The fact is that, save for some Indian blood (visible in my Coulombe cousins, though not in myself), my ancestry hails from the mother continent. Mixed --- French, Austrian, English, Russian, Scots, Irish, and various others --- to be sure, but nevertheless all European. None of the languages I speak, however poorly --- Canadian French, Yankee English, a fractured Viennese, and Los Angeles Mexican street Spanish --- can be considered indigenous to the Americas, and as a result, all of the arts to enjoyed in the languages I understand have European origins --- from Shakespeare to Piaf. In the State of California, where I reside, although the laws covering land, water, and minerals point up our origins as a colony of His Most Catholic Majesty of Spain, the rest of our governance, with its panoply of governor, legislature, judiciary, counties, sheriffs, mayors, coroners and on and on, show the English origins of the better part of our law and institutions. Above all, I belong to a religion centered in Rome, whose current head said shortly after his accession, “all Catholics are in some way Romans.” It is unlikely that he was referring either to Rome, New York, or Rome, Texas.
Of course, I am not alone in this position. It is true of the larger proportion of my fellow Americans ethnically, and virtually all of us culturally. It is especially true of the Blacks in this country, who have no real, identifiable, ties to Africa (despite all the hype), except mere genetics. If anything, they are, save the Indians, the most completely American cultural element in the population. But that too makes them Europeans. The truth is, pace the Anti-Colonial League, that we are the most successful of colonies, having succeeded so tremendously that we have dominated all our former metropoles, and their neighbours. Moreover, most of us have forgotten our origins, and unconsciously think of ourselves as autogenetic.
But on a deeper level still, we know that it is not true. Old Europe still keeps a hold on our imaginations, no matter how much we may try to deny it. Moreover, the fact remains that none of us without tribal ancestry can stand on a bit of land in this country and say, “my people were here a thousand years ago.” The equally unconscious ability of Europeans to do precisely that (and of those few Americans who visit to do likewise) quietly influences the relationship between the two sides of the Atlantic --- Canadians, of course, are somewhat more aware of their origins, which gives them a separate mental universe entirely.
For my own part, a large segment of my work as a writer has been to imply the truth: that we Americans are Europeans separated by time and space from our origins. But as with any colonial, it is not the Europe of Tony Blair, Bertie Ahern, Jacques Chirac, and rest of the “generation of ‘68” gone to seed that I have in mind. There is a reason why the 17th and 18th centuries can still be heard in the French, English, and Spanish spoken in various remote spots in the Americas. It is because we were settled by a different Europe.
The continent that produced our ancestors was the Europe of Dryden, Cervantes, and Moliere --- the realm of chivalry and guilds, shrines and legends, for all that (in the northern half, anyway) this was collapsing at a more or less speedy rate. In a word, it was from Christendom that our fathers came, from Abendland. Echoes of this can be found in the more profound religiosity that characterizes most of the Western Hemisphere --- even if much of that religiosity is Calvinism or sects still more bizarre. It has only been since the ‘60s that our elites have become more or less atheistic, and determined to impose their creeds upon the rest of us (a phenomenon to which neither Quebec or Latin America have been immune, although in the latter case it is still somewhat moderated).
In any case, the malaise that has infected Europe since 1789, and has become more or less triumphant since 1945 and especially 1968, has not gone nearly as far here. In Europe herself, by way of contrast, American religious attitudes are well-nigh incomprehensible; public displays of religious ceremonial are quite common in Europe (although her current leaders do try to suppress or limit them when possible) to a degree unheard of in the United States; yet the personal faith that is a sine qua non in a politician here is considered rather strange on the other side of the ocean. Marriage and birth statistics reveal that such personal faith is also increasingly rare among the European citizenry at large (a lack, however, noticeably absent in her growing Muslim population).
The altar was one of the two foundations upon which Europe rested: the other was the throne. Of course, since 1776, we have done our best on this side of the water to minimise its contributions to our nationhood; Latin Americans have been doing so since the 1820s, and Canadian politicians and media folk got into the act in the 1960s. Yet, as earlier mentioned, all of our institutions come to us from Europe --- but from a Royal Europe. The same anti-monarchical slant infected Europe in 1789, and received heavy boosts in 1918 and 1945. But European republics still house the dreary old politicians they call presidents in the royal palaces, surround them with more or less cut-rate royal pageantry (guards, households, and orders of knighthood), and pretend that somehow the whole charade has something to with “rule by the people” --- as though the general mass of the people were able to live as well as the politicians that batten off them! Much the same is true in Latin America, where current chiefs of state continue to use many of the appurtenances of the long-vanished viceroys.
For all of the differences between old Europe and her children, however, there can be no doubt that, despite the end of colonialism and the attempts at self-assertion of local politicians in such nations as Australia, Europe really extends from San Francisco to Valdivostok, and from North Cape to Cape Town and Buenos Aires. Like it or not, we are stuck with each other. But culturally and religiously, the health of the periphery still depends upon that of the Mother Continent.
Europe’s health, over here, is frequently spoken of in terms of the European Union. But just what is that Union, and how true is it to the European soul, of which Hilaire Belloc once famously remarked that, “the Faith is Europe, and Europe is the Faith?”
One must say, given the disastrous course of European history in the 20th century, that the origins of the EU were promising enough. Solid Christians like Jean Monnet, Paul-Henri Spaak, Robert Schuman, Konrad Adenauer, and Alcide de Gasperi hoped to pull out of the ruins of their countries a new Europe --- rooted deeply in the religion and best traditions of her past, but freed of the national hatreds and social conflicts that had spilled so much of the best of her blood from 1914 to 1945. It was a noble dream, reflected in such efforts as the Karlspreis, the annual award by the city fathers of Aachen, Charlemagne’s Aix-la-Chapelle, to the individual who, in their opinion, had best demonstrated the “European idea” that year. In time, the ACP (Atlantic-Caribbean-Pacific) scheme was intended to allow the former imperial masters to aid their one-time colonies in a way consonant with those nations’ self-respect. Moreover, European unity would allow Europe to play an effective role in world affairs, independent of both the United States and the Soviet Union. Yet at the same time, the principle of “subsidiarity” would allow towns, counties, and provinces (or their local equivalent) far more freedom to run their own affairs. Successive Popes seconded this goal --- and came to prefer it to the older vision enunciated by such as Salazar, Franco, and any number of Latin American rulers.
Alas, the reality was to be far different from what either Pontiffs or founding politicians had hoped. For what we are faced with in the European Union of 2006 is quite another thing, entirely. Far from the sort of Europe envisaged by the Founders, the EU is, to begin with, ever more anti-Christian, as the abortive Constitution’s preamble and the Buttiglione case point up. Non-marital unions, contraception, abortion, euthanasia --- anything calculated to worsen Europe’s already plummeting demographics --- are encouraged at every turn by the EU. Instead of subsidiarity, local farmers, artisans, and regular folk throughout the Union find themselves ever more strangled by the Brussels bureaucracy --- what seems to be emerging is a personally oppressive superstate upon a foundation of equally annoying national bureaucracies. Perhaps making up for this has been the EU’s ineffectiveness in foreign affairs: the ACP idea is being abandoned, having done little to ameliorate Third World poverty and less to address bad governance there. Bosnia and Kossovo pointed up the New Europe’s inability to address even nearby conflicts effectively. Needless to say, the U.S. took little notice of Europe when dealing with Iraq --- alas, perhaps, to no one’s ultimate advantage. The only thing more pitiful than the awarding of the Karlspreis to Tony Blair in 1999 was Bill Clinton’s reception of it the following year.
As a result, despite the best efforts of a well-healed PR machine, and the views of most European political parties, the EU has yet to win the affection of the common man in Europe. Instead, most folk respond with derision. Yet despite polls and plebiscites, the thing appears to be on its way to commanding ever-greater power over a supine continent. Since the 1980s, a common explanation was to blame the next country over for the EU. British blamed the French, Frenchmen blamed the Germans, Germans blamed the Italians, and so forth. In recent years this sort of round robin of finger-pointing has subsided.
That is probably just as well. Because the plain truth is that the EU’s failings are not to be laid at the door of any single nationality. Rather, responsibility for them rests communally with the greater part of the dominant elites in each country of Europe, with such as the earlier cited Blair and Ahern, Belgium’s Guy Verhofstadt, Spain’s Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero (he masculinised it from “Zapatera;” in light of his support of homosexual marriage, he need not have bothered), and the now cashiered French and German premiers Jospin and Schroeder. What all of these worthies and their numerous hangers-on, concubines, and flunkies in government, the judiciary, and media have in common is a shared vision. Products of the 1960s, they simply hate their respective countries, at least as they inherited them.
Naturally, this hatred does not extend to the organs of power, ultimately the gift in most European countries of Bonaparte and such unconscious successors as Bismarck and Cavour, but rather is aimed at the countries themselves --- at whatever gave each their own identity. In all cases, this includes not merely Christianity, but its affect on society and culture; on traditional mores in the family and in the arts. To make all things anew after their own image was their desire in the 60s, and it remains so today. Yet each of these nations is a building block in what had been the very real but difficult to define entity called “Europe,” nee Christendom. Just as, in their hands, their respective countries have begun to morph into something very different to what they had been, so too with the European Union.
Nothing is sacred to these folk! Hunting and the House of Lords must go in Great Britain, indissoluble marriage in Ireland, school crucifixes in Belgium and Spain, and strange and unusual means of producing goods in every rural hamlet on the continent, and smoking everywhere (were public health really a concern, these mandarins might turn their attention to limiting such things as the behaviours which spread AIDS). Behind these lie greater alterations --- the self-same all-important demography-busting marriage, life, and family issues earlier referred to.
Disastrous as these measure would doubtless be in the long-run, their practical harm is multiplied by the fact that they are all the rulers of Europe have to throw back at militant Islam --- managing at once to convince the Muslims of their own moral supremacy, and to limit the ability of Europe to resist. The problem is that the EU has been recast in the leadership’s own image.
All of which having been said, we need to look and see if there is a viable alternative to what is on offer. I once told a German friend of mine (as it happened, in Aachen, outside of Charlemagne’s resting place in the cathedral there), that I was not “opposed to the union of Europe, but to this union of Europe!” He responded, “no, Charles, you are really opposed to the union of this Europe.” He was right, but is there another Europe to choose?
Indeed there is. The noted French Royalist, Charles Maurras, coined the notion of France being divided into two: the pays reel, the real France, Catholic and Royalist; and the pays legal, the legal France, anti-clerical and republican. Georges Bernanos wrote of life in the former France in his brilliant work Nous Autres Francais --- “We Other French.” Perhaps inspired by Bernanos, Phillippe de Villiers called his quondam organisation Nous Autres Europeens. It is the “Other Europe,” the Europe that drew its origin from Rome and Jerusalem that we must look at, rather than the one that is rooted in Brussels (much as I personally love that pleasant city!).
Two centuries ago, faced with the similar problem posed by the new Europe then a-borning, Romantic writer Friederich von Hardenberg (better known as Novalis) penned his best known essay, Christendom or Europe? Its opening paragraph was a battle cry, a challenge thrown down to everything that had happened to Europe since the Reformation:
There once were beautiful, splendid times when Europe was a Christian land, when one Christendom dwelt in this continent, shaped by human hand; one great common interest bound together the most distant provinces of this broad religious empire. Although he did not have extensive secular possessions, one supreme ruler guided and united the great political powers. A numerous guild which everyone could join ranked immediately below the ruler and carried out his wishes, eagerly striving to secure his beneficent might. Each member of this society was honoured on all sides, and whenever the common people sought from him consolation or help, protection or advice, being glad in exchange to provide richly for his diverse needs, each also found protection, esteem, and a hearing from the more mighty ones, while all cared for these chosen men, who were armed with wondrous powers like children of heaven, and whose presence and favour spread many blessings. Childlike trust bound people to their pronouncements. How cheerfully each could accomplish his earthly tasks, since by virtue of these holy people a safe future was prepared for him, and every false step was forgiven by them, and every discoloured mark in his life wiped away and made clear. They were the experienced helmsmen on the great unknown sea, under whose protection all storms could be made light of, and one could be truly confident of a safe arrival and landing on a shore that was truly a fatherland.
The realistic philosophy, and the needs of a time when the only notion of civil or religious order was submission to authority, required the World State to be a monarchy: tradition, as well as the continued existence of a part of the ancient institutions, gave the monarch the name of Roman Emperor. A king could not be universal sovereign, for there were many kings: the Emperor must be universal, for there had never been but one Emperor; he had in older and brighter days been the actual lord of the civilised world; the seat of his power was placed beside that of the spiritual autocrat of Christendom. His functions will be seen most clearly if we deduce them from the leading principle of mediaeval mythology, the exact correspondence of earth and heaven. As God, in the midst of the celestial hierarchy, rules blessed spirits in Paradise, so the Pope, His vicar; raised above priests, bishops, metropolitans, reigns over the souls of mortal men below. But as God is Lord of earth as well as heaven, so must he (the Imperator coelestis) be represented by a second earthly viceroy, the Emperor (Imperator terrenus), whose authority shall be of and for this present life. And as in this present world the soul cannot act save through the body, while yet the body is no more than an instrument and means for the soul’s manifestation, so there must be a rule and care of men ‘s bodies as well as their souls, yet subordinated always to the well-being of that element which is the purer and more enduring. It is under the emblem of soul and body that the relation of the papal and imperial power is presented to us through out the Middle Ages. The Pope, as God’s vicar in matters spiritual, is to lead men to eternal life; the Emperor; as vicar in matters temporal, must so control them in their dealings with one another that they are able to pursue undisturbed the spiritual life, and thereby attain the same supreme and common end of everlasting happiness. In view of this object his chief duty is to maintain peace in the world, while towards the Church his position is that of Advocate or Patron, a title borrowed from the practice adopted by churches and monasteries choosing some powerful baron to protect their lands and lead their tenants in war. The functions of Advocacy are twofold: at home to make the Christian people obedient to the priesthood, and to execute priestly decrees upon heretics and sinners; abroad to propagate the faith among the heathen, not sparing to use carnal weapons. Thus does the Emperor answer in every point to his antitype the Pope, his power being yet of a lower rank created on the analogy of the papal... Thus the Holy Roman Church and the Holy Roman Empire are one and the same thing seen from different sides; and Catholicism, the principle of the universal Christian society, is also Romanism...
Space fails us, or gladly would we here describe in detail the gorgeous liturgical function used during the middle-ages, in the ordination of an emperor. The Ordo Romanus, wherein these rites are handed down to us, is full of the richest teachings clearly revealing the whole thought of the Church. The future lieutenant of Christ, kissing the feet of the Vicar of the Man-God, first made his profession in due form: he “guaranteed, promised, and swore fidelity to God and blessed Peter pledging himself on the holy Gospels, for the rest of his life to protect and defend, according to his skill and ability, without fraud or ill intent, the Roman Church and her ruler in all necessities or interests affecting the same.” Then followed the solemn examination of the faith and morals of the elect, almost word for word the same as that marked in the Pontifical at the consecration of a bishop. Not until the Church had thus taken sureties regarding him who was to become in her eyes, as it were, an extern bishop, was she content to proceed to the imperial ordination. While the apostolic suzerain, the Pope, was being vested in pontifical attire for the celebration of the sacred Mysteries, two cardinals clad the emperor elect in amice and alb; then they presented him to the Pontiff, who made him a clerk, and conceded to him, for the ceremony of his coronation, the use of the tunic, dalmatic, and cope, together with the pontifical shoes and the mitre. The anointing of the prince was reserved to the Cardinal Bishop of Ostia, the official consecrator of popes and emperors. But the Vicar of Jesus Christ himself gave to the new emperor the infrangible seal of his faith, namely the ring; the sword, representing that of the Lord of armies, the most potent One, chanted in the Psalm; the globe and sceptre, images of the universal empire and of the inflexible justice of the King of kings; lastly, the crown, a sign of the glory reserved in endless ages as a reward for his fidelity, by this same Lord Jesus Christ, whose figure he had just been made. The giving of these august symbols took place during the holy Sacrifice. At the Offertory, the emperor laid aside the cope and the ensigns of his new dignity; then, clad simply in the dalmatic, he approached the altar and there fulfilled, at the Pontiff’s side, the office of subdeacon, the servitor, as it were, of holy Church and the official representative of the Christian people. Later on, even the stole was given him: as recently as 1530, Charles V on the day of his coronation, assisted Clement VII in quality of deacon, presenting to the Pope the paten and the Host, and offering the chalice together with him.
This seventh Lesson, according to the Ceremonial of the Roman Church, is to be sung by the Emperor, if he happen to be in Rome at the time; and this is done in order to honour the Imperial power, whose decrees were the occasion of Mary and Joseph going to Bethlehem, and so fulfilling the designs of God, which he had revealed to the ancient Prophets. The Emperor is led to the Pope, in the same manner as the Knight who had to sing the fifth lesson; he puts on the Cope; two Cardinal-Deacons gird him with the sword, and go with him to the Ambo. The Lesson being concluded, the Emperor again goes before the Pope, and kisses his foot, as being the Vicar of the Christ whom he has just announced. This ceremony was observed in 1468, by the Emperor Frederic III, before the then Pope, Paul II.This was echoed by the prayers of the Roman Missal, until 1955. Among the “Occasional Prayers, “ (sets of collects, secrets, and post-communions for various intentions, to be said by the priest after finishing the propers), we find the following, “For the Emperor:”
O God, the Protector of all Kingdoms and in particular of the Christian Empire, grant to Thy servant our Emperor N. always to work wisely for the triumph of Thy power, that being s prince in virtue of Thy institution he may always continue mighty by virtue of Thy grace. Through Our Lord.
Accept, O Lord, the prayers and offerings of Thy Church for the safety of Thy suppliant servant, and work prodigies habitual to Thine arm for the protection of nations faithful to Thee: that, the enemies of peace having been overcome, Christian peace may allow of Thy being served in security. Through Our Lord.
O God, Who hast prepared the Roman Empire to serve for the preaching of the Gospel of the Eternal King: present Thy servant our Emperor N. with heavenly weapons, that the peace of the Churches may not be disturbed by the storms of war. Through Our Lord.
Let us pray also for our most Christian Emperor N., that Our God and Lord may, for our perpetual peace, subject all barbarous nations to him.Then again, on Holy Saturday, during the Exsultet, the prayer blessing the Paschal Candle, the priest would chant:
Let us pray. Let us kneel down. R. Arise.
O Almighty and Eternal God, in Whose hands are the powers of all men and the rights of all Kingdoms; graciously look down upon the Roman Empire, that the nations that confide in their fierceness may be repressed by the power of Thy right hand. Through Our Lord. R. Amen.
Regard also our most devout Emperor N., and since Thou knowest, O God, the desires of his heart, grant by the ineffable grace of Thy goodness and mercy, that he may enjoy with all his people the tranquillity of perpetual peace and heavenly victory.The Empire in the East fell to the Turks in 1453, after which the Russian Tsars claimed that post for themselves. The last Holy Roman Emperor abdicated in 1806, and this is generally accepted as the end of the Institution, although legal experts always point out that the abdication of a sovereign does not dissolve his throne. This last Emperor had, two years earlier, declared himself Emperor of Austria. That line continued until 1918, when Bl. Charles I (of Austria---he would have been Charles VIII of the Holy Roman Empire), whose cause for sainthood is now complete, was forced off the throne at the behest of Woodrow Wilson.
The post of the Emperor…what an abundance of ideas concerning the post---its historical mission, it functions in the light of natural right, and it role in the light of divine right – of the Emperor of Christendom are to be found amongst medieval authors!We are dealing with deep and strange matters here. But the fact remains that the Empire, both East and West, is gone. The vision of the Holy Empire haunted the soldiers and administrators who pioneered the Spanish, Portuguese, French, and British colonial Empires. Of the latter, Ernest Barker wrote in his article “Empire,” for the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica: “The British Empire is, in a sense, an aspiration rather than a reality, a thought rather than a fact; but, just for that reason, it is like the old Empire of which we have spoken; and though it be neither Roman nor Holy, yet it has, like its prototype, one law, if not the law of Rome --- one faith, if not in matters of religion, at any rate in the field of political and social ideals.” The First World War, three years later, would weaken that Empire fatally, even as it would destroy the German Empire, the other great Protestant exponent of the Imperial idea.
As it is suitable that the institution of a city or kingdom be made according to the model of the institution of the world, similarly it is necessary to draw from divine government the order of the government of a city --- this is the fundamental thesis advanced by St. Thomas Aquinas (De regno xiv, 1). This is why the authors of the Middle Ages could not imagine Christianity uster an Emperor, just as they could not imagine the Universal Church without a Pope. Because if the world is governed hierarchically, Christianity or the Sanctum imperium cannot be otherwise. Hierarchy is a pyramid which exists only when it is complete. And it is the Emperor who is at its summit. Then come the kings, dukes, noblemen, citizens, and peasants. But it is the crown of the Emperor which confers royalty to the royal crowns from which the ducal crowns and all other crowns in turn derive their authority.
The post of the Emperor is nevertheless not only that of the last (or, rather, the first) instance of sole legitimacy. It was also magical, if we understand by magic the action of correspondences between that which is below and that which is above. It was the principle itself of authority from which all lesser authorities derived not only their legitimacy but also their hold over the consciousness of the people. This is why royal crowns one after another lost their uster and were eclipsed after the imperial crown was eclipsed. Monarchies are unable to exist for long without the Monarchy; kings cannot apportion the crown and sceptre of the Emperor among themselves and pose as emperors in their particular countries, because the shadow of the Emperor is always present. And if in the past it was the Emperor who gave uster to the royal crowns, it was later the shadow of the absent Emperor which obscured the royal crowns and, consequently, all the other crowns --- those of dukes, princes, counts, etc. A pyramid is not complete without its summit; hierarchy does not exist when it is incomplete. Without an Emperor, there will be, sooner or later, no more Kings. When there are no Kings, there will be, sooner or later, no nobility. When there is no more nobility, there will be, sooner or later, no more bourgeoisie or peasants. This is how one arrives at the dictatorship of the proletariat, the class hostile to the hierarchical principle, which latter, however, is the reflection of divine order. This is why the proletariat professes atheism.
