Frank C. Marino

"Decline not to the right hand, nor to the left: turn away thy foot from evil. For the Lord knoweth the ways that are on the right hand: but those are perverse which are on the left hand. But he will make thy courses straight, he will bring forward thy ways in peace." (Proverbs 4:27) “Well done, good and faithful servant, because thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will place thee over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." (Matthew 25:21)

I would first like to thank my beloved Superior, Father Cyprian, O.S.B., for allowing me, under Holy Obedience, to care for my Mom and Dad at the end of their lives. What an immense grace this has been for myself and for my entire family, not to mention for my Faithful Parents, who could avoid the nursing home in their last years and so remain in their homes, surrounded by the love of devoted family members !

I am so grateful to Father Cyprian, for offering the Requiem Mass for my Mother back in 2019, and for sending Father Matthew, O.S.B., to offer the Requiem Mass for my Dad assisted by my Benedictine Brothers who beautifully chanted the Mass. They both gave profound, edifying Sermons which were truly consoling. And also, I want to thank so many of the good Society of St. Pius X Priests, Father Carl Sulzen and Father Kevin Robinson, just to mention a couple, who saw to the spiritual health of my parents Souls and who administered Extreme Unction, and who gave them Holy Viaticum in their end days. Finally, I must not forget the faithful Franciscan, Father Isaac Mary Relyea, who offered the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass during the last hours of my father's life and who is now offering the Gregorian Masses for the repose of his Soul, begun immediately the morning following my father’s death ! He also gave a beautiful "Feverino" at the Rosary during the wake. The Marino Family can never thank you all enough !

When you lose a loved one and fear they might be in Purgatory, there is no greater consolation for you than to know Priests, Religious and good Faithful Catholic Friends, who you are confident will take it to heart to have Masses, Rosaries and Prayers said for the repose of their souls ! I will be forever grateful to almighty God to have been the caretaker of my Mom and Dad at the end of their holy lives. My Dad was a great man who I am unworthy to call my Father and to have cared for in the last five years of his life. It was a great honor to be worthy to kiss his cold, lifeless body, that which was the Temple of The Holy Ghost for over 94 years. As he lay on his deathbed, surrounded by his Five Sons, Anthony, Frank, Joseph, Mike and "the Baby", Vincent (AKA Br. Bernard), our beloved Father, Francis Carmine Marino, passed away at 11:11 PM Friday, June 20th, 2025.

Right from the beginning, my Dad fought against the errors in the Modern Church and the errors in Society ! From PTA Meetings, fighting Sex Education in the Schools, which promoted promiscuity, contraception and abortion, to fighting the liberal Nuns and Priests in the modernized, and rapidly becoming Modernist Catholic Schools, that were so bad, he was forced to take all of his sons out of them, he was always the " Catholic Warrior " ! He and my Mom would do all they could do to raise their Five Sons truly Catholic, all born by Caesarean Section, at a time when such a birth was often life threatening. Mom would say against all who would caution her to have no more children: "What else can I do? I'm a Catholic !"

Fighting against all the errors of the Post Conciliar Church on the local level, he began to join the fight for the "Return to Catholic Tradition", spearheaded by the newly established Society of St. Pius X. He corresponded by letter with the saintly French Prelate, Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the Founder of the SSPX, and my Father supported in any way he could his " Priestly Fraternity ", here in the U.S. and abroad ! He would also assist my Mom in her battle as an “Eagle" of Phyllis Schlafly, joining his wife for the annual March For Life with her Five Sons, and supporting her when she would courageously travel to the N.Y. State Legislature in Albany, fighting "Anti-God" and "Anti-Family" legislation, with her youngest son Vinny by her side !

I remember as a young boy, only ten or eleven years old, attending the Traditional Latin Mass in a detached two car garage in Wantagh NY, offered by a Priest of The Society of St. Pius X way back in 1974. Initially, there were only a handful of faithful attending, my Mom and Dad with their family making up a good part of the faithful in this makeshift Chapel. The Mass attendance quickly grew to overflowing, to the point that the Garage Door was opened and the faithful sat on folding chairs on the driveway all the way out to the street ! That was a time when the SSPX was still considered in "Full Communion” (whatever that means !!), and they were only "ignored" by the local Diocese which was slowly becoming more and more Modernist.

