrament permanently present, as well as a guest room for a priest who could offer the Tridentine Mass on a regular basis. (Daily would be ideal!) The slightly larger dining room a house would afford could accommodate a table for a small class to sit at, and a somewhat larger living room would provide space for a dozen or more folding chairs to be set up for larger groups.

In the meantime, I don’t believe in standing still or in wasting time waiting, so we’ll continue working with what we’ve got. A list of courses currently available at the Center appears below. The information in these various disciplines is crucial to decoding the current crisis, and to spiritually surviving the great apostasy with our Catholic Faith intact. This educational enterprise couldn’t be timelier: during this eventful year of 2005 several dramatic developments occurred, each of which has convinced me that the need for this Center, with the mission-critical data it can deliver, is now more urgent than ever.

I’ll elaborate on these aforementioned events in my next letter. Meanwhile, please consider coming to the St. Jerome Study Center and digging more deeply into your Catholic Faith with me. Your salvation, humanly speaking, might well depend upon it.  As Pope St. Pius X, quoting his predecessor Benedict XIV, solemnly stated, "We declare that a great number of those who are condemned to eternal punishment suffer that everlasting calamity because of ignorance of those mysteries of faith which must be known and believed in order to be numbered among the elect" (Acerbo Nimis, paragraph 2, issued April 15, 1905). "My people perish for lack of knowledge," was the way God put it in Hosea 4:6.