Europe is haunted by the shadow of the Emperor. One senses his absence just as vividly as in former times one sensed his presence. Because the emptiness of the wound speaks, that which we miss know how to make us sense it.
Napoleon, eye-witness to the French Revolution, understood the direction which Europe had taken --- the direction towards the complete destruction of hierarchy. And he sensed the shadow of the Emperor. He knew what had to be restored in Europe, which was not the royal throne of France --- because Kings cannot exist long without the Emperor --- but rather the Imperial throne of Europe. So he decided to fill the gap himself. He made himself Emperor and he made his brothers kings. But it was to the sword that he took recourse. Instead of ruling by the orb --- the globe bearing the cross --- he made the decision to rule by the sword. But, “all who take up the sword will perish by the sword.” Hitler also had the delirium of desire to occupy the empty place of the Emperor. He believed he could establish the “thousand-year empire” of tyranny by means of the sword. But again ---“all those who take up the sword will perish by the sword.”
No, the post of the Emperor does not belong any longer either to those who desire it or to the choice of the people. It is reserved to the choice of heaven alone. It has become occult. And the crown, the sceptre, the throne, the coat-of-arms of the Emperor are to be found in the catacombs…in the catacombs --- this means to say: under absolute protection.
For lack of an Imperial power genuinely Christian and Catholic, the Church has not succeeded in establishing social and political justice in Europe. The nations and states of modern times, freed since the Reformation from ecclesiastical surveillance, have attempted to improve upon the work of the Church. The results of the experiment are plain to see. The idea of Christendom as a real though admittedly inadequate unity embracing all the nations of Europe has vanished; the philosophy of the revolutionaries has made praiseworthy attempts to substitute for this unity the unity of the human race --- with what success is well known. A universal militarism transforming whole nations into hostile armies and itself inspired by a national hatred such as the Middle Ages never knew; a deep and irreconcilable social conflict; a class struggle which threatens to whelm everything in fire and blood; and a continuous lessening of moral power in individuals, witnessed to by the constant increase in mental collapse, suicide, and crime---such is the sum total of the progress which secularised Europe has made in the last three or four centuries.More recent authors have written in much the same vein. Journalist Gary Potter, in his 1991 work, In Reaction, wrote:
The two great historic experiments, that of the Middle Ages and that of modern times, seem to demonstrate conclusively that neither the Church lacking the assistance of a secular power which is distinct from but responsible to her, nor the secular State relying upon its own resources, can succeed in establishing Christian justice and peace on the earth. The close alliance and organic union of the two powers without confusion and without division is the indispensable condition of true social progress. It remains to enquire whether there is in the Christian world a power capable of taking up the work of Constantine and Charlemagne with better hope of success.
Words express ideas, and some of them now being quoted signify notions likely to be totally foreign to anyone unfamiliar with history prior to a few decades ago: “world emperor,” “imperial office,” AEIOU itself. This is not the place to lay out all the history needed to be known for thoroughly grasping the notions. However, the principal one was adumbrated by Our Lord Himself in the last command His followers received from Him: to make disciples of all the nations. In a word, the idea of a universal Christian commonwealth is what we are talking about.The malaise of Europe and her daughters is in great part traceable to her renunciation of the Faith that created her. But that renunciation itself owed much to the death of the Imperial idea, and the philosophical basis upon which it rested. The horrors Soloviev described have only worsened --- not only on the national and continental levels, but the personal one as well.
To date, it has never existed. Today there is not even a Christian government anywhere. However, from the conversion of Constantine until August, 1806 --- with an interruption (in the West) from Romulus Augustulus in 476 to Charlemagne in 800 --- there was the Empire. It was the heart of what was once known as Christendom. Under its aegis serious European settlement of the Western Hemisphere began and the Americas’ native inhabitants were first baptized, which is why the feather cloak of Montezuma is to be seen today in a museum in Vienna. After 1806 a kind of shadow of the Empire, the Austro-Hungarian one, endured until the end of World War I, when its abolition was imposed as a condition of peace by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. Since 1438, when Albert V, cousin of Frederick III, was crowned Roman Emperor, all the Emperors were Habsburgs. The last was Archduke Otto’s father, Karl.
Catholicism, as Orthodoxy, has, historically, regarded the monarchical institution in this light: raised up by Providence to safeguard the natural law in its transmission through history as that norm for human co-existence which, founded as it is on the Creator, and renewed by him as the Redeemer, cannot be made subject to the positive law, or administrative fiat, or the dictates of cultural fashion. Let us dare to exercise a Christian political imagination on an as yet unspecifiable future. The articulation of the foundational natural and Judaeo-Christian norms of a really united Europe, for instance, would most appropriately be made by such a crown, whose legal and customary relations with the national peoples would be modelled on the best aspects of historic practice in the (Western) Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine “Commonwealth” --- to use the term popularised by Professor Dimtri Obolensky.Given that Fr. Nichols belongs to a rather influential school of theology, it is far from impossible that some future Pope may well see the need for the sort of restoration here envisaged. If such a Pontiff mounts the throne of St. Peter at a time when the then-leadership of the European Union feel a need to animate their machinery with a soul, we may well see something of a new Empire emerge. This development would profoundly affect the European daughter nations of the Americas, Australasia, and elsewhere; moreover, it might well be the only real answer Western Civilization can make to a resurgent Islam.
Such a crown, as the integrating factor of an international European Christendom, would leave intact the functioning of parliamentary government in the republican or monarchical polities of its constituent nations and analogues in city and village in other representative and participatory forms. As the Spanish political theorist Alvaro D’Ors defines the concepts, power --- that is, government --- as raised up by the people can and should be distinguished from authority. Power in this sense puts questions to those in authority as to what ought to be done. It asks whether technically possible acts of government, for co-ordinating the goals of individuals and groups in society, chime, or do not chime, with the foundational norms of society, deemed as these are to rest on the will of God as the ultimate power of the shared human goal. Authority, itself bereft of such power, answers out of a wisdom which society can recognise.
Great Britain had refused in 1806 to recognise the dissolution of the Empire. And it may indeed be maintained that in point of law the Empire was never extinguished at all, but lived on as a sort of disembodied spirit. For it is clear that, technically speaking, the abdication of a sovereign destroys only his own rights, and does not dissolve the state over which he presides. Perhaps the Elector of Saxony might, legally, as Imperial Vicar during an interregnum, have summoned the electoral college to meet and choose a new Emperor.
Bryce, op. cit., p. 416, note o.
While there is no question that Francis was personally entitled to abdicate a crown he was no longer willing to wear, he certainly had no constitutional power to dissolve the fabric of imperial obligation per se. The empire, like all sovereign states, was intended to be perpetual and the emperor had sworn to maintain it to the best of his ability. He broke his coronation oath when he declared it dissolved, and he failed to consult the Stände assembled at Regensburg about his highly irregular procedure. One can argue, therefore, that the imperial death warrant was technically ultra vires and therefore null and void, and that the empire “legally” continued to exist after 1806.
For the title page of his ghost story collection, A Mirror of Shalott, Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson chose the Latin phrase — “Primus est deorum cultus deos credere.” This is drawn from Seneca. It states:
“The first way to give cultus to the gods is to believe in the gods.”
Why would Monsignor Benson apply this dictum to ghost stories?
One possibility is that supernatural tales produce in the reader — even in the reader not given to religious orthodoxy — a state of mind capable of belief in the supernatural. We offer to the weird tale what Coleridge termed a “willing suspension of disbelief.” In other words, one must become like a little child in order to enjoy a good ghost story. If the author, then, is adept at atmosphere, character, and plot, we find ourselves involved, believing — and so we fulfill, if only for a few minutes, the first way to give cultus to the gods.
Reading a ghost story, we also experience wonder, awe, and terror — the interior effects, if you will, of belief or of a bonafide supernatural encounter.
It so happens that one particular author of the weird tale, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, wanted nothing to do with belief. Yet, at the same time, he deeply loved the interior effects of fictional supernatural encounters. It was Lovecraft’s special genius to contrive a way to have his cake and eat it, too — that is, to describe encounters that are not supernatural, yet that produce wonder, awe, and terror.
We call the resulting sub-genre “cosmic horror.”
Lovecraft was an atheist. More specifically, he espoused philosophical materialism. The logic of this worldview goes like this:
Reality consists solely of matter and energy.
Matter and energy are subject to the physical laws of the universe.
Human beings, too, consist solely of matter and energy.
Human beings, therefore, are subject entirely to the physical laws of the universe.
The result is that our so-called “actions” are as determined as the tides.
You can add complexity to the situation all you like. From the lowliest amoeba to the grasshopper, from Schlitzie the Pinhead to Robin Williams, utter determinism remains the end result. Our sense of free action, in this view, is entirely illusory. You do what you do not because a mixture of instincts and influences leads to a razor’s edge moment of actual choice, but because — at the end of a series of completely accidental actions and reactions — something simply “clicks.”
By accident is meant: no God, no design, no meaning.
Imagine, for a moment, what falls into place if human freedom does not exist. There was never a primordial choice that separated man from God. There is no basis for saying a man who steals deserves punishment; no basis for saying a man who lays down his life for another deserves praise. There is no possibility of moving toward the sacred – not merely because the sacred does not exist, but because an existing, self-aware you capable of choosing the sacred does not exist.
Imagine, too, how such a philosophical commitment affects the individual devoted to ghost stories.
On the one hand, he is convinced that science has supplanted religion and that science supports an entirely deterministic worldview. On the other hand, he is drawn to the numinous, to mystery – which he imbibes through stories that insist we do not merely shut off like a lightbulb when we die, from tales that describe a supernatural landscape of ghosts, demons, and who knows what else. The whole point of the thing is that something impinges upon what we do understand with an agency and intention that we (decidedly) do not understand.
How, then, could Lovecraft retain awe and mystery while jettisoning supernatural belief?
In his essay, “Supernatural Horror in Literature,” Lovecraft distinguishes between “the literature of mere physical fear and the mundanely gruesome” and the “true weird tale [that] has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains...”
In the true weird tale, “a certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain — a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space.”
From the first paragraph of his essay, it is plain that fear pertaining to the “fixed laws of Nature” is what Lovecraft savors. It isn’t fear of physical harm or even death. It isn’t fear of a pagan or EC comics sort — in which the dead sit in judgment and can upend our lives if they become vengeful and angry. It is, instead, a fear peculiar to the scientific age: what if the theories scientific method uncovers, the physical laws that drive the cogs and wheels of the technology-driven “grid,” the givens that form our very way of thinking are not as hardwired into reality as we think?
In the supernatural tales of the past, the living comprised a “closed system.” The arrival of the ghost opened up vistas of unending mystery. In Lovecraft’s world, circumscribed by science, nature is a closed system; nothing beyond nature exists. However, there remain the “the daemons of unplumbed space.” Who could say whether, light-years distant, there are not “hidden and fathomless worlds of strange life which may pulsate in the gulfs beyond the stars,” aspects of reality so utterly alien that they might “press hideously upon our own globe in unholy dimensions which only the dead and the moonstruck can glimpse”?
In other words, what if utterly alien and contrary physical laws came into contact with our own? While a deterministic worldview might prompt a person to look out at the world as if everything is predictable, everything is “known,” the intrusion of some utterly alien aspect of that same closed system might dwarf such pretensions, might destroy such complacency. In its extreme Otherness, such an intrusion might appear to act as in pre-scientific times a hurricane once seemed to act. Modern man, though immersed in philosophical materialism, might experience something akin to what pre-modern man felt — when the wind seemed to move of its own inscrutable accord.
Lovecraft experimented with such notions in tales like “The Colour Out of Space” and assigned names to such forces in stories like “The Call of Cthulhu.” The human protagonists in a Lovecraft tale — mired, as Lovecraft would say of his Catholic acquaintance, August Derleth, in the old, meaningful, religious view of things — might apply a lens of Good and Evil to events. In fact, pop culture has turned “dread Cthulhu” into a Scooby Doo villain – an acting, choosing “person” who merely schemes and manipulates on a more extraterrestrial scale. This all reflects, in Lovecraft’s view, the mistaken tendency “to attribute intent and personality to the formless, infinite, unchanging and unchangeable void.”
For Lovecraft, nature remains a closed system; horror has been exported to the outer realms of that same system. When we touch that outer realm, the comfort of the world we know disappears. Cthulhu, Yog Sothoth, Shub-Niggurath — these represent the cognitive intrusion William Shatner experienced when he went into space. According to the account published October 22, 2022 on variety.com, this is what “Captain Kirk” saw when he stared out the port window of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin space shuttle:
“I…turned my head to face the other direction [from Earth], to stare into space. I love the mystery of the universe. I love all the questions that have come to us over thousands of years of exploration and hypotheses. Stars exploding years ago, their light traveling to us years later; black holes absorbing energy; satellites showing us entire galaxies in areas thought to be devoid of matter entirely… all of that has thrilled me for years… but when I looked in the opposite direction [from Earth], into space, there was no mystery, no majestic awe to behold . . . all I saw was death.
“I saw a cold, dark, black emptiness. It was unlike any blackness you can see or feel on Earth. It was deep, enveloping, all-encompassing. I turned back toward the light of home. I could see the curvature of Earth, the beige of the desert, the white of the clouds and the blue of the sky. It was life. Nurturing, sustaining, life. Mother Earth. Gaia. And I was leaving her.
“Everything I had thought was wrong. Everything I had expected to see was wrong.”
Shatner returned from his trip into space intent upon action — to nurture life on Earth and encourage understanding between its disparate peoples. Lovecraft, wholly committed to determinism, could not emphasize social action. Instead, his eyes remained fixed on the black gulf of space: “The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.”
Of course, Robert Hugh Benson, a Catholic convert and prominent apologist as well as ghost story writer, had something else in mind.
His characters, often Catholic priests, deal in human freedom — actions for which we are truly responsible, choices that ally the human soul either to the sacred or to the diabolical.
Such priests are armed with reason, the virtues, the Sacraments — and with the Deposit of Faith, which functions as a map. A Lovecraft-like tension arrives, however, when the map, it turns out, does not describe ALL of reality. Neither the duck-billed platypus nor the ghost receives official treatment. Benson’s stories involve the latter because encounters with duck-billed platypuses do not imply what encounters with ghosts imply: our radical smallness, the alien immensity of the fallen angels, the possibility of losing the path delineated on the map, what might happen to us if we encounter what the map does not bother to describe.
This introduces something like Lovecraft’s “black seas of infinity,” something like what Shatner experienced when he stared out into Deep Space. M. R. James once observed about ghosts — “Some of these things are so, but we do not know the rules!” In a similar vein, one of Benson’s priests, Monsignor Maxwell, declares, “Here is this exceedingly small earth, certainly with a very fair number of people living on it—but absolutely a mere fraction of the number of intelligences that are in existence. And all about us—since we must use that phrase—is a spiritual world, compared with which the present generation is as a family of ants in the middle of London. Things happen—this spiritual world is crammed full of energy and movement and affairs… We know practically nothing of it at all, except those few main principles which are called the Catholic Faith—nothing else.”
Monsignor Maxwell is speaking of the supernatural. A priest who has had a paranormal encounter insists the encounter must make sense, must have been intended in some manner that fits what he understands — otherwise, why did Providence allow it?
Monsignor Maxwell replies, “What conceivable right have we to demand that the little glimpses that we seem to get sometimes of the spiritual world are given us for our benefit? …My religion teaches me that there is a spiritual world of indefinite size, and that things not only may, but must, go on there which have nothing in particular to do with me. Every now and then I get a glimpse of some of these things—an orange pip, at the very least. But I don’t immediately demand an explanation. It probably isn’t deliberately meant for me at all. It has something to do with affairs of which I know nothing, and which manage to get on quite well without me.”
And finally, “My dear Father, no one in this world has a greater respect for, or confidence in, dogmatic theology than myself; in fact, I may say that it is the only thing which I do have confidence in. But I respect the limits which it itself has laid down.”
In this, Benson evokes something of what Lovecraft was looking for — “There [should] be excited in the reader a profound sense of dread, and of contact with unknown spheres and powers; a subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes and entities on the known universe’s utmost rim.” Benson’s characters do encounter the Unknown with a capital “U.” The difference is that in Robert Hugh Benson’s view the very principle of reason itself, the Divine Logos that created both the shores of Earth and the black expanse of space, is a Person. And that Person cares for us.
The gulf between the finite and the infinite — deeply disturbing to Lovecraft (and Shatner) since it appears to relegate humanity to absolute futility — this gulf has been bridged by the Incarnation. The cosmic principle of reason decided not only to approach mankind but to come to us as a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes and cradled in a feeding trough — a gesture of such outrageous humility that it turns smallness and futility on its head. And the gulf between the sinner and the holy — an expanse that prompted Isaiah to cry, “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, The LORD of hosts” — this was bridged when the same incarnate Logos willingly died on the cross “to give His life as a ransom for many.”
Although M. R. James found his friend, Robert Hugh Benson’s, tales “too clerical” for his taste, Dewi Evens, a lecturer in Victorian literature at Brunel University, disagrees: “R.H. Benson’s supernatural fiction has been accused of being nothing more than thinly-veiled Catholic propaganda. This is only half true. For while his ghost stories present and promote an ontology that is rigidly Catholic, it would be churlish to dismiss them as nothing more than mere dogma. In his second collection of uncanny tales, the stories succeed through a carefully heightened sense of unease and mounting horror. Despite the underlying religious certainty, several of the tales also skillfully evoke the ‘cosmic’ horror of the weird fiction tradition, revealing an unseen world in which uncontrollable forces, immeasurably more powerful and more ancient than humanity, are locked in a constant struggle.”
Which brings us back to traditional ghosts.
It’s too bad Lovecraft never applied logic to the strongly apparent existence of freedom in man. He might have run across the following possible conclusions regarding ghosts:
If matter and energy are subject entirely to the physical laws of the universe, and if man (nevertheless) clearly demonstrates free action, it must be the case that some aspect of man is not subject to these physical laws. We might term this aspect of man “beyond-the-natural” or “super-natural.”
It follows that the “beyond-the-natural” is also not subject to entropy — that is, to death and decay. What becomes of this aspect of man after the body, subject to entropy, has given up? It would persist.
It appears this element of freedom pertains only to persons. That is, we do not associate freedom of action with trees or grasshoppers. It is persons, then, that persist after the body gives up. These are traditionally termed “eternal spirits.”
There are no apparent means for the “over-the-natural” to proceed from the natural; it makes more sense to posit that the “over-the-natural” proceeds from an original source that is itself “over-the-natural.” This would be personal as well. All in all, this personal source of the “over-the-natural” corresponds to the traditional idea of “God, the father of spirits.”
Given our experience of persons, it would seem appropriate for this “God, the father of spirits” to extend some effort toward communication. He might even “come down to our level” in some manner.
Perhaps the seas of infinity are not so “black” after all.
]]>For the clergy and the religious, and those who attend daily Mass and pray the Liturgy of the Hours of the Catholic Church, the “Our Father” prayer is recited at least three times a day. Once at Lauds (Morning Prayer), once at Vespers (Evening Prayer), and once during Mass. It is said five more times, once at the beginning of each decade if one prays the Rosary. Often we say it quickly and gloss over its rich and deep theological meaning.
One such insight that is often lost is that of the phrase “Give us this day our daily bread.” The English translation does not do justice to the original Greek nor even to the Latin translation. In this article, I wish to examine the true meaning of what we translate as “daily” within the Our Father, especially during this time of Eucharistic Revival and Renewal in the Church.
It should be noted from the outset that the New Testament was written completely in Greek. Therefore, we must turn to the original Greek text. The original word used in Greek is έπιούσιον (epiousios). This word occurs only in two places in the New Testament: Matthew 6:11 and Luke 11:3. In the he Catechism of the Catholic Church, the following is said about the word epiousios:
“Daily” (epiousios) occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. Taken in a temporal sense, this word is a pedagogical repetition of “this day,” to confirm us in trust “without reservation.” Taken in the qualitative sense, it signifies what is necessary for life, and more broadly every good thing sufficient for subsistence. Taken literally (epi-ousios: “super-essential”), it refers directly to the Bread of Life, the Body of Christ, the “medicine of immortality,” without which we have no life within us. Finally in this connection, its heavenly meaning is evident: “this day” is the Day of the Lord, the day of the feast of the kingdom, anticipated in the Eucharist that is already the foretaste of the kingdom to come. For this reason it is fitting for the Eucharistic liturgy to be celebrated each day. (CCC, 2837)
This, however, is not some new development in the Church. It is quite ancient. Unfortunately, in modern times, most members of the Church have forgotten or simply do not know of this.
This point is made even clearer when one turns to the Vulgate, the translation of the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible into Latin by St. Jerome. We read in Jerome's translation of Matthew 6:11: “Panem nostrum supersubstantialem da nobis hodie.” Here it is clear to see that the word is translated as “supersubstantial” and not merely as “daily.” In the Douay-Rheims, this is translated as “Give us this day our supersubstantial bread.” [St. Jerome does translate, however, Luke's passage as “Panem nostrum qoutidianem da nobis hodie,” where we get the common Latin translation of the “Our Father” which we pray at Mass, the Liturgy of the Hours, and with our Rosaries. This is where we get the usage of “daily” instead of “supersubstantial.” This does not, however, take away from Matthew's meaning of the word. Dr. Brant Pitre in his excellent treatise Jesus and the Last Supper (Eerdmans, 2017) offers a number of meanings for the word epiousios which I highly encourage the reader to explore.]