But the persecution of the True Mass was not long in coming ! The threats of censure of Traditional Priests, which already arrived by July of 1976 never phased my courageous Father, supported by his wife Rosemarie (R.I.P., April 18, 2019), who deeply knew his faith and could see that Catholic Doctrine, The Catechism and The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass offered by these young, ascetic, newly ordained SSPX Priests could not be contrary to the Will of God. He knew profoundly that it was the same Mass (Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi,) and the same Catholic Doctrine found in the Catechism of the Council of Trent and the Baltimore Catechism that he was taught from his youth, growing up in the “Holy City of Brooklyn !" He clearly saw that the Traditional Latin Mass he attended and the solid sermons preached every Sunday at these "Catacomb Masses" (now being offered in VFW Halls and local hotel rooms,) could not be legitimately changed into these effeminate and banal liturgies and homilies he now saw everywhere preached in his Diocese ! He could “smell" with his "Traditional Catholic Nose" formed under the Pontificate of the Saintly Pope Pius XII, the difference between Truth and the "Counterfeit" ! He would confidently say that no one could deceive him as long as he said his Daily Rosary and stayed close to The Blessed Virgin Mary !

In the early seventies, just as the Crisis of Faith was manifesting itself throughout the Church, our family received from a Protestant friend, who was a landscaper at a local Catholic Church and who knew my parents to be good devout Catholics, a beautiful Immaculate Heart Statue. The Modernist Pastor was “updating" his Novus Ordo Parish and wanted to get rid of anything that looked "too traditional”. This was the manifestation of the new "Spirit of Vatican II", so prevalent everywhere. So my Dad went to pick up this beautiful statue of Our Lady, that he saved from the dumpster and that we still have to this very day in our Family Room ! He would always say that this Statue of The Immaculate Heart of Mary represented for him a "sign from Heaven" that Our Blessed Mother was watching over him and his entire Family. He was confident that She was guiding us, through the “Traditional" practice of our Roman Catholic Faith, to our Fatherland, Heaven, during this great world-wide Crises of Apostasy in the Church, Prophesied by Our Lady at Fatima in 1917.

My Dad always strongly believed that the only way to remain faithful in these times of Apostasy was through devotion to Our Lady's Immaculate Heart and to Her Fatima Message ( Daily Rosary, The Five First Saturday Masses, wearing the Brown Scapular, and the spirit of prayer and penance). But he also knew that he must be united to Eternal Rome, "Catholic Rome, Guardian of the Catholic Faith and of the traditions necessary to preserve this faith, to Eternal Rome, Mistress of wisdom and truth” ( Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, Declaration in Rome, November 21, 1974.) He never fell for the Sedevacantist position, although he was always charitable to them. In fact, our home was the most welcoming home in the whole neighborhood, that was made up of Catholics, Protestants and Jews !

My Dad would always say that he never asked for a raise, but that God always took care of him ! And whenever he needed more money for his growing family, an increase in salary would always happen without asking, by the grace of God ! And through his hard earned dollars, he supported the building of so many Parishes, Catholic Schools and Religious orders. He was so generous, one Priest in a Parish in New Jersey even returned his money to him saying: “Mr. Marino you need this for your growing family far more than I do !" My good Father was also largely responsible for the foundation of my own Benedictine Monastery in Silver City, New Mexico. In those early days, Father Matthew, O.S.B., the Monastery Bursar or Cellarer at the time, would say that he would wait for my Dad’s monthly Donation which came in like clock-work ! Father said that sometimes it was the difference between "keeping the lights on" or not !!

My Father worked diligently for his many companies over the years as an electrical engineer and inventor and had over one hundred Patents ( I actually found 105 of them on line !) He had such a brilliant inventive mind, that in his 91st year, he came up with his own original "Cosmology", combining the Geocentric and Heliocentric models in a totally new way ! It was so truly amazing for a man of his age, that I encouraged him to give this new theory its own original name: "The FCM Principle" ! https://youtu.be/HXbd-qQg2yA?si=Fo_972hokGKDz3HJ

And so I am reaching out to my most cherished friends, you who are reading this now and who are among the very best that I am privileged to know, that you all may continue to pray for this good man, Mr. Frank C. Marino. As it says in the Holy Scriptures: “It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the Dead, that they may be loosed from their sins!” (2 Maccabees 12:46) The period of mourning was taken seriously by the Catholics of the "Old World". Growing up, I never saw my Dad's Grandma, from Sciacca, Sicily, dressed in anything but black ! They would wear black for a whole year when a close relative died and especially devoted wives often wore black their whole lives ! This is the same reason the Priest wears a Black Cassock and the Benedictine Monks wear a black habit, that we may always have death before our eyes. Memento Mori !

And so I am asking you to please join me in offering suffrages for my good Father, Francis Carmine Marino, so that he will not have to spend one extra moment in the cleansing fires of Purgatory, through my negligence ! Please remember both my beloved Father, Frank and my Mother, Rosemarie in your Prayers ! And may Our Blessed Lord and His Holy Virgin Mother Mary grant us all the grace to rejoice with them in our True Homeland, Heaven, for all Eternity !

With eternal gratitude for being the unworthy son of such a great Father and Mother,

Br. Bernard, Obl.S.B.

Our Lady Of Guadalupe Monastery

Silver City, New Mexico

ourladyofguadalupemonastery.com