About FORTES IN FIDE

FORTES IN FIDE (Latin for "Strong in the Faith") was a catechetical review for adult Catholics published by the well-known French sedevacantist priest, Noel Barbara (so-named because he was born on Christmas Day, 1910), from 1975-1993. (A much larger and more augmented French version entitled "Forts Dan La Foi" began publication in 1965.) The principal objective of the publication was to focus on the problems posed by the post-Conciliar (i.e., post-Vatican II) popes. However, an important study on the "New Mass" of Paul VI was presented in Issue #4 of the first series.

There were, essentially, three different series of FORTES IN FIDE issues. The first consisted of six issues released between 1975 and 1979. A representative cover of the magazine at that time is shown to the left in the "View sample FORTES IN FIDE covers" at the end of this file. That series is named "fif1-X.zip" where "X" stands for the particular issue number (from 1 to 6). Fr. Barbara's translator for the first series was Fr. Peter Morgan of England.

The second "Union pour la Fidelite" ("Union for Fidelity" or "UPF" hereafter) series was issued irregularly between 1981 and 1987. The format varied considerably - from a magazine with a full-sized page to rather plain booklets with no particular cover design. This was a time of difficult collaboration for Fr. Barbara, as it involved some important differences in perspective between himself and other principals in the UPF. Eventually, he found it necessary to disassociate himself from the UPF. Files in this second series are named in the format "fif2-X.zip" where "X" represents the approximate issue number when they are ranked chronologically (subject titles instead of issue numbers were used during that time period, and many of the "issues" were really regarded as "supplements" which addressed various topics of interest). Fr. Barbara's translator for the second series was Maj. J. J. Horton of England.

In the third (and last) series (1988-1993), Fr. Barbara resumed his customary style and approach. The issues themselves were more elaborately produced on higher quality paper and issued in booklet form with a fairly heavy-weight buff-colored cover. Occasional use of black-and-white graphics images (begun in the UPF releases) was continued, and the images are reproduced in the archive files presented below using the ".tif" graphic file format. The cover of issues of this last series featured a Greek icon-type depiction of the Blessed Mother and Child Jesus on the front cover (a sample is shown on the right in the "View sample FORTES IN FIDE covers" option at the end of this file. The back cover featured a Western-style depiction of St. Joseph and Child Jesus. These graphics images (entitled "icon.tif" and "joseph.tif" respectively) are contained in file "covgraph.zip" (39K) and to save file storage space are NOT included in each archive file in the third series. These files are named simply as "fif3-X.zip" where "X" stands for the issue number. Translator for the third series was Rama P. Coomaraswamy, M.D. of the U.S.A., who contributed to FORTES IN FIDE by authoring a "special supplement" to Issues 10/11 entitled "The Problems with the new post-Conciliar Sacraments".

Because of Fr. Barbara's advanced age (he was then 83), publication of FORTES IN FIDE was terminated in 1993. He still writes occasional short articles in French. These may appear on this site at some time in the future.

Agents of FORTES IN FIDE in the United States:

1984-1997: William F. Christian, Sr., 758 Lemay Ferry Road, St. Louis, MO 63125 (Telephone: 314-631-0972). Mr. Christian is shown above with Fr. Barbara and Fr. Jose De Pineda (currently of 1905 Brooks Avenue, Rosenberg, TX 77471-5903) in a 1985 photo taken a day or two before Pentecost Sunday.

Send email to Mr. Christian

Very shortly, Mr. Christian will step down. He has transferred the bulk of his stock of back issues of FORTES IN FIDE (but not all back issues are still available) to:

Sister Mary Josephine, CMRI Mary Immaculate Queen Book Store 8504 N. St. Michael's Road Spokane, WA 99207-9333 Telephone: 509-467-1177

Some issues are also available from:

Mother Mary Cabrini Missionaries of the Sacred Heart P.O. Box 250 Clarksburg, OH 43115

1976-1983: Norbert L. Behrendt & James E. McNally, Jr., P.O. Box 100, Highland, MD 20777 (after February, 1980, P.O. Box 102, Boyds, MD 20841). Mr. Behrendt (1917-1980) is shown above with Fr. Barbara and his translator, Mr. Claude Pineau, in a photo taken by your list operator in June 1976 at Mr. Behrendt's "Linden Farm" on Route 108 near Highland, MD.

Format Considerations:

To be maximally compatible with a great number of word processors, the text of the FORTES IN FIDE files contained on this site is in ASCII. This involves accepting certain limitations, principally the inability to render French alphabetic characters, footnotes, underlining, boldface and italics. In the past, I experimented with various ways of depicting these things, but concluded that too much "clutter" resulted. Therefore, in the files provided here, the English alphabet is used, footnotes are made into "endnotes" (placed near the end of the file), boldfaced and underlined words in the originals are capitalized (for some emphasis), and italicised words (usually Latin or French expressions or document citations) are put in quotes.

These files are formatted with the view that they will be printed using the Courier 10 (12 point) font, on standard 8.5" x 11" paper with left and right margins of 1". However, by substituting a seldom used character (like +) for double carriage returns, then replacing single carriage returns with a space, then converting the + back to double carriage returns, paragraph integrity will be preserved and the lines should wrap properly to accomodate whatever font and size you are accustomed to use.

Corrections:

Please feel free to report any obvious typographical errors, mis-spellings or other problems to me at jmcnally@fred.net. Occasionally, I will discover mistakes myself and will replace older files with newer corrected ones. If the change was considered significant, an announcement will be made on the first Home Page. If not, the only way to tell is to check the file dates against the ones you already have.

Any other constructive comments concerning the operation of this Web site would also be appreciated.

James E. McNally, Jr.

View sample FORTES IN FIDE covers