In St. Thomas Aquinas' Catena Aurea, he cites St. Jerome a number of times on this passage:
Jerome The Greek word here which we render, ‘supersubstantialis,’ is επιουσιος. The LXX often make use of the word, περιουσιος, by which we find, on reference to the Hebrew, they always render the word, sogola. Symmachus translates it εξαιρετος, that is, ‘chief,’ or ‘excellent,’ though in one place he has interpreted ‘peculiar.’ When then we pray God to give us our ‘peculiar’ or ‘chief’ bread, we mean Him who says in the Gospel, “I am the living bread which came down from heaven.” (John 6:51)
We may also interpret the word ‘supersubstantialis’ otherwise, as that which is above all other substances, and more excellent than all creatures, to wit, the body of the Lord.
Jerome's comments make it clear that, in translating this text, the “chief,” “excellent,” or “peculiar” bread is referring to the Eucharist.
The Early Church Fathers were also quite aware of this connection and made it clear in their writings. Although not all agreed as to what the proper meaning of epiousios was, a good number of them wrote in favor of it being understood as the Eucharist. St. Cyprian is such an example. Again, Aquinas cites Cyprian in reference to Matthew's text:
Cyprian For Christ is the bread of life, and this bread belongs not to all men, but to us. This bread we pray that it be given day by day, lest we who are in Christ, and who daily receive the Eucharist for food of salvation, should by the admission of any grievous crime, and our being therefore forbidden the heavenly bread, be separated from the body of Christ. Hence then we pray, that we who abide in Christ, may not draw back from His sanctification and His body.
In concluding this article, I would like to cite the wisdom of the Angelic Doctor on this passage. In his Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, Aquinas greatly expounds upon what the various meanings of epiousios could mean. I offer and encourage the reader to pursue Aquinas' extensive writings on this subject. Here, however, I would like to quote a brief section of his long treatise:
590. Supersubstantial bread. Jerome says that in Greek this is ‘epiousion’, and Symmachus translated it ‘special’ or ‘extraordinary’; but the old translation has daily. But what would be supersubstantial, that is, above all substances, appears in Ephesians: which he wrought in Christ . . . setting him . . . above all principality (Eph 1:20–21). He says daily, for it should be received every day, but not by everyone; hence it is said in the book On Church Dogmas: I neither praise nor blame this.
But it should be received daily in the Church, or at least it may be received spiritually by the faithful in faith. But in the eastern church it is not received daily in church, for the Mass is not celebrated daily, but only once a week. But because the Church allows it, it suffices that they receive spiritually every day, and not sacramentally.
While recognizing the differences between the East and the West, Aquinas here notes that the reason “daily” was used was to emphasize the importance of the daily reception of Holy Communion in the Western Church. That being said, daily reception of Holy Communion is not a required practice in the Western Church. It is a recommended practice but not an obligatory one.
The Our Father, then, is not merely a prayer asking God for the basic needs of day-to-day life. It is much more profound than that. It acknowledges and asks God to provide us with the Bread of Eternal Life. It asks God to give us the Eucharist as our spiritual food to sustain us in this world so that we might live with Him in the life to come.
]]>In attempting to answer a question that has long been on my mind— is art supposed to be beautiful?— or more to the point, why must art be beautiful?— I will speak of that form with which I am most familiar: the art of prose, and that of creative writing. I hope by answering why prose must be beautiful to give an answer applicable to all art.
The style of contemporary prose, as often as in art, gives the impression that the writer feels it their obligation to arouse disgust and despair as frequently as they can. I often find that such a story will even interrupt its narrative to point out such details, or imagine up such similarities, as provoke those emotions. One grows cynical and weary reading such works; the very tone feels provocative, with short sentences sounding in one's ears like the curt remarks of one without patience and not at ease. (Well, at least, that is how I have heard them read aloud.)
I often think that it would suffice here and there to say of the repulsive things, little more than that they are repulsive; and some mentions should be omitted altogether. That something is ugly, is probably all the readers need to know, and all they will remember, because it is all they need to remember. Then again— a clever writer can convey in few words, much for the readers to interpret— if they choose to do so. We have all known disgust, and we have all imaginations. For some, it is enough to remember the feeling of disgust; for others, it must be felt again. —Some will remember the feeling, and for any of a number of defendable reasons, they will let not their imaginations run away with every subtle allusion the writer has put forth. But other readers may not mind at that moment to have their stomachs turned, and so they will imagine, and remember.
I don’t put this forth as a rule; depending on the subject matter, sometimes the writer must be visceral and disgust must be aroused, even excessively. But what justification is there, at the other end, to make it a rule, and to go about it in a tour-de-force style, whatever the subject— though preferably the people and places and events are such as lend themselves to cynicism and disgust? Whether by example and allusion, or direction and declaration— it so appears to be the rule. The other style, meanwhile, is but “purple prose”.
“It’s reality!” one may well argue. —But to this I would respond, that there is so much reality, and we never relate it all: we are selective when we write. Consider one who journals: they do not, cannot, recite everything experienced in a day. They draw a narrative from things— more-or-less, for they do not know what events of tomorrow will raise to significance things of today and the past, and vice versa; what will cease to be and what will come to be, what will last from beginning to end and reveal all other things to have ordered themselves in deference to it. And should the journalist make a name for himself, later on someone may collect and abridge their journals, so as to present to the public something beginning to be like a novel. Some details, events, persons, years even, will be left out— while other littlest details will be treasured. And from this we do not gather that the abridger, if he has done his work well, has misrepresented a life— he has only drawn from that life, its essence.
So it is with prose— except that in fiction, significance lies not where emphasis ought to be placed, but where it is placed. If emphasis is given to ugliness, or meaninglessness, then significance lies with the ugliness and meaninglessness of the world the writer has created.
I who have been accused of writing purple prose, and you who believe in conveying “reality!”— we both believe in conveying reality, and more than reality— for to that more, we both order everything else. It isn’t “reality!” that defines your work and that is rejected in mine; it is the philosophy of the writer that determines what they will emphasize and omit, and furthermore, how their very prose will sing in the minds of their readers. For in their prose is conveyed— impressed upon the reader— the spirit of that philosophy. However much the work may deal with tragedy and evil, if as yet the prose is beautiful— truly beautiful— then the philosophy is beautiful.
—And beauty is obligated of the writer, as of all artists— for to say he conveys a philosophy is to only begin to touch upon the truth about the artist’s vocation. For that the writer is to his world like God, he is to the readers, a prophet. The artist reflects upon the Creation, and by his reflection, his reflective works— he speaks to us of the nature of all things— to reveal truths, or to tell lies. He is a prophet true or false. He either reveals that the World is redeemable— for beneath everything there is beauty, for though the World is fallen, God has not forsaken us, and He is ever calling us back to Him, and shall in time reunite Heaven and Earth— or he lies and says that the World is, beneath all, ugly… and everything that follows from that. He sculpts La Pieta— or he paints Guernica.
In essence, if the artist is to speak for God, he must speak as God would do. Sometimes dread emotions must be aroused in the excess, even to the exclusion of all others. But if it must be, then it must be because we are seeing everything through the mind of the character or characters who lead the story, and who have been so injured and oppressed that this is all they see of their world; this vision cannot be the author's, whose own good vision must— and if he has good vision, will— in some way perhaps so subtle it is inexplicable, or so overwhelming it is also inexplicable, shine through the darkness of the protagonist's vision, as light through a black veil. The protagonist may perceive his world— the World— as ugly, meaningless, arbitrary— as in some evident and inherent way, a world not come from God— but as the author knows better, believes hopefully: that is not the protagonist's world… and if he is truly the artist, it will come across to the reader, even if only unconsciously. And then the reader will, if speaking from the heart and not from such an excellent education as our modern curriculums are so good at imparting, say that the work is beautiful.
So it is with the Gospels— so it is with the four records of Christ’s crucifixion, and of the very image of Our Lord on the Cross. To write so, is a skill to be learned from the masters, and cultivated in a mind seeking to perceive the World in the same way— as, beneath all tragedy and evil, a magnificently beautiful World.
July, 2023
“Knowing who you are gives you sovereignty over yourself. It will give you the confidence not to be swayed by fleeting fads, but to follow the truth—about yourself and about God. The alternative is the empty aimlessness that torments so many and characterizes so much of modern life.”
— Archduke Eduard Habsburg, The Habsburg Way: Seven Rules for Turbulent Times
More often than not, I read fiction. Yet I recently found myself perusing the pages of a noteworthy book from a remarkable individual. As the quote above attests, it contains truths needed in today’s world—or, truly, in any time. The Habsburg Way: Seven Rules for Turbulent Times is a compelling, important, and, at times, poignant book that I highly recommend to readers from all walks of life. Yet I also want to emphasize that it is not only important, but delightful. If this does not strike you as your typical read, I nevertheless challenge you to consider it for a variety of reasons, including those which follow.
There are many history books out there, including several that center on the Habsburgs. Yet you would be hard-pressed to find such a book told from the extraordinary viewpoint of The Habsburg Way’s author. Archduke Eduard is a member of this renowned historical family who not only has learned its values and “ways” from a young age—in fact, he is one of only fifteen Habsburgs today who is a member of the legendary Order of the Golden Fleece—but has met some of the famous figures who appear in this book. His background adds depth and color to the story, both in terms of the accounts themselves and simply the knowledge that you are hearing from a narrator who lived, and lives, this path. For example, you will find here a first-hand account of visits to Empress Zita, the wife of the last Habsburg emperor*. She told the young Habsburgs stories of her life in a way that strikes me as both beautiful and timeless. (Was I just listening to a certain new release by a certain artist?) I felt that I grew to understand and admire this great lady through the eyes of one of her descendants. Our time spent with Empress Zita is complete with a fun little anecdotal bit, which brings me to my next point:
The unique perspective of the author contains facets that may be shaped by his roots, but that also are individually focused. To put it simply, his own sense of humor and engaging style are filled with personality, including delightful sidenotes. He is honest, but also doesn’t claim to be unbiased because this is a loving tribute to his family. Yet this admittance, ironically, somehow makes it less biased, an open and honest subjectivity leading to more objectivity. He likewise offers upfront opinions, whether negative or positive in his view. All of this, especially his deep and abiding love for his family, is rather refreshing in today’s culture. The author also would admit—and I say this in the best way possible—to being a nerd, which means that you just might find a Star Wars reference in the text, adding even more color to it. If you have watched any of Archduke Eduard’s videos, you may even “hear” the book in his voice. Exuberance—that is, authentic enthusiasm— for the subject is clear and makes the reader more excited.
*Empress Zita also has the title “Servant of God,” which means that the cause for sainthood has been opened. Her husband, Emperor Karl, is beatified in the Church, which is the step directly before canonization or recognition of sainthood. (Order: 1. Servant of God, 2. Venerable, 3. Blessed, 4. Saint)
As expressed by the opening quote, there is unfortunately an emptiness often found in modern society. An embrace of artificial lights instead of Light. A pursuit of happiness without true Joy. Each rule in this book is unique. Yet woven throughout each may be found a thematic trend: a focus on Light.
There is an emphasis on honor and justice, the importance of family, growing in your faith, treating others fairly—regardless of whether they are your subjects or employees—and, as a result, not only improving the lives of others, but finding inner strength because of it. There are also seemingly simple moments that bring the greatest meaning. One of my favorite stories involved Rudolf I, the first Habsburg ruler during the time of the Holy Roman Empire, and how he gave a priest his horse to cross the river with the Blessed Sacrament. His words at the time, and the entire scene, demonstrated so much humility and beauty. While it is unclear as to whether this particular story really happened or is a legend with religious elements—similar to the tale of “La Befana” for those of us who are Italian—its significance remains and is seen throughout those considered “fact.”
Deep truths pervade the book that transcend common reality by seeking something Greater.
In a jaded world of politics—politics not only in the literal meaning of the word, but how it might shape personal lives—this is truly inspiring.
So many grow up learning to hate history. Perhaps this is because they dismiss it as a dry list of dates and facts, far removed from their own lives and far from “real.” As a storyteller and avid reader of fiction, I personally have been drawn to history because I choose to view it as a story.
The Habsburg Way: Seven Rules for Turbulent Times is the perfect antidote to such an educational crisis, for it allows you to travel back in time and “meet” a fascinating array of “characters” and circumstances. I highly recommend that schools consider this resource and allow an important historical family to come to life. Archduke Eduard Habsburg’s style and use of vivid and fascinating details in his storytelling allows it as such; indeed, history made “real.” Readers will encounter figures such as Blessed Karl and Zita, Venerable Magdalena, and countless others, inspiring in the way they chose a path of holiness and heroic virtue—or frustrating in the decisions that they made, reminding us how not to act. Sometimes a mixture of both. For example, they may, as I did, find themselves drawn to those such as the seemingly flawed yet deeply human figure of Empress Elisabeth of Austria (“Sisi”). They may wish to learn more about her or another individual, similar to how you might wish to seek the sequel to a favorite novel—a true goal of any educator for his or her students.
They may even find favorite “characters” that inspire gushing of the ALL CAPS variety.
I know I did. And so, I will leave the formal review for a moment to allow the reader to better understand such a revelation:
I don't think it is possible to love Maximilian I and Mary of Burgundy any more than I do. They are iconic. Epic. Romantic. Perfect. Adorable. At the risk of being labeled insane (which would be accurate), I just wanted to give them a hug and write heart eye emojis whenever they appeared in the text!
First, we have Maximilian holding out and being The Last Knight. Then I learned that he was a WRITER, known for works with a delightful mixture of classic chivalry and endearing humor. That just made me love him even more. Of course, there is also the portrait room at Tratzberg Castle that you will have to read about, dedicated to his love of genealogy. It sounds incredibly immersive, stunning, and powerful. Did I mention EPIC?
AND. THEIR. LOVE STORY. The ROMANCE of the letters, the LEGENDARY way they met—his rescue, the quest-like journey to get to her, the love at first sight, all of it—instantly drew me in like a storybook. They had such a profound connection and truly seemed to understand each other on a deep level, even in a literary sense! There is more I wish to say, but that would be a more overt spoiler—history or not.
Yet I didn’t just gush; I also cried. At a history book.
There was the moving depiction of Marie Antoinette’s deep faith as she went to the guillotine—and what she saw shortly before, which you will have to read the book to find out. On the very next page was depicted Blessed Karl’s death—who, as mentioned previously, is inspiring—so I decided I might as well keep crying.
While there is much information presented, it almost does not feel like nonfiction due to that wonderful storytelling and engaging style.
As mentioned before, the author’s enthusiasm for the subject practically leaps off the page. He maintains a remarkably perfect balance between too much information and just enough to engage with readers who want more knowledge and provide evidence for his thematic purpose through support for the Habsburg “rules.” The rules build on each other to form a coherent whole, the “big picture” essentials that therefore invite one to ponder life’s greater meaning. Important dates are covered without being “dry”; in fact, you may find yourself eager to soak up that knowledge!
The text is also exceptionally well-organized, which may allow it to serve as an excellent resource from which to look up quick information post-reading. Likewise, while one of the rules is broken into two sections, they are generally chapters of approximately the same length—unlike my seven reasons. As a result, readers will know around what to expect if they want to fit in ‘one rule before bedtime.’
Before anyone immediately skips this number, let me preface my comments by saying that, similar to how you can appreciate the emphasis on family regardless of whether you come from a family of sixteen children, you may develop an appreciation for the monarchy without being a monarchist. For, the context of the Habsburg rules should be considered to promote greater understanding. You could argue that the rules may be separated from this context, but that would be to remove a flowering blossom from a stem or branches from a tree and attempt to explain from where they came while simultaneously denying that reality. To explain their relevance without a true foundation. Indeed, would the author himself be exactly as he is today without that foundation of his family? Can we learn from his experience, and that of his ancestors?
When watching a certain recent coronation this year, I was struck by how it differed from our own system, of how something seemed to be missing in the latter—even though my support and pride in our republic remains. There was a deep and timeless solemnity there rooted in the commitment of a ruler to God, the King of Kings, that is sorely lacking in much of our society. I reflected at the time that there was much that we could learn from it.
And yet to delve into this book is to go further, to read how monarchs were profoundly impacted by their faith. It was therefore of even greater significance to me as a Catholic. Interestingly enough, a coronation connection to this book stood out to me especially:
“When Rudolf and his many successors were crowned, the coronation rite to become Holy Roman Emperor was deeply imbued with sacred religious symbols. Before they were crowned, they received Communion . . . and swore on a relic of earth containing the blood of St. Stephen, the protomartyr. The vestment they received was like a bishop’s vestment. More than one Habsburg ruler avowed that the moment of installation as emperor deeply impressed them for life. It was not simply a cynical political affair, but a religious event, sincerely celebrated.”
As seen above, it was “deeply impressed” on many of the Habsburg rulers to take their rule seriously. The relationship between the ruler and ruled was seen as a long-term relationship, not temporary. Those monarchs who succeeded in my book (and that of Archduke Eduard) ultimately viewed their rule in light of how they would be held accountable to God. Not all of the rulers were perfect, but the ideal was quite beautiful. Archduke Habsburg also explores the concept of subsidiarity in a way that those unfamiliar with political theory will be able to understand—and how rulers were “ruled” by such concepts to protect their subjects. Humility is likewise emphasized in death through the “knocking ritual,” in which the Habsburg royalty is only allowed entrance to the crypt after a series of questions that ultimately lead to the defining of the individual not by his worldly titles, but that of a mortal man before God.
And so, to learn about the Habsburg monarchy is to learn the greater context for how famous figures in history grappled with difficult circumstances through adherence to their faith. The inner nobility emanating from such could then be at the center of who they were.
Indeed, an appreciation of such may be relevant far beyond the scope of one single political system. Archduke Eduard Habsburg states it well toward the end of the book:
“Are we waiting for the monarchy to return? No. (Or are we?) But perhaps service is what we have in our genes, what we can do best, given the right circumstances . . .
. . . as you’ve seen through this book, forms may change but our values are still lived in today’s society, and they will surely apply to lives lived one hundred years from now as well.”
Some of my favorite quotes from saints echo this thought that pervades the text. St. Catherine of Siena famously said, “If you are who you should be, you will set the world ablaze.” Saint John Paul II expressed similar sentiments in the beautiful simplicity of, “Become who you are.”
Most of us won’t wage battle as knights, most of us aren’t kings and queens (*insert obligatory comment here about how “Gina” means “Queenly” and has been ruling as a benevolent monarch since birth*), yet we do face “dragons,” as alluded to by other writers such as G.K. Chesterton, not to mention Vintage Taylor Swift in her newly rereleased song “Long Live.” Through this book, we are given the tools to not only find a way to deal with the “battles” that appear in our lives, but to grow as individuals as we do.
Inspirational role models in the Habsburg family will challenge you to be heroic amidst suffering, fear, and turmoil, to be the best version of yourself. We are presented with stories and people who faced difficulties different from our own—but, in the end, not wholly so.
And so, you, dear reader, may learn how to face these challenges without losing who you are. In fact, perhaps you will “become who you are” more fully as you carry your cross, recall your past, immerse yourself in the present, and ultimately delve into introspection.
And I love Little Dubbie—as should you!
This last January, I listened to the 1959 interview of Ayn Rand by Mike Wallace, and as it happened that but a few days later I listened to an interview by the Hoover Institute’s Uncommon Knowledge with journalist Douglas Murray, historian Tom Holland, and scientist Stephen Meyer, on the subject of whether or not God “exists”— the words of Rand and the humanism of Murray and Holland turned my thoughts over to our capacity for reason, and then to what appeared the peculiar way it is regarded by our modern intellectuals. It came to appear to me that in many, if not most, of the great conversations of our era, reason is regarded— or, revered— as the lifeblood of all philosophical endeavors, and one of the paramount traits, if not the paramount trait, of a good man— for by his use of Reason he comes to realize what is good, and, by all that weighs against the perverse, he is impelled, even if he does not naturally incline, towards doing what is right.
It is often the case, especially nowadays, that when an intellectual takes to defending Reason as the pathway to truth, there are no conclusions drawn, and no such effort made. Perhaps it is because he is afraid to bring Reason into question by coming to conclusions different from even those with whom he shares a stage. If it be not mentioned in passing— if Reason is to be held up as the promise of humanity’s salvation— then conclusions must be treated as a private matter, unless one is prepared to call his own rational and all others ridiculous.
Well, whatever may be stowed or declared, it is the case that the scholars of Reason do reason themselves into various beliefs and then act upon them, not infrequently without drawing condemnation from other scholars. The defenders of Reason will argue that few or perhaps no man has yet reasoned deeply and fully enough to come to the complete truth about things, or that still some cling to the irrational and try to rationalize it, or that others out of prejudice throw some bad logic in with their good logic, and thus all come to faulty conclusions, as one doing his math wrong. They may argue that we must stand on the shoulders of others, consulting their reason, as we cannot work all things out in our own lifetime if left alone— and that, for the present, all the truths of the World are still a mystery, being continuously unveiled by those who generation after generation lead the voyage of discovery.
But they will all search in vain; the belief that there is such a great Unveiling occurring across history is but another effect of the peculiar arrogance of the Modern world. They will search in vain for a truth not true of the World but conjured up in their own minds, a personal falsehood for each man, as long as they mean by believing in Reason, that they make use of “their own reason”— that a man possesses, in himself, a reason that is objective, impersonal, and unaffected— at once something entirely his own, and like the voice of God: a revelatory guidance emanating from the soulful depth of the universe— omniscient, and in a sense omnipresent, and even omnificent— but still, a man’s own: it comes not from God. The contradiction there is plain. Reason cannot at once be both; but if you must have it so, then you must reason yourself (and emotion too gets heavily involved here) into believing that we human beings are burgeoning gods— as indeed, some modern spiritualities have worked out. Atheists often seem to think along the same lines: a similar pattern arises in their thought, albeit materialistic. —And by the by, this can lead quite easily, for those who aren’t good at catching their bad math, to “my truth” and “your truth”.
As it appears, when we think we are consulting our own reason, we may well be consulting our own partial knowledge of things and our prejudices and natural inclinations. It must be so, or else the peoples of the world would not be all coming to different conclusions on matters of religion and others so consequential. That others and those who lived centuries before us were not rational men— that there were none or few until the Enlightenment— is a rubbish belief for the historically ignorant. If one studies and reads what our ancestors have handed down to us, they cannot in fairness call them less-evolved, irrational creatures; they must content themselves with calling them wrong. And for a proof from the modern world: if every man’s reason were impersonal, then we would not have so many Protestant denominations as we do, nor so many religious and non-religious sects moreover. These aren’t the remnants of the past: there are ever new spiritualities, new sects, and new philosophies arising.
For one to argue against my point, it must be argued that among us all, only very few truly make use of their reason. But those whom these men must be, as far as I can tell, are indeed very few, and agreements among them are also uncommon. Then again, even if there were more of them and they were more in agreement, I would not be convinced that therefore they must be more reasonable than the rest of us— because I would be prevailed upon to believe it because they say so, and they would prove it by pointing to their conclusions... as the rest of us do.
Now, let us get to the truth and be done with the matter.
It is only by consulting a Reason not our own— that is truly, and alone, the revelatory voice of guidance emanating from the soulful depth of the World— a power other than ourselves, though always near— in other words, the voice of God… that we can be led to higher ground. We may be spoken to through the law written on our hearts, through Nature, through each other, through the Church, or by direct Revelation... but, however God chooses— we must seek to listen, and learn to know when we are, listening for Him— not for the voice of an entity that does not exist: the impersonal phantom named "Reason", over whom in some mysterious sense man has yet dominion.
Man’s reason, rightly understood, is like his ability to pray, to speak, and to reflect: to reason, is to converse with God. Thus we are reasonable to the extent that we listen for God, knowingly or not— and, the other way around.
May 31st, 2023
When you are abandoned by a friend because you have different views, it can be all too tempting to avoid friendship with those of a similar bent in the future. Especially if it was a close friend, even moreso if it was one of the closest.
But it's also not fair.
I understand deeply the sort of trauma that can make one fearful of being left behind again, whether a slow distancing or an abrupt cancellation.
Yet would we wish for others to do the same to us on account of our views? To, in effect, mentally cancel us before friendship might continue to grow, before we have a chance to hypothetically hurt them? Can we not hold firmly to the notion of “innocent until proven guilty”? If respect is maintained, might we not find a way to share in the joy and beauty in the world together despite our differences? Even if, especially if, our views are important to us?
If not, then what are we fighting for, what are we angry about to begin with—and why should not Love be surrounding all of that fervor, that righteousness, that earnest and ardent seeking of Truth?
Perhaps you are expected to hate them. The ones who left or distanced themselves because your views did not conform to theirs.
But that is only poisoning yourself further.
Don't hate them. Love them, love them until the day that you die—and longer still.
And, with Love, as we look back on old friendships like this, we must remember that the shattered pieces do not have to define what is to come, the people that are to come. The past should not keep us from those gifts in our lives, those with the ability to hurt us, to abandon us.
For, just as we could close off our hearts to romance because of a broken heart, so, too, could we lose out on so much if we choose to shut our eyes to potential friendships because of fear.
DISCLAIMER: I am suggesting this all within reason. ;) I'm not saying, for example, that we have to invite escaped convicts into our homes. Although, as much as I jest, perhaps we might still have a sort of spiritual “friendship” with them all the same, might pray for them while being mindful of the safety of our families and allowing those with more expertise and the appropriate legal procedure to find the best way to address the issue.
Perhaps one of the best illustrations in television of friendship during a turbulent time is from the 1980s TV series North and South.
Two best friends on opposite sides of the war. One for the North, one for the South.
And yet they remained the dearest of friends—like honorary brothers.
There is a truly beautiful scene from that series that I have never forgotten since I first saw it many years ago. It involves a farewell—but not a goodbye—between these two friends. I remember the dead silence in my family's home as we all watched the screen, the glorious theme song swelling as a single figure stood watching the train in half-light. It almost gave me chills because it was so stirring, so deeply poignant.
Such a friendship probably would not seem counter-cultural many years ago, and yet I believe that such a scene is, in truth, incredibly important to take in and thoughtfully consider in today's society.
I highly recommend watching the video until the end.
Amidst the pettiness that can sometimes afflict our world, these ending scenes from Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan also stand out as stunning, timeless examples of true friendship and sacrifice, as written about in John 15:13: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” SPOILER warning.🖖
Every day, people have no choice but to say goodbye to those they love. Why? Because of death.
And yet, probably also every day, people choose to say goodbye to those they love. With finality. With resolve to never speak again.
There may be extenuating circumstances that are valid—for example, loving a friend or family member from afar due to some sort of witness protection that is indefinite. Serious breaches of trust, continuous disrespect on a dehumanizing level, and a general defining pattern of lack of love from the other party as you give your all—each without any substantial effort to change or make amends, as revealed through true dialogue rather than the building up of assumptions and misunderstandings—also necessitate, at the very least, parameters in place for the purposes of self-preservation and self-respect. However, this section applies moreso to true friendships that, regardless of what occurs, remain at their core beautiful and good and should last forever. If the “friendship” is instead one-sided—and the other person is simply using you—that is not a friendship in truth and could have negative consequences. In such a case, it is best to be wary in regards to trust, but to nevertheless pray for the other person with an open heart.
Yet, beyond that, choosing to say goodbye is nonsensical. To be given more time is a gift.
To paraphrase someone else, these things will pass. After all, “passing emotions” are just that . . . they pass.
But, if these emotions are humored instead of worked through, they will only leave idle destruction in their wake. Not just for the other person, for what you share together, but in how that rash choice can slowly shape you into something you're not.
Don't let it.
But that is the future. There is always the past. Human frailty remains, and human mistakes happen. And yet it is never too late to try to make amends. Whether the other person is receptive or not. Whether it is prudent or possible to reach out to the other person or not.
At the very least, in your own heart.
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The gift of persecution is a grace that Christians at all points in history receive. Today roughly thirteen Christians are killed every day for the faith. However, despite the many hostilities shown to Christians, history reveals that God always provides for His children. For example, here are eight different accounts of saints (including one blessed) who survived attempts on their lives.
Browse our extensive St. Francis de Sales book collection to learn more!
St. Benedict is the founder of the Benedictine order. During its conception, Benedict nearly lost his life from poisoning on multiple occasions. When Benedict was appointed to a new monastery, his monks, who were against Benedict's reforms, poured poison into his chalice. However, after the chalice was blessed by the pious saint, it shattered to pieces. Another time Benedict almost died from poison was when he was offered a piece of poisoned bread. Before Benedict could consume the bread, a raven sent by God came and snatched it away from him. Later that day, the person who had offered Benedict the bread was crushed by a nearby balcony.
Learn more about St. Benedict's life through books for adults and children, and discover how this great saint might impact your own life and education today!
St. Catherine of Siena is renowned for being a female stigmatist and telling Pope Gregory XI to leave France and return to Rome. The story continues when Pope Gregory asked Catherine to be a diplomat in the high-tension city of Florence. The collapse of banking houses and the exclusion of workers from guilds created hostilities throughout the city. By the end of June 1378, the workers began the Ciompi Revolt. Catherine witnessed guild members with painted faces gather as they torched churches, attacked government buildings, released inmates from local prisons, and demolished some of her friends' houses. Targeted as a foreign diplomat, Catherine was sought out by the crowds from her lodging, surrounded, threatened, but miraculously not killed. A man who had the intent of killing Catherine drew near to her, but, for an unknown reason, ran away. Catherine would later attribute his change of heart to God desiring her to make more atonement for her sins.
Read this mystic saint's The Dialogue of St. Catherine of Siena, and learn more about her life and the way that, through God's guidance, it helped shape history!
Learn more about St. Charles Borromeo's important role in the Catholic Reformation!
Few people have heard of the recent 1970 assassination attempt on Pope Paul VI. During the first papal visit to the Philippines, Pope Paul was greeted at the airport by a plethora of devout Catholic Philippines and an off-looking priest. Benjamin Mendoza y Amor, dressed in a cassock and holding a crucifix, drew near to the Holy Father. Taking a dagger with the inscription “bullets, superstitions, flags, kingdoms, garbage, armies, and sh*t” on both sides, Benjamin yelled, “Death to superstition!” and stabbed Pope Paul twice in the neck. After the authorities subdued Benjamin, a nearby archbishop recounted the following as Pope Paul’s reaction:
“If you ask me what the Pope’s most beautiful smile was, it came during the attempt on his life in Manila...I will never forget his sweet smile...And when he met my eyes it was as if he was somehow chastising me for the violence with which I pulled the assailant away to the police. It was as if he was enjoying a moment of inspired joy.”
The Holy Father decided to keep his injury under wraps, continued his tour in the Philippines, and would later claim that he “forgave and forgot” his assassin. Only after Pope Paul’s death was the extent of his pain and blood loss from the incident released to the public.
Pope John Paul II, the beloved late patriarch of Rome, would experience two attempts on his life during his papacy. The first assassination attempt was in 1981 on the feast day of Our Lady of Fatima. Mehmet Ağca, a member of the Grey Wolves, pretended to write a postcard as the crowd gathered around Pope John Paul. Suddenly, he drew a semi-automatic rifle in the middle of the crowd and fired at the pope. Mehmet then threw his weapon under the truck and fled the scene, but was tackled by a nearby nun, Vatican security, and several spectators who saw the crime. Ağca would later state that his accomplice, who was supposed to throw a bomb into the crowd, fled during the chaos. Pope John Paul sustained various wounds from the four bullets and underwent extensive surgery. To the pope, our Lady of Fatima had deflected the bullets from his heart. Later, he would meet with Mehmet and publicly forgive him. However, a year after this first assassination attempt, another man tried to carry out his execution. Juan Krohn, an ex-FSSPX priest, donned a fake cassock and broke through the security line, yelling, “Down with the Pope, down with the Second Vatican Council!” and stabbed Pope John Paul during Mass. After Juan had been detained, Pope John Paul insisted that the Mass should continue despite his hidden wounds.
Read one of St. John Paul II's most famous books, "a comprehensive and insightful examination of Catholic tradition" concerning family and moral theology!
At age 16, I don't think that I had ever cried myself to sleep.
But, on the night of April 1, 2005, as Pope John Paul II lay on his deathbed, I got about as close as you could get.
And, as the tears streamed down my face, turning into sobs, there were—whether spoken or unspoken—three words resounding in my heart:
I love you.
Upon reading those words, many, especially a non-Catholic friend, might nod in understanding and ask, “When did you meet him?”
Well, actually . . . I didn't. At least, not in the way you might think.
I could explain the theological-historical (the hyphen because they are so closely intertwined) significance of the papacy . . . and, indeed, that would help increase understanding of why I said those words. Yet it would not explain it completely. So, while the concrete meaning is very important—and perhaps material for a future post, for those interested—tonight I think I will return to that sixteen-year-old girl who lay awake on that night in April many years ago.
Tonight—today—I will focus on the mystery.
As a child and teenager, I felt very close to Pope John Paul II. By that, I do not mean that he was a far-off “celebrity” to whom I could relate. No, that wasn't it at all. That wasn't him at all.
Between Pope John Paul II and me—from my heart to his—was a profound spiritual connection that is difficult to explain.
Yet, upon further reflection, we may also consider the following questions:
Why do new parents fall in 'love at first sight' when they see their child for the first time?
And, in any circumstance of love . . . how do you know that you are in love?
You see, try as we might, any explanation will always fall short.
That is why Love is more than a choice (while remaining a choice), and certainly more than a feeling.
It is because it is also, in many ways, a mystery. A beautiful, beautiful mystery.
And it was this deep understanding and connection—a mixture of the concrete and the mysterious—that kept me awake late that night eighteen years ago. It is what compels me now to write this, once again late at night. And the reason is this:
It wasn't just that I loved Pope John Paul II. It was that I knew that Pope John Paul II loved me just as he loved all of God's people . . . because his heart was filled so entirely with the Love of Christ.
Before I continue, I'd like to pause for a moment and consider a later moment in time:
When a notable world leader—a non-Catholic—met Pope Benedict XVI, the successor of Pope John Paul II, he was later asked in an interview what he saw when he looked into the pope's eyes. He said, “God.” That moment may call us to remember words recounted in Les Misérables: “To love another person is to see the face of God.”
This encounter speaks volumes. It speaks of another great pope who, even from the eyes of a non-Catholic, was so clearly seen as one who walked faithfully—and purely—in the Light of Christ.
And, in the case of Pope John Paul II, that person also happened to be a saint.
Pope John Paul II lived an incredible life, not because he was thrown into a tumultuous time in history—although his reaction to that placement in time shaped who he would become—but because he chose to follow the Mystery of Christ's Love, no matter how difficult that path would prove. It was a choice. A choice and a mystery.
Our 264th pope spoke in a voice that was gentle, yet unwavering—filled with peace—his eyes were overflowing with the deepest love, and his actions—the steps that led him to visit the shooter who had made an attempt on his life, listen to him, and forgive him—showed the depths of his character, his soul, and the person that he was, and remains.
As I lay awake that night long ago, thousands of people gathered in Rome outside the papal apartments in quiet prayer. We were united, as one people, as Catholics. And, in the final hours of his life, Pope John Paul II said, “I have looked for you. Now you have come to me, and I thank you.”
The next day I would hear of the passing of this great man—of this saint. It was likewise a great loss, but all the more gain to Heaven. As he said toward the end of his life, “Non omnis moriar.” (Not all of me will die.) To this day, a member of my immediate family attributes the intercessory prayer of Pope John Paul II to a personal miracle.
And six days later saw the funeral of our beloved pope.
At the very moment of Pope John Paul II's burial, large rain clouds appeared, yet not a single drop of rain fell that day, nor the entire week in which pilgrims and locals camped out and waited in line to see the Pope's body. The last hours of the Pope's life, during which many people kept vigil in the streets, had a similar result. It was as if the heavens held their breath in tribute to the passing of a great and holy man. Almost immediately after the funeral, rain began to fall steadily . . . like heavenly tears.
But today is a day of celebration, not a day for tears. To echo the words of Pope John Paul II, “Do not abandon yourselves to despair. We are the Easter people and hallelujah is our song.”
Saint Pope John Paul II, pray for us. We love you.
In one day, The Eras Tour will begin, a concert series with music that spans Taylor Swift’s entire career as a recording artist—from 2006 to the present day. 10 “eras,” although the diehard fans know that there are actually 14 released albums, to date.
It’s no secret that I have been a huge Swiftie for over a decade. I connect the most with her older music, particularly the Fearless (2008) and Speak Now (2010) albums, in all their wonderstruck glory and heart-wrenching relatability. Indeed, a hopeless romantic with a lifelong affinity for fairy tales could not help but fall in love with such music. Nevertheless, after a few musical periods in 2017 and 2019 that appealed to me less on the whole, I was pleasantly surprised in 2020 to find myself drawn to some of her new work.
Now, before I continue, I think it is important to note the following:
Being a fan does not mean you necessarily endorse every work or view of the artist. It's like staying friends with someone with whom you may not agree on everything. Why?
Because you care about that person and believe in his or her abilities.
Because you choose not to dehumanize and instead love.
Music opinions may differ. Yet, as a fan who knows her music almost as well as I know myself, I have run into many misconceptions. For the purpose of this article, I would like to highlight two.
There are those who may have only heard Taylor Swift’s recent hits and associate her “brand” with a sort of bubbly pop. This is understandable, for not everyone will delve into the full body of an artist’s work. Yet, while Taylor has written some songs that she has termed “glitter gel pen,” her artistry is less defined by them. Don’t get me wrong—I enjoy dancing around to catchy tunes myself. But, as a writer who loves the poetic introspection and beautifully crafted storytelling that Taylor employs, I find it to be personally frustrating when her true essence is boxed away from the public at large in favor of more mainstream song recognition.
Another all-too-common misconception is that Taylor only writes songs about break-ups. Like most singer-songwriters, Taylor has released several songs about love, including heartbreak. Yet she has, on many occasions, delved into other subjects that merit our attention. Thus, as much as her love songs are numbered among my favorites, the focus of this article will be more largely on other thought-provoking topics. For a more comprehensive look, however, my top 5 favorite Taylor Swift songs may be found at the end of this article.
The songs selected below are thematically distinctive yet connected. As you read through the list, you may find that, despite the jumping between years, they are, in a way, chronologically entwined.
One of my favorite recurring subjects in Taylor Swift’s music is childhood nostalgia, and this song is a perfect representation of such.
“Never Grow Up” is a poignant lullaby sung by the narrator to a child fast asleep, switching perspectives at the end. It is left to the listener to determine whether the child is her younger self or a sibling, representative of a little one in a more general sense or inspired by someone she knows—perhaps even a young girl seen at her concerts. Likewise, while Taylor’s voice as the narrator seems clear, the song is layered such that it could be argued that she is imagining herself in the shoes of her mother, with whom she is especially close.
A night-light is presented at the beginning as a symbol of the blissful state of the sleeping child as she dreams, untouched by the pain and suffering that the narrator has experienced. The latter’s love is palpable as she wistfully hopes the best for the child, that she will never lose the beautiful simplicity of the now, that the soft glow of Light in her room will remain without shadow. That she will never be abandoned or heartbroken.
Through the storytelling in the song, we flash forward to the child as a teenager. Taylor offers introspective insight, urging her to not lose sight of her childlike joy and wonder—nor the loving perspective of her mother, also affected by the passage of time—in a desire to appear “cool” to others. This is powerfully yet quietly illustrated in my favorite line in the song, through the lovely image of one’s younger self dancing around in pajamas before school.
Snapshots of memory continue to come forth, each and every detail of what she holds dear, each and every detail that must not be forgotten—from mere footsteps and treasured words to a mental photograph of her childhood room and a younger brother’s favorite songs.
With the change of perspective at the end, the story comes full circle. Now, by perspective, I do not mean that the point-of-view shifts to that of another narrator, or from first person to third. Yet it is a shift all the same. No longer is this a lullaby sung to a child. We discover that the narrator herself has moved out of her family home. Like the sleeping little kid, a night-light, the symbol of childlike joy encapsulated in the love of her family, is in her possession. And this she takes out to chase away the surprising coldness of her new apartment, of a previously desired independence that only makes her long for what she had before.
It may be concluded that, even if the child to whom she sang the lullaby was not the narrator herself, their stories are metaphorically intertwined.
“Never Grow Up” is a moving tribute to childhood, growing up, and a Beauty that we must never lose sight of, no matter where we may venture in this journey of life.
While holding on to a childlike nature is explored through the storytelling in “Never Grow Up,” the focus narrows in “Innocent.” Once again, the narrator is singing to another individual, but, this time, one very much unlike herself—one, perhaps, who forgot the lullaby and its “night-light” in a much more tragic and catastrophic way than she herself has experienced at this stage in her life.
It should be noted that the Speak Now era in which this song was introduced was that of a lyrically wonderstruck curly top called “winsome,” resplendent in sparkly ballgowns and known for standing apart from her peers with her wholesome image. It is only many years later that we might consider the song as it would be heard by the woman rerecording her albums recently, remembering what once was and yet what may still remain . . . and how she might now find hope in the song, too. Indeed, I believe that Taylor Swift alludes to such in three 2022 songs, in which she emotionally declares that she misses her old self, finds the wonder of the “little things,” and regains some of her childlike joy.
“Innocent” brings forth harsh reality, yet remains the most gentle hug of a song, lovingly delivered with an innocence and sweetness to a jaded figure who has become lost in the darkness of the world. It is even more compelling when considering the subject, believed to be a public figure who humiliated Taylor in front of the entire world. In fact, this would all seem to be confirmed as such, given the introduction to her 2010 VMAs performance. And so, the song may be more than one of thematic depth, as important as that can be. It may also be an act of forgiveness.
I remember hearing the story of a priest, who told a man in Confession, “This is not who you are.” By saying these simple words, it was both a call to do better, to become the truest form of himself, and to not become discouraged. In “Innocent,” Taylor uses strikingly similar wording to encourage the subject of the song, to remind him that his very identity, the depths of who he is, is not defined by the mistakes that he made. Perhaps this is a fitting parallel in more ways than one, for Taylor was photographed wearing a saint bracelet two years earlier during her previous musical era.
While I may be biased since she is one of my favorite saints, the sweet wonder of the writing style is somewhat reminiscent of St. Thérèse of Lisieux in The Story of a Soul. It is wonderful to find such moments even in secular music. Taylor calls to mind images of childhood innocence, such as catching fireflies during lunchbox school years, and invites the subject—and, indeed, the listener in general—to find the beauty in such scenes again.
At the beginning of the song, the metaphor of losing one’s balance on a tightrope is introduced. There is a fascinating parallel between this image and one delivered many years later, which will be addressed in the next song of discussion. But, for now, it is important to note that the line is returned to again at the end of “Innocent”—only, this time, with much more hope.
For, at the end, the narrator tells the listener that it is never too late to regain childlike innocence, to, in effect, be bathed anew and return to the truth of what once was.
What a beautiful and important sentiment!
The song begins with the fascinating psychological premise of a narrator who, as a mirrorball, is able to see every layer or “version” of those who gaze into its multi-faceted surface. The original song gives the impression of a disco ball that hovers playfully and unobtrusively over dancers who would not expect its dissection or analysis. The acoustic version is more personal in approach; it brings to mind the sci-fi version of a magical looking pond while still remaining very vulnerably in the present.
As the story continues, there is a shift in which the narrator's power of observation and analysis causes her to become lost in the mirrorball herself. She no longer just observes the reflections—true, false, or mixed—of others, but, in a drastic change in vocal tone, harshly declares that she can completely transform herself to fit in with the crowd. (Indeed, you may notice vocal changes at other similar moments!) But, toward the end of the song, through the use of the imagery of a circus, there is vulnerability as the narrator admits that her role on a “trapeze” in front of others has never been easy or natural for her, to the extent that she continues to try to find ways to hold her audience’s attention. This is despite the fact that those who look on in the scene care more for spectacle and discordant gossip than the trueness of the scene or the humanity of the one on display. A tragic, if honest, lens within a song that is ultimately a very intelligent and thought-provoking metaphorical work.
Yet a hopeful note is echoed throughout the chorus, as she ‘dances’ when no one is watching . . . except an unnamed figure who is defined as unlike the others, who wants to see her true self rather than jeer at the shattered pieces of her heart. While this likely refers to the romantic love that she found, it could also just as easily apply to any member of society who has chosen to view her (or you) as a human being—and to any moment in which she is quietly yet gloriously childlike, able to embrace who she really is. There, in that small corner tiptoed through in the chorus, the narrator is her true self.
This song was released in 2020 and also reflects some of the atmosphere of that time.
It was not until listening to the acoustic version (The Long Pond Studio Sessions) that I found myself delving deeper into this song. This was largely due to the musical style appealing more to me than the original. Nevertheless, it should also be noted that the tonal shift referenced in the analysis above is much more prominent in this performance. The reader is thereby recommended to check it out first.
While “Mirrorball” may be tied metaphorically to a true self found away from the limelight, the perils of fame are more overtly explored in “The Lucky One.”
The main subject of the song is not the narrator, but a celebrity from an earlier period. She is a woman eager to pursue her dreams and finds the allure of flashing lights too hard to resist, believing that it will bring her true happiness. Yet, as the song draws on, she realizes that it is a trap.
The glamorous curtain is drawn back, and the subject of the song slowly discovers that she has been thrust into what we might call a philosophical factory, humanity turned into cold machinery that is simply to be used, with replacements easily found. She does not find the happiness that she sought, and the irony of the song title comes clearly into view. For, she is not as lucky as she once dreamed she would be. Artificial lights take over the scene instead of the small but true glow of the night-light explored two years earlier in “Never Grow Up.”
Upon realizing the perilous circumstances in which she has found herself, this undisclosed celebrity turns her story into what Taylor might later have called “folklore,” as she mysteriously disappears. She leaves the world of fame, yet of note is the assertion that she maintains her dignity as a result. We are invited into a sort of Robert Frost landscape of “The Road Not Taken,” in which she finds the other path in the woods to be the right course. In this instance, the narrator tells us of how she left Madison Square behind for a rose garden. Through such imagery, we come to understand that she chose the beauty of a simpler life instead of the flashier celebrity culture. Interestingly enough, this rose imagery is revisited with deep significance eight years later in Taylor’s song “The Lakes.”
Toward the end of “The Lucky One,” the perspective shifts to a first-person point-of-view and a narrative voice that appears to be represented by Taylor Swift. Taylor, or the narrator, has now herself entered the world of fame. Much like the previous subject of the song, she has a bright-eyed perspective at the beginning of her voyage into this world. Yet, as time passes, she recalls the story told in the song and now understands so keenly why this individual left. In another twist on the meaning of the title, Taylor directly addresses that celebrity of the past, the celebrity who left, and tells her that she is, in fact, the lucky one now.
Note: This 2012 song was rereleased in 2021.
Of any Taylor Swift song from the past few years, this has earned its place as my top favorite.
“The Lakes” is an exquisitely poetic, deeply poignant, and stirringly emotive ballad reminiscent of the Romantic era. As such, it serves as a lovely tribute to that literary period, as well as a kindred spirit of any L.M. Montgomery fan who has traversed the lyrical essence of her beloved isle in imaginative pathways. It is also the epitome of cottagecore, the popularization of which Taylor has largely been credited. To set the scene, it is important to note that Taylor was inspired in part by her visit to the Lake District in England, known for the old-time writers who had lived there, such as William Wordsworth. The title of the song is stylized in lowercase, like the other tracks on Folklore, likely in tribute to another poet, E.E. Cummings.
At the beginning of “The Lakes,” the beautiful yet almost haunting sound of strings is heard, instrumentals that remind one of old-time films, Brontean moors, deep woods of poets and nymphs, and crashing waves all at once. Instantly, the scene is set for the storytelling and related themes that are to follow.
The narrator speaks of disillusionment, a growing fatigue, with a fast-paced, perpetually broadcasting, forever-watching society that has lost a deeper meaning alluded to in times past. She yearns to find a sanctuary apart from the noise of the modern world, imagining a world away from the world where quiet introspection may be found in solitude—with lakes that filter her emotions, complete with auroras, wisteria, and meaningful prose. A rose grows in the most stunning of circumstances, yet is not tweeted for others to see beyond the natural surroundings in which she finds herself. It is understood that it is instead delighted in, viewed with a soft, hushed wonder deeper than the norms of the day, and held more fully in one’s heart and soul. While such solitude is welcomed, the narrator has not, at the same time, completely embraced life as a wandering hermit, for she wishes to never to be parted from the one that she calls her muse. As illustrated in “Mirrorball,” he, too, feels disconnected from the modernism of the day.
In a conversation in The Long Pond Studio Sessions, Taylor tells of how she sat by William Wordsworth’s grave, a reflective moment in which she contemplated how he had gone away from society and done what part of her longed to do: leave the public eye for a quieter life. In her case, she imagined herself living in a secluded cottage—perhaps like the ones that she had found herself painting, another art form that she enjoys. In 2020, Taylor said the following:
“I was reading books that dealt with times past, a world that doesn’t exist anymore. And I’ve been painting a lot . . .
I always kind of return to painting a lonely little cottage on a hill.”
There are many more Taylor Swift songs with fascinating and thought-provoking themes beyond this list. For example, I recommend checking out “Christmas Must Be Something More” (2007), which highlights the importance of remembering the true meaning of Christmas. Now, for a little fun, I will move on to my personal top 5 list . . .
*Further explanation of “White Horse” and a related misconception.
I was reflecting on the personal crosses of the past decade+ that led me to where I am now. While I do not claim to have sagacious insight, I found myself better able to face the trials that presented themselves and move through the arduous healing process as a result of what I will soon detail. Each basic scenario below is taken from my own life, and, as such, none of these suggestions or strategies are hypothetical, but, rather, impacted me in a very real and profound way. As a result, I have also included song lyrics and poetry that I have written over the years that provide a parallel to that journey.
It is my hope that these strategies and reflections may be of use to you (or, if previously employed, find some degree of relatability).
May you continue to have a blessed Lent. Pax Christi.
It isn't just the stuff of movies. If you find yourself the target of another party that may intend you evil and not good, that seems to have the ability and will to destroy your path, St. Patrick's Breastplate is a go-to prayer.
I remember walking out of the car every day to face a trial I dreaded, that threatened my peace of mind with the fear it invoked. And so, one morning, I walked from the car, a scapular around my neck and these words from the prayer below shielding me and providing the strength I could not have on my own:
"Christ with me
Christ before me
Christ behind me
Christ within me
Christ beneath me
Christ above me
Christ on my right
Christ on my left."
(Full prayer available here.)
I also found myself looking—really looking—at the "little" things around me, my faith deepening as God provided that which allowed me to better face the trial at hand.
On that aforementioned day, a rose was given to me in seemingly the most random of circumstances.
🌹 On the scapular that I wore was the image of Mary surrounded by roses. 🌹
My difficult day was suddenly filled with hope.
I thought briefly of the "rose" scapular that I had started to wear that very day . . . but thought of it even more in the days that followed.
For, in the days that followed, roses—whether a "real" rose or in some other form—began to appear right around when things got especially difficult, when I was feeling especially discouraged or upset. The timing was impeccable. And, eventually, the rose reached full blossom.
One of the moments, however, that will forever remain with me came at the most desperate. There is only so much that we mere humans can accomplish on our own. Yet, as difficult as it may seem, total trust and surrender contains a depth and importance that cannot be overstated.
Give it all to God. Tell Him, “I don’t know how to fix this, but You know much better than I do. I put this situation, I put my life, in Your hands. Do with it as You will.” And mean it with all your heart and soul. Pray it silently or aloud, alone or with a family member or friend to help guide or accompany you. Just pray with all that you are. Remember Our Lady’s “Fiat.” Don’t hold back.
It was soon after a moment of surrender similar to the one above that I was delivered from a seemingly impossible situation.
St. Patrick's Breastplate and a rose scapular led to Beauty, Beauty led to greater Trust, and Trust led to a strengthened Faith.
And, through any inhumanity, we might remember the humanity that God calls upon us to show to others and not forget ourselves. The counter-culturalism that is goodness, noble principles that are timeless, a compassion that is earnest, authentic, and true. For, through any trial, our own identities must be fully enshrouded in Truth.
Pageantry
by Gina Marinello-Sweeney
I fall to the ground
In the chaotic clashing of darting shapes
The final act of a pageantry
In which I never knew I had a role
My knee stinging
As the brightness of my costume
Bedecked in butterflies and marigolds
Turns mechanical cold
An android you would have as a toy.
I struggle against the transformation
As your words bite against my skull
My heart is torn apart in whispers
But, for them, it is much more
And so I remember them, and who I am
And suddenly a metal arm throbs and is no more
I will not be a machine
I will not be your toy
I will be human
And, with this, strength unfolds.
Whether romantic or platonic, there is no pain that can be directly compared to losing someone you once trusted the most. It is a different sort of pain to be intentionally left behind by another, a loss distinctive.
Immerse yourself in the arts. If you write, write. If you paint, paint. If you’re not an artist, you can still participate in art. Try not to think about whether it is your magnum opus and simply express yourself. Authenticity and sincerity will still give it worth. Listen to songs about your story, and cry along with them. Allow yourself to face the pain head-on. Allow yourself to better understand it, to slowly but surely shape it anew. Allow yourself to heal.
Forgive the person quietly in your own heart. Should you choose to deliver an "I forgive you" note à la October Baby, know the right time—and whether it should be delivered at all. While it may be instinctive, it will likely require thoughtful meditation, prayer, and discernment. The reverse is also true: It may require thoughtful meditation and consideration, but you may also just know—"know" in a deeper spiritual sense.
You may need to learn to live in peace without closure. This enables you to move forward regardless of what may follow later, for it is counterproductive to assume that such closure will occur. Yet time will tell. You may write many letters that only you will see, but know that it may be five or ten years before you write the note or leave the voicemail that provides a sort of closure you thought you'd never have. Allow it to be so in its own time . . . even if it's the hardest thing you've ever done.
When you feel too weak to stand, collapse on your bed, and look up at the ceiling . . . lean over and grab a flashlight, the metaphor in Hunter Hayes' beautiful song manifested into concrete form. Point it at the ceiling, and look at its small reflection of Light. As you stare at it, devoid of coherent thought, remember it. Remember it, even if now all you can do is hurt. Remember that, one day, you will be ok.
And, if the time comes when you feel that the bed is sinking to the ground, that you are lost there and content to remain that way forever, stand up. Hold onto goodness and beauty and Light, even if you cannot see it. Even if all you have is the memory of a flashlight.
Remember that a single pool of light still reaches the Greatest Eternity.
Remember that you may be little like The Little Flower, but never small, in spite of any insecurities (or even persistent doubts that you know are not true) that developed as a result of traumatic experiences. Lean on God, and align your cross with His. You’re not alone.
Remember that one day your broken heart will become a beautiful mosaic.
Thorn
Lyrics and Music by Gina Marinello-Sweeney
[lower keys on piano]
When you walked away
Did you stop to see
If I was still alive?
When you walked away
Were the words from the past week
In the back of your mind?
I remember you said
That you'd sooner wear black forever
Than lose me in your life
But a rain of cold words
Left that moment in the dark.
You haven't been a dream wanderer
For quite some time
I forgave you
Moved on
To the entrances
Of new light.
But that's not the point . . .
CHORUS:
This isn't a love song
This isn't about you
It's about the moment
When I began
To feel small inside.
You're a ghost
From the past
Whose love doesn't haunt me anymore
But there's still a thorn in my heart . . . [hold onto last note]
As the seasons changed
There came another
He honored the code of chivalry
But was not meant for me
And, so, with idle curiosity
As I looked through the tear-stained glass
I wondered, "Would you have thought he cared too much?"
CHORUS:
This isn't a love song
This isn't about you
It's about the moment
When I began
To feel small inside.
You're a ghost
From the past
Whose love doesn't haunt me anymore
But there's still a thorn in my heart.
[instrumental; faster pace]
I pulled the thorn from my heart
It's almost all the way out
I'm not small at all
I'm not small, no, no . . .
I'm a little flower
That will shine so bright
Over every empty and callous word
I'm a little flower [hold onto last note; intense]
[quieter] And a thorn won't hold anymore.
[pick-up of instrumental speed]
This isn't a love song
This isn't about you
It's about the moment
When I began
To feel small inside.
This isn't a love song
This isn't about you
It's about the moment
When I began
To feel small inside.
When a thorn was placed
In my heart
But it won't hold anymore.
Long ago, before the thorn
Someone said "I love you."
I wonder when I will hear it again
But there's no rush today . . . [more uplifted, but quietly so and peacefully resolved]
CHORUS 2:
This is a love song
But it isn't about you
It's about the time
I began to feel alive again
There's no room for a thorn
In a heart that's meant to be whole
And so I'll leave it behind.
When I drove down that road
In the afternoon light
I knew, in that moment,
That, at last,
I was ready to love again.
One week later, he appeared
In a glance from Heaven above.
I took the thorn from my heart
And he closed the wound.
He is my home and my rock.
CHORUS 3:
This is a love song
But it isn't just for me
It's for the love that
I found beyond the thorns
With a gift from the One
Who was nailed to the Cross
With a crown of Thorns
I found the one that I sought.
[quietly, more slowly]
The Prince of princes
Brought a knight
Who was worth every moment of the thorn
With him, I found more.
BRIDGE:
[more loudly]
Let the rain pour . . .
[tempo increases; violin/guitar riff]
This is a love song
[Let the rain pour]
Let your heart learn to heal
[Let it flow]
No cross or barricade
Is too much
[Flow over you]
Let the thorn in your heart
Fall away
[Over you]
As the pieces
Of its refuge
Form anew
You are worth so much more.
[slower, more quietly]
Let the thorn in your heart fall away.
Your mosaic is enough.
Even when we have found the greatest of blessings, we may be impeded in some way by the world from moving forward. Waiting could be a matter of months or years, and we must find a way to persevere as much as it would be so easy to give in to despair. Perhaps it is a competitive job market that prevents you from beginning forever with the love of your life. Or maybe it’s finding the love of your life in the first place, or the answer to your question of vocation. But keep trusting in God no matter what, no matter how bleak the situation may seem. I have seen so profoundly in my own life how His timing is always much better than our own. And, despite any pain that we may face along the way, that transcendent reality is not only best, but beautiful.
When disappointments and even promising, heartbreaking "almosts" pile up and you feel almost at a breaking point, simply say, "Jesus, I trust in You," and know it with every inch of who you are. Hold onto it. Never lose sight of it. Once again, allow your prayers to become those of trust and surrender.
Consider also the Novena of Surrender to the Will of God, a wonderful series of prayers recommended by a friend. It is especially relevant to those of you who currently find yourselves worrying and seek greater inner peace and closeness with God.
While we must always remember the path that we endured, the time for rejoicing will come.
Along the way, however, we may allow "the little joys" that beg entry to come into our lives. There are moments when we need art that expresses our sorrow, worry, and pain, yet we also, at times, need an "intermission." Not the sort of "intermission" that is a mere distraction, but fuller. Deeper. An intermission in the truest sense of the word. Yet it can also be as simple as a new, seemingly nonsensical inside joke or listening to a song that releases tension and inexplicitly brings beauty and pure joy into that moment in time.
Cry and listen to sad music, gaze at poignant words and paintings, when they call to you. But also capture the afternoons, the evenings, that glisten like fireflies in the midst of “treeless” Christmases . . . and become, in their own way, a moment of Christmastime.
Sometimes, even in the most difficult, heartbreaking of years, you can find these "little things" that help you get through it. Little divine gifts. Each is a blessing.
Sometimes it is concrete, such as students at the end of a quarter saying that they will miss your class and have learned a lot.
Sometimes it is more ethereal, such as walking out into a foggy night.
Mist over Nottingham
Lyrics and Music by Gina Marinello-Sweeney
[harp and faint sound of chimes gradually transitioning to piano]
I walk from the door
By your side
Ethereal mist
Shrouding the night sky
In a playground
Of gossamer swans
Moon-kissed and silvery silk
Like stepping into another world
[hint of violin]
Camelot couldn’t look more beautiful tonight.
Cool air caressing my face
I know you can feel it, too.
Its ballad whispers in the wind
Years younger, yet ancient
Somehow all the same
Your eyes
A reflection of my own
And for now
The thieves of the night cannot touch us.
[brief interlude of harp and flute]
If you were here now
You’d look at me and smile
And say
Do you remember
From where gossamer comes?
Are you sure you want
To pick that word, my wordsmith girl?
I’d bite back a grin
Feigning indignation
I’d say
Spider Slayer
Are you saying I can’t accept the glory of the word
Without approving its origin story?
And you’d gaze at me in that way
Like a million chocolate strawberries
Turned to specks of silver
Falling, falling to stay
And stay and stay
Like I’m Ali Baba’s golden endgame
Ohh, shipwrecked on an island
But you’re my Ferdinand
And the thieves of the night
Are suddenly far away . . .
Far, far away.
Can you feel it now?
Oooh, ooh, ooh.
CHORUS:
Down in Nottingham
Oh, take my hand
Down in Nottingham
No one I’d rather
Steal through the forest with
In a scarlet hood
The wolves are not far behind
But our eyes are cast ahead
Farther than they can find [backing vocals]
Ohh, my love
Stealing, stealing
Stealing back from the thieves
Down in Nottingham.
I’d rather cry in the rain
Months-long tears intermingling
In freshly-minted air
Tragic sonnets and balconies
There’s always been more than a bit
Of Marianne Dashwood in me
But it’s been long
Since Willoughby knocked at my door
[faster pace]
And now I have you
And forever ocean air
And now you’re here [backing vocals]
And for this moment tonight
Let’s forget the thieves of the night . . .
Oh, I’ll cry tomorrow
But, for this moment, let’s forget the thieves of the night . . .
CHORUS:
Down in Nottingham
Oh, take my hand
Down in Nottingham
No one I’d rather
Steal through the forest with
In a scarlet hood
The wolves are not far behind
But our eyes are cast ahead
Farther than they can find [backing vocals]
Ohh, my love
Stealing, stealing
Stealing back from the thieves
Down in Nottingham.
Statistics say
Now would be a good time
To lose my mind
But with treegoats circling in my head
Befriending albino wombats and pingüinos
And you with your riboflavin keyboards
I’m fighting for the rights of commas
While you’re sending them to prison
Everyone knows the Oxford comma [backing vocals]
Should have a voice. [backing vocals]
I suspect
We were always crazy enough
To make it out ok.
My darling, my love.
If you didn’t know me so well
If I loved you less
This could be easier
I know
It could [higher note]
But you’re the lost archive
Of an ancient city
The secret vault of a library
That I’ve given a lifetime to collect
And, so, I’ll take your hand and . . .
CHORUS:
Down in Nottingham
Oh, take my hand
Down in Nottingham
No one I’d rather
Steal through the forest with
In a scarlet hood
The wolves are not far behind
But our eyes are cast ahead
Farther than they can find [backing vocals]
Ohh, my love
Stealing, stealing
Stealing back from the thieves
Down in Nottingham.
[violin/harp/piano interlude]
[faster pace]
There are wolves and thieves
And God knows what else
Steals through this night
But there’s one thing
They can’t steal away
They can’t touch us [backing vocals]
As long as I live
’Til my dying breath [backing vocals]
No, longer still.
Even that queen with a deck of cards
Up in Wonderland
With her cunning machinations
And cruel games [backing vocals]
Can’t take it away
Because it’s yours [slower]
Forevermore.
[slower]
So, take my hand
And run with me
We’ll make it past the forest
The wolves will be held at bay
‘Till we make it to the shore
On this mid-lit day
Oooh, ohh.
Mist over
Nottingham.
Mist over Nottingham
With you.
The journey of Timothy Clement is a powerful testimony to forgiveness and hope that invests the reader emotionally from the very first page. The author carefully crafts his words in such a way that empathy is instantly won. Without knowing the whole story, the reader is immediately offered a snapshot into Timothy's heart that is raw, emotional, and real. I remember tearing up while reading just the first chapter, even though I had not yet had the opportunity to completely get to know the characters.
After the reader is thrown out of the flash-forward, he follows Timothy as he moves from a spoiled but relatively innocent young man to a scarred and bitter survivor to, finally, a man who grows into himself because he has chosen the righteous path. The journey is heartbreakingly honest in its portrayal and filled with depth and meaning. In a carefully-drawn spectrum reminiscent of Les Misérables, our modern-day Jean Valjean eventually passes down the Christ-like legacy of love after encountering a series of human "guardian angels," most notably Brother Jude. When Timothy is disowned by his own father due to tragic circumstances, Brother Jude becomes a spiritual father to him. While initially feeling disdain for the religious, Timothy eventually develops respect for his new "mentor," and a friendship is born. Their friendship is simultaneously beautiful and real, portrayed masterfully in both dialogue and wordless moments. Equally striking is the cyclical repetition in this poetic arc when the role of fatherhood is passed on to Timothy in the wake of another tragedy.
Throughout the novel, Baker seamlessly weaves a profound thematic thread pertaining to St. Anthony of Padua, the Patron Saint of Lost Articles. It is well-developed and poetic, remaining one of my very favorite elements of the book. As Timothy's mother lays dying, she gives her son a St. Anthony necklace, telling him, "He helps find people who are lost." I found this to be a beautiful variation on finding "lost articles." The richness of the symbolism will strike a chord with readers as Timothy refuses to part with the necklace even when its full meaning is unknown, even in the most dismal of circumstances when he is "lost." While this may be attributed to loyalty to his mother, the reader is still given a sense that there is more to it. When Timothy finds shelter in a church named after this great saint, its significance deepens, allowing its full meaning to be revealed. The climax of this thematic thread is nothing less than a work of art, as a broken promise becomes a new promise restored and renewed.
The novel also serves as a beautiful tribute to the use of the gifts that God has given us. Art is especially highlighted as a gift that may be used for both good and ill, to harm or to heal. In a day and age in which the mainstream celebrates misuse of art and other special gifts, MarGreat serves as a keen reminder that may stimulate dialogue long after the last page is read. Once again, the poetic cycle continues as one man's decision to use his talents compels another to follow suit. As a result, pain is transformed into beauty, offering an inspiring conclusion.
Thought-provoking and engaging, Please Don't Remove MarGreat's Glasses! is a hallmark in its genre. I highly recommend this powerful story of redemption, faith, and true love. It is available for purchase here.
]]>When Lent begins tomorrow, we will embark on a journey of epic proportions, what Pope Benedict XVI called “a privileged time of interior pilgrimage towards Him Who is the fount of mercy . . . like a long 'retreat' during which we can turn back into ourselves and listen to the voice of God.” It “stimulates us to let the Word of God penetrate our life and in this way to know the fundamental truth: who we are, where we come from, where we must go, what path we must take in life.” While it is therefore in many ways a quiet, reflective time, “The Battle” from the soundtrack of The Chronicles of Narnia remains softly in the background of the scene. For, it is also a “period of spiritual 'combat' which we must experience alongside Jesus, not with pride and presumption, but using the arms of faith: prayer, listening to the word of God and penance. In this way we will be able to celebrate Easter in truth, ready to renew the promises of our Baptism.”
As we draw nearer to Lent, we may consider any anger in our own hearts that cripples us. In many cases, it may involve this momentous task: forgiving the most difficult person in our lives—or outside of it.
Now, first, I would like to clarify that forgiveness does not mean returning to an abusive or otherwise unhealthy relationship. Nor does it, in any way, excuse wrongdoing. Forgiveness may instead bring peace to our own hearts and allow us to view others with greater love, regardless of whether they are in our lives. To rid ourselves of whatever prevents us from a purer, more giving love towards those around us.
For most of us, this is a work in progress. Nevertheless, it answers the profound questions that Pope Benedict suggested above:
Who are we? What path must we take in life?
In this instance, I would like to apply that to two further questions of my own:
How would we like to define ourselves? And how might we, in turn, view others as a result?
Sometimes, when considering an individual who has caused me pain, I like to imagine that person as he or she once was: as a child, filled with innocent joy. Before any coldness took hold. Before bitterness entered the heart. Before wonder was exchanged for cynicism, love for lack of scruples, kindness for cruelty. It helps remind me that, deep inside, there must still remain some of that child—of the potential to seek goodness and beauty once again—and that I should always be charitable, no matter what that person does to me.
This may be applied to those we know personally, and those we have never met who still manage to impact us. It may include those in our lives now, and those, once trusted, but now far removed.
Those who broke our hearts. Those who betrayed us. Those who used us. Those who abandoned us. Those who would never abandon us, but wounded us all the same.
Those who hurt us in any way.
When considering this image of a child, I recommend beginning with a prayer to ask for God’s assistance in the endeavor. Similar to how one might visualize the Mysteries of the Rosary when meditating upon them, you may also wish to return in your mind to a place of peace. Perhaps, like me, your place is near the sea. You might imagine the salt air and the sound of the waves lapping gently (or crashing) against the shore, the Greatest Painter illuminating each with an array of color just before dusk. And certainly, if you have the opportunity to go to a Eucharistic adoration chapel, that is a wonderful place to prayerfully reflect on such.
Once you are in the place that makes you feel at peace—whether literally or figuratively—imagine that child dancing along the shore. The child that the person hurting you once was. And may one day be again.
It may seem unrealistic. Too hard.
It may hurt.
But, if I may say so, it also brings beauty.
During this reflection, we may want to call to mind anything that we like about the person that we are attempting to forgive. Or, at least, any potential for goodness that we see. Such a method may likewise be used to develop a greater love in general, whether forgiveness is the specific goal in mind or not.
When it comes to someone we know (or knew) well, we often can refer to a related positive memory. If you cannot draw upon a single example, you may want to stop and reflect further. Could it be that there is still too much bitterness, anger, or sadness to filter, or that you simply don’t know enough about the person? For example, perhaps you came to dislike a public figure based on a news article or two that you read. In that instance, further research may be warranted to find a “good thing” about that person. You might argue that you don’t have time for this, but, if you have time to comment about your dislike of someone on social media, do you have time to research? 😉 We humans can be so contrary at times! It is, nevertheless, important to caution ourselves against a tendency to rush to unfairly label and condemn—in effect, to dehumanize—rather than seek to find some redeeming quality.
Yet, if you truly struggle with finding a positive aspect of the person, simply view him or her as a child of God and, as before, draw upon the image mentioned previously. Let God help you with the rest. Such an experience may occur when our pain overtakes our ability to see as clearly as we might like—in which case, starting here as a first step is already momentous. This method may also prove especially useful in situations where someone appears to have allowed evil to fully consume his or her heart. Those who completely embrace and rejoice in evil should likewise be distinguished from individuals who have many good qualities, but are on a slippery slope due to significant mistakes in some key moral areas; in the latter instance, ‘Find a Good Thing’ research may be deemed especially beneficial. Such an act may also help us grow in humility, for we must make efforts to not confuse the two cases.
As challenging as it may be, that also means that public figures with a direct influence in our lives, such as politicians, are not immune to forgiveness in our hearts. Sometimes this can be very personal, even if we have not met the person. Let’s say that the decisions of a politician made the last few months of your loved one’s life more difficult. You may even wonder if your friend would have lived longer if it had not been for those decisions. It may be difficult to forgive someone you have loved, but, for some, it can be even more difficult to forgive one for whom you have had no love at all. To attempt to create the image of a child in your mind for that person may seem impossible, even preposterous, at first. And yet to hold on to that anger in your heart will only hurt you further and draw you farther away from the identity that you seek. That is, your true identity. And the deepest parts of your potential.
It’s too hard. I know it is—this scenario and that scenario—and I’m sending virtual hugs. It may take time, and we may need to be gentle and forgiving of ourselves as we struggle to reach it. And yet, all the same, it can be done.
Pope Saint John Paul II met with the man who made an attempt on his life. His would-be assassin would later credit the saint for the turn-around in his life.
We know that forgiveness brings more peace in our own hearts as we draw closer to God. But we have no idea how beautifully it may also impact others around us.
Last week, Bishop David O’Connell was murdered in California. He was known for his great love and generosity towards others. While we never met, I believe, from what I read, that he would have chosen the JPII path. To forgive his killer.
We hope that we will never have to forgive in such a horrifying context. And yet the example set by these two incredible men may lead us in any instance, big or small, in our own lives.
Sometimes forgiveness will have to be reinitiated again and again . . . but, little by little, healing may take place.
And that is always worth it.
May we align our suffering with the Cross, from which Our Lord spoke of those who crucified Him, “Father, forgive them . . . ”
May we lean on Him and find healing, strength, and understanding.
Have a blessed Lent.
At a glance:
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“It is one thing to play with a toy castle and wish you were back in the golden days of chivalry, and it is another thing to be really there, and have one of the greatest villains in all legend stand glaring at you and breathing the hot breath of wrath in your direction . . ."
As a child, my heart and imagination were utterly captivated by the fantasy novels of Edward Eager. In particular, I found myself drawn to his Knight’s Castle. My own partiality indeed remains evident, for this volume, despite my great care in reading, remains the most worn of the series. I had probably read it literally a dozen times! Yet, when I returned to the book as an adult, I found greater meaning sprinkled throughout its pages. Within this 1956 novel may be found a profound yet witty and playful criticism of modern society and reaffirmation of chivalric values.
The Old One, a toy soldier “silver” with wisdom comes to life to guide not only four children’s adventures, but the reader, as well. He is always in the background when the olden days of chivalry come to life, like a play critic watching a theater production from a distance, often limiting his communication to facial gestures. However, when he does speak, usually in modern times, it is with a critical eye on the changes of time. They resemble brief rants. Yet, despite his very blunt and honest approach, the novel is too imaginative and compelling to come off as overly didactic. The Old One states, when Roger first feels him grow warm in his hand:
“Modern inventions, industrial revolution, rush, rush, rush, choo-choo, crash, bang! A castle that stayed put was good enough for me, aye, and my forefathers before me, and when we sallied forth ‘twas a gallant steed under us, aye, and a trusty sword in hand! By my halidom!”
He calls for a return to a simpler, more romantic time, or at least the incorporation of some of that time’s chivalric elements in modern-day society. The remembrance, as he would put it, of “the good old rule” in the midst of “newfangled fads and fancies.” The reader gets the sense that the Old One is the spokesperson for the narrator—the voice of the author, Edward Eager, who had been captivated by wondrous earlier tales and enjoyed partaking in the ‘simple things,’ from gardening to bird watching.
Just as the Old One represents the allure of an earlier time, Eliza and Jack, the cousins of the main character, Roger, symbolize the “rush, rush, rush” of modern society.
Although the transformation of the toys occurs once every third night, Eliza wants to rush ahead. This is the impatience brought on by new technology; Eliza is accustomed to instant gratification with TVs and other technological developments. Yet, now, in the 2000s, we would consider that time to be one of little ‘instant gratification’ when compared to our own society of fast-paced social media and cell phones that were never content to be just phones. Jack summons taxis in a “grown-up fashion,” and doubts the existence of magic until he finds himself in Torquilstone. He is never seen without his camera, yet finds that the magic of times past cannot be captured by modern technology, for the pictures that he takes of Robin Hood and battles of old do not come out. This may be viewed symbolically, for the greatest Truths cannot be revealed or captured through conventional means.
Jack’s purpose in joining the three children in the third adventure is to “examine the facts,” the skeptic who can only see what is directly in front of him. However, he is soon caught up in the mystifying power of days past. Eager seems to propose that no one can truly resist the delight of ancient times, of knights and chivalric glory. Even Jack finds himself playing with Roger’s toy knights when the latter is asleep and thereby cannot observe him, “as though he were a boy of eleven, and not a man of nearly 13.” Such is the depiction of another profound philosophy: that much is lost when a childlike nature is forgotten; in effect, maturity must also embrace the wonder of youth to truly deserve that name.
This is illustrated further when it is revealed that the power of toys is drawn from the imaginations of children. If “the words of power” are stated—namely, that the soldiers are only “lead soldiers” or the dolls “just a lot of dolls”—the adventure at hand ends. In other words, if traditional chivalric virtue and childlike wonder are disregarded, then the greatest adventure cannot be lived out in the real world. For, it is that imaginative power and chivalry that break through the cold machinery of "progress" to demonstrate an authentic humanity.
These sentiments are heightened in Eager’s story when two worlds combine. With The Magic City by E. Nesbit as a guide, Ann and Eliza transform the ancient world into a modern-day city, to disastrous results. Ann, Eliza, and Roger arrive to find the magical Torquilstone shaking with the “beastlike roar” of “traffic” from the “motorized vehicles from Eliza’s toy-chest” and modern buildings “with glass and chromium, and glaring with electric lamps and neon signs.” Even a “factory whistle scream[s]” as “more knights and ladies emerge…for lunch hour, reading comic books and movie magazines.” These modern conventions may reflect a criticism of the rising consumerism of the time, but they can also be viewed as symbolic. That is to say, progress is not always “progress.” As case in point, it is discovered that the now-modern knights and ladies from Ivanhoe are no longer on quests, but “out joyriding” and the castle guards idly playing gin rummy. This reveals the danger that the loss of the chivalric mentality, a noble mentality of honor, might pose. As the new version of Rebecca states, “Everybody [ is ] rushing and nobody [ is ] getting anywhere!” Eager illustrates that the ‘buzz’ of a busy life does not make that life complete.
Ivanhoe himself has not been immune to the new ways and becomes absorbed in scientific matters while Rowena toasts marshmallows with his rusting helmet and eats chocolate cherries. Science and faith-filled values may, of course, align. But it is understood that Ivanhoe has traded a more balanced, deeper approach for a narrow focus. He has lost the chivalry that many more have abandoned today, as symbolized by the rust and reappropriation of his helmet. In the words of Pope Benedict XVI, “The world offers you comfort. But you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.”
Although Eliza initially claims that they did a “noble deed” by bringing to Torquilstone the “comforts of modern civilization,” she finally admits, in observance of the constant car crashes, “Maybe we improved them too quickly.” Although this may be viewed simply as a reflection of Star Trek’s The Prime Directive—that less technologically advanced societies should not be exposed to advancements until they are ready—it also seems to serve as the reinforcement of an earlier point: If chivalry is lost in modern days, as exemplified by the rude slang delivered towards Roger by a “knight” he runs into, technology must not stand alone to create the ideal society. In this new world, “Roger,” who had been proclaimed a hero with elfish magical powers after aiding the Saxons against the Normans, has become “just a word you use at the end of conversations,” an “old myth” that no one believes. The enchantment of wonder and romance is therefore lost. SPOILER: It is the necessary rescue of Rebecca from Brian de Bois-Gilbert that brings Ivanhoe back to the yeomanly talk and way of life. Further exposure to the mixture of modern and ancient times ultimately causes Eliza to proclaim, “Down with progress. Bring back the horse.”
Now, did the author (and, in turn, the character of Eliza) truly wish to rid the world of all technological progress, including cars?
Unlikely. Yet there is more to “bringing back the horse” than the surface level meaning.
Like other byproducts of commercialism, technology is not disregarded in this novel as irrelevant. It must, however, be “a bright-colored moving tapestry” marked by romanticism. During his studies, the scholar-turned Ivanhoe developed the prototype of a flying saucer. When it is tested with the aim of rescuing Rebecca from imprisonment in the Dolorous Tower in the Outer Wastes, the romanticism of the past is reflected in the technology of the future. The adventure of discovery now coincides with the vision of chivalric glory: “ 'The moon!' breathed Ivanhoe in such a tone as Columbus might have used on a certain famous occasion.” This fantastic journey reflects the depiction of a later medieval battle, for “there raged such a conflict, on that dark heath, as has seldom been seen outside the pages of romantic fiction.” Likewise, it is through the lens of the movie theater, through the “glorious Technicolor of times past,” that all four children become especially drawn to the nobility of the medieval period in history.
At the beginning of the book, Roger receives a castle of knights and his sister Ann a dollhouse. However, their cousin Eliza defies such behavior by scorning dolls, thereby leading Ann to feel less comfortable playing with them. In fact, not only does Ann refrain from playing with the dolls, but she helps Eliza alter some of the dolls’ property and relocate these items to the castle. While it may be argued that Ann is the heroine of the story who understands the ways of the Old One deeply, her reaction to Eliza here highlights the societal pressure that young people still face today. In literary form, the consequences of this peer pressure are displayed to dramatic effect. The “giant” dolls with “china-like perfection” become villainous, holding others captive because Ann and Eliza violated the established rules of toys (read: humans).
Such a defense of “rights” in contrast with the cry for change may also be connected to the children’s fourth visit to this magical land, where Prince John, who wears a “peculiar cap” and is addressed with a “peculiar salute” by “oddly uniformed” knights, represents Hitler and Nazism. Jack wonders if the “terrible new ideas…just sort of leaked in from the outside world,” for, “goodness knows there’s enough of them around!” Yet, once again, the future is not completely condemned. Indeed, Roger’s original toy soldiers, from modern G.I.’s to Spanish War veterans, are the “snowbound sleepers,” who, led by their owner, SPOILER: save the day. Honor is therefore found in some aspects of modern life. However, the ultimate ‘happy ending’ to the story occurs when SPOILER: Ivanhoe and friends “return to save [their] merrie land from these degenerate games” and the dolls’ belongings are likewise returned, re-establishing the ‘code’ of toys and of personal liberties.
In Knight’s Castle, the ‘code’ of toys is intermixed with a ‘code’ of conduct for children. It reflects the educational practices of the 1950s, for teachers were seen as responsible for instilling good values in children, such as generosity, kindness, and the importance of family and working together. Moral lessons are learned through the adventures of Knight’s Castle and directly discussed at the end when the four children evaluate those adventures. Eliza never got “her own” adventure because the “magic” wished to teach her to “not be bossy,” while Ann “learned to be brave and think for herself.” Jack became less of a skeptic who relied only on the scientific precision of technology and William S. Gray’s readability formula, and Roger learned more wisdom and courage. The hardship brought about by the Depression and war encouraged self-reliance and a certain degree of independence. In addition to the chivalric and family values inherent, this is reflected in Roger’s concern for his sister’s well-being when she is captured by the Normans, and in the self-reliance needed in the pursuit of these dangerous adventures. Truly, all four children learned the wisdom of the Old One by growing as individuals in a quest that both praised and criticized what they knew as ‘home.’
King Richard states at the conclusion of the cousins’ adventures:
“History no longer hath meaning for us now. And what is even better, after this no terrible ideas from the world outside can penetrate here. Time standeth still from now on, and the golden age of chivalry endureth forever.”
Truth eternal.
As illustrated in Knight’s Castle, a modern society of ‘wonders’ can easily lose its sense of Wonder, its glimmering surfaces scratched away when faced with the depth of the Golden Age of timelessness. If left unchecked by a greater Truth, “degenerate times” may develop in such a society. Yet that hope does not have to be forgotten. The world of "progress" may be awakened by a call to the days of the romantic past. As the final battle of the snowbound sleepers reveals, not all notions of noble deeds have been lost.
And so shall they remain if we hold them dear.
As the Old One declared, “I could not love sleep half so much loved I not honor more!”
Sources:
Knight's Castle by Edward Eager
Growing Up With Dick and Jane: Learning and Living the American Dream by Carole Kismaric and Marvin Heiferman
]]>In 2020, whispers of a mysterious and somewhat alluring word known as “cottagecore” began to sweep across the Internet. The term had emerged a few years before, but truly gained prominence during isolation, particularly as Taylor Swift’s woodsy folk albums Folklore and Evermore were released during that period. Such a trend did not, however, disappear then. It remains to this day and begs the question . . . what exactly is cottagecore?
The answer to that question is more complicated than you might think. On one hand, it seems that most of us can agree that cottagecore involves a return to simpler times and overall embrace of natural surroundings. Yet, beyond that umbrella definition, there appear to be multiple branches, different ways in which people have related—and can relate—to the movement.
Oh, to live in that Little House in the Big Woods!
Some proponents of the cottagecore phenomenon are drawn to a renewed focus on self-reliance and traditional home activities, such as baking and sewing . . . and, in some instances, literally live in a cottage or at some distance from civilization. Preferred attire for women may be flowery and slightly more romanticized than the traditional garb, but largely associated with simple prints—gingham dresses and the like—and practicality.
If you’re a guy, you are likely embracing bushcraft—chopping wood, fishing, hunting, and quite possibly carving your own wooden spoon. In addition to the tasks at hand, deep reflections may be found through harmony with nature and its quiet simplicity. Thus, perhaps this camp may be called the Little House or Walden branch of cottagecore.
I myself grew up reading Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie books. Likewise, I still have a photo on my phone of the blueberry muffins that I spontaneously baked a while back, and some of my most treasured childhood memories involved baking bread with my grandfather. But, like undoubtedly many, I admit that I cook far more often these days than I find time to bake and have not developed the level of skill to gift a friend embroidered napkins or make my own clothes. While the Little House books still hold a special place in my heart, they are also less defining for me than those that I associate with another branch of cottagecore.
If you look at a Thomas Kinkade painting, you may catch a glimpse of the Little House/Walden branch of a tree in the cottagecore woods. After all, he is known for his paintings of old-fashioned cottages, and, when other subjects are addressed, there remain nevertheless a warmth and sense of home pervading each piece. Yet, while Kinkade embraces all facets of cottagecore, there is a mystical wonder inherent that may be connected especially to its second branch.
That is, when I say that I am a cottagecore fan, I am referring more fully to . . .
Bring me the fairy tale woods, flowing dresses, and poetry found in “little things”!
Like me, other supporters of the cottagecore movement view the world through a poetic lens, finding the romance in nature and life as they embrace a worldview filled with lyricism and wonder. They delight in whimsical fancy as if stepping into Anne of Green Gables or the hushed woods of a fairy tale. The deep reflections of the Little House/Walden branch exist, but are intensified emotionally. Philosophically, the simple moments or “intermissions” are seen as some of the most important and rewarding, sprinkled with a wondrous enchantment as God’s creation is traversed.
The Little House/Walden fashion may include puffed sleeves, but this branch definitely does—along with exceedingly twirlable skirts, and, even as they remain at least speculatively historical, more ethereal gowns in general. The Fairy Tale/Anne Shirley Branch trades the practicality of LH/W for more imaginative exploration, such as dancing in a sunlit meadow while envisioning that you have found the castle of an enchanted kingdom, stepping across a bridge to find a lost world or hidden dwarf abode, ruminating among ruins that speak of days long past, or gazing at the waves of the sea as you pen verse, spin tales, or paint in soft hues and great flourishes of light.
You may also be Snow White. Or a bard. Or both.
If you are a guy, you will likely be the quiet woodcutter who is actually a prince in disguise, living out your life in solitude whilst the twin “pauper” is being prepared for the throne . . . until, that is, you encounter your lady fair.
Or, again, you just might be a bard.
With the FT/AS branch in hand, you may embark on a perilous quest . . . but it will likely occur off set. Nevertheless, your deeds will be forever immortalized in song, handwoven in tapestries, and quickly penned on parchment imprinted with a wax seal.
Whether consisting of writers and other artists in a literal sense or not, this nevertheless remains the place where the ballad weavers dwell.
Of cozy nooks and hedgehogs!
After hearing feedback from readers, I realized that we were missing a key category. Jenne Bergström from Facebook aptly named it the “Frog and Toad” Branch and elaborated thusly:
“Cozy, friendly and lots of snacks.”
So, if you enjoyed the Frog and Toad children’s books—or happen to be a Winnie the Pooh/cottagecore hybrid fan—this might be the branch for you!
Melody Ward, also from Facebook, echoed Jenne’s thoughts on “that cozy feeling” that she loves about cottagecore. She added details to the picture, such as hedgehogs and moss, with the focal point of a “fairy cottage.” Therefore, while this quaint and homey version of cottagecore is unique enough to warrant a third category, it does have some overlap with the Fairy Tale/Anne Shirley Branch.
Since we are pretty far along in the poll already, the official options will remain the same. However, if you identify the most with the Frog/Toad Branch, please let us know in the comments section!
In my collection of personal photos may be found several that I see through the lens of cottagecore. Join me in this pictorial journey below!
Why, yes, I will get excited if I find a rose garden! 😊 ESPECIALLY one with an arch that makes me think of tales of yore . . . ❤️
It may not be a secret passageway, but the storyteller in me loved taking this photo of a little hidden glimpse through the trees. 😊
A little Narnia, a little fairy tale, and, on the whole, a delightfully Romantic (with a capital R) entrance. 😊 What more can a lyrically wonderstruck girl ask for? ❤️
Back in high school, this bit of shrubbery inspired notions of enchanted portals. Would it lead to a secret garden?
When you have a writing journal that so perfectly resembles the lost volume of an ancient kingdom that you wonder if you can truly write in it . . . until you find the perfect purpose for it. 😊❤️
No matter how many technological advancements may ensue, the delightful secrets of music boxes and snow globes wait to be uncovered just as in the days of old. In them are contained a certain mystery, a certain beauty, and a certain quiet joy, forever captured in its mystical wonderland.
On my wedding day, I loved twirling in a ballgown in a field near a lake. Twirling with my prince. And just twirling in general.
Gazing at the world around me on my college graduation day . . .
And, finally, little me embracing cottagecore with a pensive gaze at a garden immortal!
Oh, and yes . . . my current desktop background is most certainly Kinkade's Snow White Discovers the Cottage. 😉
Learn more about Gina's cottagecore-infused novels, The Veritas Chronicles!
I am an adult reader . . . and stayed up late reading this book, mostly in one sitting. Dubbie: The Double-Headed Eagle is a delightful tale filled with everything you could want in a children's book. I state that with utmost respect, as both a writer and a teacher who studied children's literature in college. In the words of Madeleine L'Engle, "You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children." Dubbie perfectly exemplifies that concept.
The endearing personalities of Dubbie's two unique heads bring the story to life, as does the soaring backdrop of Vienna. Indeed, this is such an instance that the setting itself seems almost like a character, so vivid as it is. As another sign of a wonderful story, the reader is eager to visit the places illustrated as a result of experiencing this adventure. Colorful personalities continue to abound with the appearance of a villainous pair, a less kind-hearted "double head" of humans. Yet, unlike the two heads of Dubbie who are distinctive yet must learn to be more united, they are clones incapable of growth while they remain on their current path. Herein enters the thematic depth that so many do not realize can be present in children's literature, as they dismissively brush aside a work simply because of its target audience. With this pair and their associates, Archduke Eduard Habsburg presents the concept of an unchanging "status quo" preserved by a sinister force in an effort to prevent the countercultural heroism of old from rising up in modern society and instead keep dust on the page.
Yet, at the same time, I loved how humor remained present throughout the manifestation of these thought-provoking topics. The two menacing figures who shall remain unnamed (to avoid spoilers) seem like classic villains from an old spy novel of times past—colorful yet black-and-white, amusing yet hardcore, with conversational turn-of-phrase that you don't often see in villains of today. It is "classic" and refreshingly nostalgic—light enough for a children's book, but villainous enough and with high enough stakes for children to also take it seriously. Likewise, as Little Dubbie continues on his journey, the reader cannot help but smile at the delightful quirks, lovable nature, and entertaining moments (Goodness, that part where Dubbie tries to look like the 2-D double eagles!) inherent in our favorite young double eagle. It gets to the point where almost everything Dubbie does—even peeking out of a backpack—is just adorable. Perhaps most of all, there is humor and cleverness sprinkled in the very essence of the writing style that, along with the adventure, will keep you turning the page. In short, it is full of life. In addition to the thought-provoking themes and humorous elements—or, more accurately, at the very center of it all—is a heartwarming message about the importance of family. There are, of course, related sub-themes, as well, that provide great lessons for children. In other words, this isn't a book that you have to worry about handing to your kids. On the contrary, it's exactly the sort of book that you would want them to read, and exactly the sort of book they would enjoy reading. It likewise provides a fun way for kids to learn history. After all, it is always best to view history as a fascinating story rather than a series of isolated facts.
This story is not without mystery, and one of my favorite parts is a reveal toward the end that eventually leads to a rather epic scene. Vague, I know, but you're going to read the book, aren't you?
I could go on. There are other lovely characters, including the young girl Emma in whose shoes children may step in order to journey with her double-headed friend. They will each learn from each other. But perhaps I will simply end thusly:
I have always considered Edward Eager's books to be among the best models of what children's literature should be: appealing to children through imaginative insight while still filled with thematic depth. In fact, my favorite book by him, Knight's Castle, contains a profound message about chivalric values and modern society. (In a later post, I will go into a more detailed analysis of that marvelous story.) When reading Dubbie: The Double-Headed Eagle, I was reminded of Edward Eager and how profound and timeless a good children's book can be. Yet Dubbie likewise has its own unique signature that marks it as distinctive from any other book.
Brilliant and beautiful work that children and parents alike will love and remember long after the last page is turned. Bravo!
Click here to go to the product page and learn more about this book.
]]>Most of Ascension's books are geared toward people who are looking to learn more about the Catholic Faith, most notably St. John Paul II's catechism. They have a couple of books on current issues. Some of their most prominent books are in their Amazing Grace series which offers a huge selection of inspirational stories relating to different aspects of one's life, whether it be for fatherhood, motherhood, families, survivors, or suffering.
Loreto sells a lot of great traditional Catholic books, most notably, Dom Gueranger's The Liturgical Year, which is one of the greatest works of Catholic writing. They publish a lot of books on a variety of categories including the Latin Mass, mariology, and books on spirituality by the saints. Highly recommended!
Roman Catholic Books focuses on reprinting formerly out-of-print Catholic books. They have a number of really good books including The Antichrist by Vincent P. Miceli, S.J., and A Confederacy of Evil: Cardinal Newman on the End Times by Blessed John Henry Newman. Unfortunately, they do not sell their books through big retailers like Amazon or Barnes and Noble, and they do not offer ebook versions.
Angelico Press has a good selection of books on a wide variety of topics. They publish both new books and quality out-of-print works of apologetics, theology, philosophy, political and social thought, spirituality, history, art, biography, and literature. As stated on their website, they are "dedicated to making the rich tradition of Catholic intellectual and cultural life more available to families, students, and scholars."
Mediatrix Press publishes several books on St. Robert Bellarmine, who is perhaps one of the most underappreciated saints ever. They also publish books on other saints including St. Dominic, St. Philip Neri, St. Peter Canisius, St. John Vianney, and St. Alphonsus Liguori.
Sensus Traditionis publishes books by Fr. Chad Ripperger. You've listened to his sermons, now read his books! He's written on several important topics including The Metaphysics of Evolution, Magisterial Authority, and an Introduction to the Science of Mental Health. The best-selling book by far is Deliverance Prayers: For Use By The Laity which has many prayers that I haven't found anywhere else on the internet. These prayers heavily focus on exorcising diabolic influence, whether it be possession, obsession, oppression, or simply temptation.
Baronius Press takes essential books, like Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, the Catechism of the Council of Trent, and classic spiritual writings of the saints, and they beautifully highlight them by publishing gorgeous versions of these titles. In recent years, the Catechism of Trent has become incredibly popular due to the strange amendments that the current hierarchy have been making to the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Also, Baronius Press literally has 12 different versions of the Douay Rheims Bible! Now that's hardcore trad!
Cluny Media has done a tremendous service to the Catholic community by republishing many of Etienne Gilson's books which had been out of print for a long time. Truth be told, I personally had been waiting for years for these books to be republished, and I am quite excited that they're finally back! Cluny focuses exclusively on republishing old, forgotten titles, but these titles have been forgotten for all the wrong reasons. They really carry a lot of fascinating books that I've never seen before which I've put on my reading list.
January 30 marks the 369th anniversary of the judicial murder of King Charles I of England, Scotland, and Ireland at the hands of the Puritan-dominated Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell. As every well-informed inheritor of the Patrimony knows, one of the reasons the King was murdered was his refusal to sanction the abolition of the Episcopate in the Church of England. For this reason, said body essayed to canonise him during the Restoration, and his cultus within Anglicanism flourished or declined as the dominant party in the State was Whig or Tory. In 1859, the date of his Martyrdom was removed from the Book of Common Prayer. But by that time, the “Royal Martyr” had already found favour with the Oxford Movement.
John Keble lauded him in verse, and the Society of King Charles the Martyr was founded in 1894 to revive devotion to him alongside the other “Catholic Societies” and their attempts to reignite prayer for the dead, belief in the Real Presence, Marian devotion, and sundry other such things. Among its earliest members was Fr. Hope Patten, reviver of the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham; the Anglican shrine thereat boasts a statue of the King. A number of the founders were also involved with the Neo-Jacobite Order of the White Rose, which in turn involved several Catholics, including Lord Ashburnham. A few years later both organisations crossed the Atlantic; the American SKCM and its White Rose equivalent featured Ralph Adams Cram and Isabella Stewart Gardner among their first members (meetings of both societies were held in the chapel of the latter’s palatial home, Fenway Court). To-day the OWR is represented by the Royal Stuart Society, while the SKCM continues. It has numbered several prominent Catholics among its patrons, including Lord St. John of Frawsley and Fr. Jean Charles-Roux; to-day, the highest-ranking Catholic layman in the United Kingdom, Lord Nicholas Windsor, the Queen’s First Cousin, once removed, is an active patron and member. Without a doubt, the cultus of Charles I is part of the patrimony – but is it a part of the patrimony that should be brought into the Catholic Church?
Apart from mere anti-Monarchism among Catholics (which half-sympathises with the murders of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, and is uncomfortable with Bl. Karl of Austria or any other canonised or beatified Crowned Head), a pathology that cannot be argued with, and often owes its origin to misunderstood Hibernian and Americanist influences, there are some real objections to be answered. Some will claim that the King was weak-willed and vacillating; others point to the Catholics “martyred under Charles I.” In any case, he certainly died outside the visible Communion of the Catholic Church. Yet while these natural questions must be answered, it is exceedingly easy to do so.
When examining the personal character of Charles I, one must admit that his policies do appear to the casual viewer to have gone back and forth. But the truth is he was faced with an impossible situation – humanly speaking – and was forced to deal with it from a very weak position. The British Civil Wars – now more poetically and accurately referred to as “The Wars of the Three Kingdoms” – were just that: conflicts involving an incredibly varied cast of characters and interests at cross purposes in three very different realms, the peaceable rule of any one of which would have been difficult. In England, the King faced a powerful oligarchy (ironically created by Henry VIII’s bestowal of stolen monastic lands upon his allies) desirous of taking complete control of the State and consolidating their economic power by enclosing the remaining Common Lands; Scotland saw Charles inherit his grandmother’s losing coalition of Catholics and Anglicans against the Presbyterians; and in Ireland his rule was upheld by the mutually antagonistic Royalists and Confederates of Kilkenny against the Ulster Scots – and even this quick description is a wild oversimplification. The sad truth is Charles inherited a horrible position, and can only be held responsible for what occurred during his “personal rule.”
This last is important to understand with regard to the Saints martyred “under his rule.” The fact is that there were a number of priests in London’s prisons under sentence of death when Charles became King. Delicate as his situation was (and given his –as we shall see –well-deserved reputation for philo-popery, to say nothing of his Catholic Queen, whose pilgrimage to the site of countless martyrdoms at Tyburn Hill caused some unrest), he did not believe himself to be in a position to pardon them. What he did do, however, was to allow them out during the daytime to minister to the city’s Catholics, said clerics returning to their prisons each night. This situation continued for years, until the Long Parliament seized power, and murdered them as it did Strafford and Laud – whom the King was also unable to save. That these priests - some of whom have been subsequently beatified and canonised – were true martyrs is indisputable; but the King was no more responsible for their deaths than Charles II was for that of St. Oliver Plunkett. One might as well blame King Baudouin I for Belgium’s abortion and Grand Duke Henri for Luxembourg’s euthanasia – but we do not because they resisted to the utmost of their power. A better case might perhaps be made against the plethora of “pro-life” politicians who somehow are rarely able to effect any changes in the law, but are routinely elected on the basis of their self-proclaimed views; but it is always easier to demand perfection from the dead than from the living.
But what of the King’s own personality, apart from his unsuccessful policies? We have a number of useful contemporary accounts, of whom one is particularly telling – that of Bishop Bossuet, in his sermon on the death of Charles’ Queen, Henrietta Maria:
Charles I, King of England, was just, moderate, magnanimous, well informed about his business and the means of reigning. Never was prince more able to render royalty, not only venerable and holy, but also kind and dear to his people. What can he be blamed for, if not clemency? I will admit to him what a celebrated author has said of Caesar, that he has been lenient to the point of repentance: Caesari proprium and peculiare sit clementiae insigne, qua usque ad poenitentiam omnes superavit. Let it be here, if you will, the famous defect of Charles as well as of Caesar; but that those who wish to believe that all is weak in the unfortunate and the vanquished do not think for that reason to persuade us that strength has failed in his courage, nor vigor in his counsels. Pursued to all excess by the implacable malignity of fortune, betrayed by all his people, he did notbetray himself. Despite the ill success of his unfortunate arms, if we could defeat him, we could not force him, and as he never refused what was reasonable, being victorious, he always rejected what was weak and unfair, being captive. I can hardly contemplate his big heart in these last trials. But he has certainly shown that the rebels are not allowed to take majesty from a king who knows himself; and those who have seen with what bearing he has appeared in Westminster Hall, and in the Place of Whitehall, can easily judge how fearless he was at the head of his armies, how august and majestic in the midst of his palace and his palace courtyard. Great Queen, I satisfy your tenderest desires when I celebrate this monarch, and this heart, which has never lived except for him, wakes up, all powder that it is, and becomes sensitive, even under this mortuary sheet, in the name of a husband so dear, to whom his very enemies will grant the title of wise and righteous, and which posterity will rank among the great princes, if his history finds readers whose judgment cannot be dominated by events nor fortune.
In some Ordinariate communities, devotion has grown up to Bl. Karl of Austria-Hungary, beatified by St. John Paul II in 2004. This makes perfect sense, because so much that can be said of the one Charles can be said of the other. Both were eminent husbands and fathers – not only in love with their wives but seeing their marriages and fatherly roles as important parts of their attempts to win Heaven. Both fathered children while their fortunes collapsed, and provided as well as they could for the education of their offspring as Christians. In terms of personal piety, both Sovereigns were devoted to the Blessed Sacrament (bearing in mind that Charles I lived three centuries before Apostolicae Curae, at a time when the Holy See offered Laud the Red Hat – of which more momentarily), the Virgin Mary, relics, and the Saints. Lastly, both men ruled over and attempted to love incredibly diverse peoples whose internecine scandals in the end both destroyed their Monarchs and cast them into immense suffering and atrocities. The second Charles was not martyred outright; but given the nature of his death, he came close.
All of that having been said, it is certainly true that Charles I died outside the visible communion of the Catholic Church. Should not that, at least, disqualify him from being considered for Sainthood? Not necessarily, and here I leave aside the liturgical commemorations of Dr. Martin Luther King – several of which Masses, as a Knight of Peter Claver, I have assisted at. Rather, we should look at the veneration permitted by the Holy See to be given a number of putatively schismatic Eastern Orthodox figures. There are also Emperors Constantine I and XI (the latter considered a Blessed by the Greek Catholics of Istanbul). It should also be born on mind that Eastern Catholics venerate as well a great many martyrs who died rather than abjure Catholicism for Orthodoxy.
The King was an apostle of reunion of the two Churches, long before it was fashionable (it was indeed one of the things adduced against him at his “trial). Charles I had a Catholic Queen, the French Princess Henrietta Maria; not surprisingly, he favoured Catholics – bestowing on the Lords Baltimore both territory in Newfoundland and the colony of Maryland. Indeed, much to the annoyance of his Puritan and Scots Presbyterian subjects, Charles I kept up a close correspondence with the Holy See. In a letter of April 20, 1623, he wrote to Pope Gregory XV:
Never did they [his ancestors] carry the standard of Christ’s Cross against his most violent enemies with a more cheerful spirit than I will use and endeavour, that the peace and unity of the Christian Commonwealth, which hath been so long banished, may be brought back, returning, as it were, from captivity or the grave; for, since the subtlety and malice of the father of discords hath sown the seeds of such unhappy differences among those who profess the Christian religion this measure I deem most necessary… Wherefore by your Holiness be persuaded that I am and ever shall be of such moderation as to keep aloof, as far as possible, from every undertaking, which may testify any hatred towards the Roman Catholic religion; nay, rather I will seize al opportunities by a gentle and generous mode of conduct, to remove all sinister suspicions entirely; so that, as we all confess one undivided Trinity, and one Christ Crucified, we may be banded together unanimously into one faith. That I may accomplish this, I will reckon as trifling all my labours and vigilance, and even the hazards of kingdom and life itself.
As mentioned earlier, numerous witnesses and later authors attest to the King’s use of images and veneration of relics, Saints, and the Virgin Mary. But despite negotiations with Rome throughout his reign, three considerations kept him from reunion: A) the belief in the power of the Pope to depose Sovereigns (not a matter of Faith, to be sure); B) the intriguing of Cardinal Richelieu with his Puritan enemies (an experience shared with Holy Roman Emperors Ferdinand II and Ferdinand III); and C) the probable reaction of a large part of his people. In this last, of course, he was not mistaken. But, as Robin Davies observes: “It is significant that the King, in his last speech on the scaffold, did not make use of the word ‘Protestant,’ but described himself as ‘a Christian according to the profession of the Church of England, as I found it left me by my father.’ It must also be remembered that the word ‘Protestant,’ even in the 18th century, meant primarily, ‘pertaining to the Church of England,’ and that the sectarians, here [England] and abroad, were usually described by names indicative of their tenets – Anabaptists, Lutherans, Calvinists, etc.” What may be regarded as certain is that the King believed himself to be Catholic, and believed himself to be of the same Faith as the Pope. Much is made of Laud’s laughing rejection of the Red Hat – but it could not have been offered without the King’s consent, and from what we know of Charles’ character, it would have been most unlike him to have insisted that Laud accepted an honour he did not want.
SKCM patron (and honorary Vice President of the Friends of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham) Lord Nicholas Windsor has written “Although a small society we remain very active and lively in providing a fitting organisation to keep the memory of the life and death of King Charles. It was the Blessed John Henry Newman who recalled the Church to remember ‘our own Saint Charles’ and John Keble who wrote, ‘It is as natural that the Church of England should keep this day [30th January] as it is that Christ’s Universal Church should keep Saint Stephen’s martyrdom.’ In the King’s personal piety, devotion and support of the Church, his ecumenical understanding (far advanced for his day), his patronage of the Arts in the service of God, his inspiration of the Christian classic, Eikon Basilike and of course his martyrdom, we have much to REMEMBER and be thankful for.” It is certainly clear to the premiere Catholic layman of the United Kingdom that Charles I is an important part of the continuing patrimony – even as those figures earlier referred to are part of Eastern Catholicism’s heritage.
No less an Ordinariate figure than Fr. John Hunwicke has opined on the matter: “One may, surely, hope for an ecumenical and ecclesiological climate in which King Charles may achieve the style Blessed Charles; in which he will be regarded as the Ordinariate's Gift to the whole Catholic World; in which the King's weakness in giving his assent to Acts of Parliament under which Catholic priests were cruelly martyred ... to an Act of Attainder under which a loyal servant of the Crown was executed ... will be seen as moments in his growth into holiness and the eventual strength of Martyrdom. If it had not been for blessed Charles, would there now be an Ordinariate?”
Now that the first chapter of the SKCM has opened in an Ordinariate parish, how might Catholic devotees of the “White King” proceed? Since judgement on the Sanctity of Charles I is reserved to the Holy See, at this stage there cannot be, among Catholics in communion with Rome, Masses in honour of Charles as a Saint, which have of course long been the point of the SKCM in its strictly Anglican manifestations. But there certainly can be evensong commemorations and/or requiems on January 30, the day of his murder and December 7, the day of his birth – in similar manner to the way French and other Catholics commemorate Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. On May 29, Restoration Day, Votive Masses of Thanksgiving might be offered. But there is more.
As earlier noted, my late friend Fr. Jean Charles-Roux was a patron of the Society of King Charles the Martyr. A noted Catholic theologian (and, as it happened, chaplain on the set of Mel Gibson’s The Passion), Fr. Charles-Roux penned a pamphlet for the SKCM entitled The Sanctity of Charles I. He opened that work with a startling declaration:
Charles I, sole saint of the Anglican Communion since the Reformation, ought, in my view, to be canonised by Rome and acknowledged by the Universal Church, as one of the great Princes of Heaven, as a living illustration of how the union of Christians is to be achieved, as a major historical figure, meant by Providence, to instruct men about the doctrine and order of salvation. For the sanctity of this King is no mere private, domestic, or inner one, but one stamped with predestination and prophecy, moulded and proven by public events, and thus obviously purposed by the Almighty, to stand out through the succession of centuries, in order to present to the whole of mankind a positive and human image of principles and truths of everlasting value.
He goes on to attempt to prove his assertion, and it would be too long to rehearse the whole of his argument here. But amongst other things, Fr. Charles-Roux quotes a particularly telling letter from the King to Queen Henrietta Maria: “None of the reformed Churches abroad, except the Lutherans, can justify the succession of their priests; which, if the Church of England could not undoubtedly do, she would have one less son for me.” In this we see echoed one of the major concerns which has led many an Anglican to Rome since the 19th century – and even more so since women’s ordination. Thus, it would seem to me that Catholic members of the SKCM have a three-fold mission with regard to the memory of the King: commemoration; education (in the sense of learning and propagating the truth about him, as against the rather shallow prevalent modern view); and lastly – as with any fledgling candidate for beatification by the Holy See – private prayer for miracles through his intercession.
When alive, as did all the Stuart Kings and their predecessors on the English throne, and the Kings of France as well, Charles I was reputed to have the power of healing scrofula – “the King’s Evil” – by laying hands on the afflicted and praying. Samuel Johnson had this done for him by Queen Anne, apparently with success (the Hanoverians ceased the practice, but the Stuarts in exile continued to do so – resulting in the creation of several Jacobites!). But after Charles’ murder, healings of this and other diseases were apparently accomplished by application of various cloths dipped in his blood. If the Royal Martyr is indeed in Heaven, perhaps such miracles will be forthcoming. The SKCM could act as a clearing house for any such reports, until at last a diocese in the British Isles or one of the Ordinariates opened an official enquiry into his cause. At that point, the usual procedures would hold sway.
In addition, Catholic SKCM members should cultivate devotion to the 18 Catholics martyred by Parliament “under” Charles I – who in essence shared their parliamentary murderers with him, most especially Anglican converts William Ward and Henry Morse. Tyburn Convent, a shrine to the martyrs near Marble Arch, should become as much a place of Pilgrimage for Catholic SKCM members as it was for Queen Henrietta Maria (she also played a role in the propagation of devotion to the Sacred Heart). So too should it be with such Martyrs’ shrines as Ladyewell in Lancashire. Indeed, all the English and Welsh, Scots, and Irish martyrs should be foci of our devotion. There is also the approved cultus of Bl. Karl, who, as noted earlier, shares so many traits with the Royal Martyr, and already boasts Ordinariate members among his clients.
But there is yet more that Catholic devotees of King Charles can do. As previously noted, the Neo-Jacobites of the 19th century were of both Communions, as is the current membership of the Royal Stuart Society. As a result, the commemorative calendar of the latter is a useful example for the matters we are discussing. As a general rule, these are: January 30, Charles I (wreath-laying in Trafalgar Square, Evensong at St. George’s Windsor); February 8, Mary Queen of Scots (Catholic Requiem Mass); May 29, Restoration Day (banquet); and James II, June 10 (wreath laying at his statue, and occasionally a Catholic Requiem – being the birthday as well of James III, it is often called “White Rose Day”). On one occasion, 2014, the RSS sponsored a Mass for Bl. Karl I’s feast day (October 21) at the London’s Church of the Assumption and St. Gregory, but this was a one-time event. That church has also hosted Requiem Masses for the deceased members of the House of Stuart on various occasions (in 2014 in cooperation with the Latin Mass Society of Great Britain). It is now the Principal Church of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, which covers the British Isles. These commemorations are, for the stated reasons above, all particularly relevant to Catholic members of the SKCM. It is also wise to bear in mind that Henry VI, Katherine of Aragon, Mary Queen of Scots, James II, and his Queen, Mary of Modena have also been the subjects of causes for beatification which – for various reasons unconnected to themselves – are halted at the moment. Perhaps renewed interest, publicity, and prayers can restart them as well.
There are some, Catholic and non-Catholic, for whom the very notion of Charles I’s sanctity is anathema; there others in both camps who are just as convinced of it. It is well that it be so – this is why every Saint’s cause until the time of St. John Paul II had a devil’s advocate, whose role was to disprove the sanctity of the candidate, if possible. This was and is a necessary function, as the Church offers for her children’s veneration only those she is certain are in Heaven. There are an enormous number of Servants of God (folk whose causes have been introduced officially); whether it be Queen Isabel of Spain or Julius Nyerere, most of them come complete with built-in supporters and critics – although, as a Cradle Catholic myself, I wish them all well. At the end of the day, however, opinions do not count in this area – only objective reality; interestingly enough, for most of the office’s history, if the devil’s advocate failed to disprove the sanctity of an individual and canonisation was successful, he did penance at the altar of the new saint. For the Catholic, the ultimate judge of that reality is the Church herself. Until at some level of authority a cause is completed or condemned, Catholics are as free to argue in favour of the sanctity and pray for the intercession of a candidate as to adduce evidence against it – provided, of course, that all is done in the spirit of charity. Without that, it is ridiculous for either side to prattle about sanctity!
But regardless of whether or not Charles I is ever raised to the altars of the Catholic Church, like Louis XVI, Karl I, or Nicholas II, he remains a powerful symbol – a Sovereign willing to shed his blood for Catholic truth and for his people against organised tyranny and what has become the modern State; an entity which in our day has become so bold and so powerful that it presumes to alter at its whim the nature of marriage, of gender, and even of what might be called human. Whatever his or their failings in life, their deaths call for our admiration, and perhaps one day our emulation. Let us leave the White King and his brother Sovereigns with a poem by 19th century Catholic convert Lionel Johnson:
BY THE STATUE OF KING CHARLES AT CHARING CROSS.
To William Watson.
SOMBRE and rich, the skies;
Great glooms, and starry plains.
Gently the night wind sighs;
Else a vast silence reigns.
The splendid silence clings
Around me: and around
The saddest of all kings
Crowned, and again discrowned.
Comely and calm, he rides
Hard by his own Whitehall:
Only the night wind glides:
No crowds, nor rebels, brawl.
Gone, too, his Court: and yet,
The stars his courtiers are:
Stars in their stations set;
And every wandering star.
Alone he rides, alone,
The fair and fatal king:
Dark night is all his own,
That strange and solemn thing.
Which are more full of fate:
The stars; or those sad eyes?
Which are more still and great:
Those brows; or the dark skies?
Although his whole heart yearn
In passionate tragedy:
Never was face so stern
With sweet austerity.
Vanquished in life, his death
By beauty made amends:
The passing of his breath
Won his defeated ends.
Brief life, and hapless? Nay:
Through death, life grew sublime.
Speak after sentence? Yea:
And to the end of time.
Armoured he rides, his head
Bare to the stars of doom:
He triumphs now, the dead,
Beholding London‘s gloom.
Our wearier spirit faints,
Vexed in the world‘s employ:
His soul was of the saints;
And art to him was joy.
King, tried in fires of woe!
Men hunger for thy grace:
And through the night I go,
Loving thy mournful face.
Yet, when the city sleeps;
When all the cries are still:
The stars and heavenly deeps
Work out a perfect will.
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I write these words in the midst of the chaos of 2020. Years of confusing leadership from the Holy See, continual political wrangling, and the ever-creeping muzzle of political correctness have culminated in the Coronavirus lockdown and subsequent civil unrest.
But all of this sound and fury must not be allowed to obscure basic reality. To help us in this quest, God Himself, from the time He walked in Palestine, has performed miracles to prove His teachings. Many of these centre around that dogma that is perhaps the hardest – His Real Presence in the Bread and Wine He transubstantiates into His Body and Blood.
There are of course relics of His Precious Blood – either left behind at the Ascension or from His mages which have bled when attacked. But it is the Eucharistic Miracles which we will look at – specifically the six approved as authentic by the Church in the past three decades (despite the extraordinary scientific finding regarding the oldest – Lanciano.
The Eucharistic Miracle occurred at Marian Shrine of Finca Betania in Cúa, Venezuela, on December 8, 1991. It was while Father Otty Ossa Aristizábal, the Chaplain of the Shrine, was offering the Midnight Mass of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Having divided the large host into the customary four parts, he consumed one and returned the others to the paten. He looked down a few minutes later, and to his great surprise one of the three parts showed a red spot from which blood appeared to be leaking, as though from a wound.
Afterwards, he took the piece of the host, and secured it in the sacristy. Early the next morning he went to check on it and saw that it was continuing to bleed – but only on one side; the other was free of any red coloured liquid. Witnesses present at the Mass agreed that the priest had no wounds from which the blood could have come.
Bishop of Los Teques, Pio Bello Ricardo, ordered the fragment subjected to scientific analysis at the Department of Forensic Medicine of Caracas, which determined that the still-flowing blood is not of the same blood type of the priest, but AB positive – the same as on the Shroud of Turin, the Sudarium of Oviedo, and the Blood of Lanciano. Eventually, the Bishop allowed the Miraculous Host to be venerated in the Perpetual Adoration Chapel of the Augustinian Recollect Sisters of the Sacred Heart in Los Teques. There it continues to bleed and engulfed in various phenomena – occasionally caught by pilgrims on video.
Peculiar as this occurrence has been, more peculiar was awaiting the world in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The church of Santa Maria in the Argentine Capital’s Almagro district was destined to host not one but three Eucharistic Miracles.
The first occurred on May 1, 1992. After Mass, a Eucharistic Minister to return the Blessed Sacrament to the Tabernacle, he found two pieces of a large Host lying on the Corporal in front of it. The priest told him to put them into water to dissolve them, which is the usual way of disposing of unconsumed hosts. There they sat in the Tabernacle for a week, unchanged. But a week later, on May 8, they had turned reddish in colour, as though there were blood present.
Two days later, on Sunday, May 10, during the distribution of Holy Communion, drops of blood were seen in the patens from which the Eucharist was being distributed.
The containers and all other evidence were sent to the Archbishop. Strange as this was, two years later, on Sunday, July 24, 1994, as the Eucharistic Minister uncovered the ciborium to give Communion at the children’s Mass, to his shock there was a drop of blood running down the inner surface of the ciborium. This too was sent off to the Archbishop – who now had as an auxiliary one Jorge Bergoglio.
Another two years would pass, until, on the feast of the Assumption, 1996, someone received Communion in the hand and dropped it. Apparently considering it too dirty to consume, he left it there. A rather pious lady observed the whole thing and told the pastor, Father Alejandro Pese, what had occurred. He in turn put the host in container of water to dissolve and placed the container in the Tabernacle.
Once again, Heaven apparently had other ideas. After eleven days, the priest went to see what had occurred. Instead of dissolving, the host was sprouting reddish spots. They continued to grow in number throughout the wafer. Part of the host transformed into what looked like human tissue. It was sent to the Archdiocese. Three years later, the new Archbishop – Jorge Bergoglio – ordered the investigation of the samples.
In 1999, when Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, current Pope Francis, was archbishop, he learned of the investigation and wrote a letter requesting that they continue the investigation. Samples were extracted in the presence of the Archbishop’s notary. On October 21, 1999, a genetics laboratory began analysing the samples. The following January 28, they found human DNA in the samples: it is human blood that has a human genetic code – once again, AB Positive.
In March, Dr. Robert Lawrence, a forensic pathologist – an expert in tissues examination – was asked to participate in this analysis because of the discovery of substances resembling human tissue in the sample. He found human skin and white blood cells.
But Dr. Eduardo Ardonidoli, who had studied the host of Lanciano studied this host at the request of the Italian Episcopal Conference. He said: “This is probably heart tissue, it is not epidermis, that is, it is not human skin.” The sample was then sent to Professor John Walker of the University of Sydney in Australia and who reported that the samples sent were inflamed muscle cells accompanied by intact white blood cells. The inflammation indicated the person had suffered. In 2003 he further declared that these samples “may correspond” to inflamed heart tissue.
Next the foremost expert on hear pathology was consulted: Professor Federico Stigibe from New York City’s Columbia University. His report is sent on March 26, 2005, declaring “It is heart tissue. It has degenerative changes of the myocardium and these are due to the cells being inflamed and it is the left ventricle of the heart.” Dr. Stigbe says that the patient from whom these samples come had suffered a lot (he did not know that these samples came from a host), because they have stuck him at the chest and caused a heart attack.
Even more bizarre is the existence of white blood cells. If a person's blood is drawn, within 15 minutes the white blood cells disintegrate. So how is it possible that until 2005 white blood cells remain in the sample that was taken in 1996?
In any case, all of these mentioned miraculous items are able to be venerated at the parish to-day, in the Eucharistic Adoration Chapel, which bears a sign saying: “The Community of Santa María dedicates this Chapel to Permanent Adoration. The Eucharistic Sign and all the sacred vessels are preserved in it, from the events of 1992, 1994 and 1996. We hope that the Sign is for others what it has been for us, a path of discovery of Eucharistic Adoration.”
The next such occurrence took place in Kerala State India, at the Malankaran Rite Catholic church of St. Mary in Chirattakonam. There, on April 28, 2001, Fr. Johnson Karnoor, the pastor, began to lead the St. Jude Novena in front of the Blessed Sacrament exposed in the Monstrance. As he recited the prayers, he noticed three spots on the host. He halted the prayers, and then asked the laity present to examine the spots. Fr. Karnoor then asked them to keep praying, and reposed the Eucharist in the Tabernacle. Two days later, he offered Mass and left for the city of Trivandrum. When he returned to the church for the regular Sunday Mass on May 5, he vested and then opened the Tabernacle to see what had happened to the large host. He found that the dots had expanded and formed a human face. Both the altar boy and the faithful present saw it as well. They commenced adoration, during which the image became ever clearer and clearer. This continued – even as after adoration pictures were taken of it – the features were becoming clearer, and this was recorded on film. The host with the image is venerated there to-day, with permission of the Archbishop of Trivandrum.
The next such wonder struck at the parish church of San Martin de Tours in Guerrero State, Mexico, in October of 2006. Fr. Leopoldo Roque, the pastor, had invited Fr. Raymundo Reyna Esteban to lead a parish retreat. On October 21, while the two priests were distributing Communion, a hist was placed in a pyx held by a religious sister. She was to take communion to an ill lady in the parish; she looked up at the pastor weeping – the host had begun to bleed. Fr. Roque took charge of it and gave the host to the Bishop of the Diocese, Alejo Zavala Castro. He in turn appointed a Theological Commission of investigation.
Three years later, the Bishop asked Professor Ricardo Castañón Gómez to tackle the scientific analysis; the professor in turn recruited noted forensic specialist Dr. Eduardo Sánchez Lazo. Between October 2009 and October 2012 the team did its work, announcing its conclusions on May 25, 2013.
Having tested the samples using two different methods, they concluded that the bleeding was indeed coming from the host and could not have come from an outside source. The blood type was AB positive; microscopic analysis in 2010 showed that since 2006 much of the visible blood visible had coagulated. However, underlying internal layers featured fresh blood: the Eucharist was still bleeding. Moreover, there was heart tissue in the host – which incredibly was still alive, having as it did intact white and red blood cells and active macrophages. Moreover, as in Buenos Aires, the heart tissue was from the myocardium. The bishop approved the Eucharistic Miracle, and the host may be venerated in the church to-day.
The next occurrence was in St. Anthony’s church, Sokółka, in Northeast Poland’s Podlaskie Voivodeship. On October 12, 2008, during the 8:30 AM Mass, a priest dropped a host, picked it up, and placed it in the little contained of water by the Tabernacle. Afterwards, the religious sister who served as sacristan put the host and water into another vessel and locked it up in a safe in the sacristy so that the host would dissolve. They were the only ones with keys.
After a week, the nun looked into the safe at the pastor’s request to see the state of the host. Opening the vessel, she found the water to be clean and the host sporting a red spot in the centre, like a blood clot – which did not colour the water. She summoned the pastor, who came with several other priests, all of whom were astonished at the site.
The Archbishop of Bialystok, Edward Ozorowski, came to Sokółka with the Chancellor of the Curia, and several priests and professors to investigate. They too were moved, and the prelate ordered that the host be secured once more to see what might happen. On October 29, by order of the Archbishop the vessel was moved to the Tabernacle, and the following day was removed from the water – unchanged – and placed on a corporal in the Tabernacle of the church’s Divine Mercy Chapel.
Three years it sat there, until moved to the Tabernacle on the High Altar. The portion of the host with the changed form dried up by January of 2009, and since then has looked like a blood clot. In that month, the Archbishop ordered a scientific investigation of the phenomenon.
Famed scientists Maria Elżbieta Sobaniec-Łotowska and Stanisław Sulkowski were called in to study the “blood clot” independently of each other. Sulkowski was not informed of the origin of the sample. Both used extremely advanced instruments, and both reached the same conclusion: the sample examined was actually still living heart tissue, but joined in an inseparable manner to the host – as though the bread had simply turned to human tissue. In a word, it was simply impossible – yet there it was – and is! On Holy Thursday, April 9, 2009, by the decision of His Excellency, the church of St. Antoni Padewski in Sokółka was raised to the rank of the Collegiate Church and the Collegiate Chapter of the Blessed Sacrament was established to guard the miraculous host and spread devotion to the Eucharist.
Yet another Eucharistic Miracle was to strike in Poland, this time at Legnica, in Upper Silesia in the Southeastern part of the country. There, at the church of St. Hyacinth on Christmas Day, 2013, a host fell on the floor. Once more, it was put into water to dissolve – instead it turned red. Suitably impressed, the local bishop set up a committee to investigate the occurrence. In February the next year tiny samples were taken to be tested at the Department of Forensic Medicine in Szczecin.
Once again, it was found to be heart muscle that had been subjected to agony. These findings were sent to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome. They decreed that the Miraculous host should be exposed for veneration, which the Bishop announced on April 17, 2016. Since then, St. Hyacinth too has been a place of pilgrimage.
So what does all of this mean for us? It means that the age of miracles has not passed. It means that devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, the Sacred Heart, and the Precious Blood are all tied together – as are those of the Five Wounds, the Holy Face, Shoulder, and Name – and of course the Kingship of Christ. Intimately bound up with them, however are devotions to Our Lady – especially her Immaculate Heart and her Queenship.
Regardless of whatever in life fails us – to include ourselves – these things remain constant and true, and God has seen fit at this juncture of history to make miracles – beams of light from Heaven to pierce through the fog and darkness of this world of sin and shadows in which we live. All of the seeming unimportance and routine of our daily lives merely veil these effulgent realities. As Sir John Betjeman wrote of the seeming trivialities of Christmas:
So the stranger and more bizarre life becomes, hold ever closer to your Faith – especially the Blessed Sacrament, the Rosary, and the Scapular. Our Lord has repeatedly reminded us through the centuries, and nevermore than now that He is both real and in charge. So be of good cheer and bring as many as you can to the Church and her – that is to say His – Sacraments.
Here is a list of some books which I highly recommend for Catholics the Halloween season because they are important books that discuss some of the hidden realities of our world. If you have any book recommendations, we would love it if you would post them in the comments section below!
The Endless Knot is the first of a series of mysteries novels written by William Biersach. Here is a description taken from the summary:
Who is killing the Catholic bishops of Los Angeles? One by one, they're dying horribly. The clues surrounding the murders point to an occult connection and the police are stumped. Father John Baptist, cop-turned-priest, and Martin Feeney, his faithful gardener-turned-chronicler, are ordered by the anxious archbishop to get to the root of this baffling mystery. Together they uncover a terrifying conspiracy that threatens their faith, their sanity, and their lives.
One of the beautiful themes of The Endless Knot is that it shows that there’s no need to delve into a Tolkien novel to immerse yourself in a magical world, for the world that we live in is filled with wonder. On one end of the spectrum, there are priests who have the power to perform the Sacrifice of the Mass as well as administer the other sacraments for the salvation of mankind. On the other end of the spectrum, Christ’s enemies also possess powers of their own through witchcraft.
The mixture of macabre, serious Catholic commentary, and satire in such tasteful fashion is an incredible achievement that few writers would dare attempt. The wit and humor found within The Endless Knot are also rare commodities for Catholic novels, as they permeate the novel in such a way that you’re always 100% tuned in, for fear that you’ll miss any juicy little tidbit. Mixed together, these ingredients make a special cocktail that you will want to savor over and over again.
Are you a Catholic who’s tired of all the other nonsensical vampire crap that’s out there? In The Darkness Did Not, the second book in the Fr. Baptist series, Biersach delves into the Catholic perspective of what vampires really are. The biggest difference between Biersach's first two books is that while The Endless Knot deals with the macabre, it is not scary. The Darkness Did Not is.
As dark as The Endless Knot is, The Darkness Did Not is even darker. The title of the book is indeed a biblical reference to the line: “The light shineth in the darkness and the darkness did not comprehend it.” Thematically, the book explores the themes of light and dark. For example, it touches on the role that baptism has in salvation and damnation. In addition to that, there is discussion on the “light of truth,” and the people who recognize it. There is plenty of theology that Biersach touches on relating to these topics.
As previously mentioned, the book serves as a counter to the recent vampire craze in popular society. But in addition to that, the book is also in opposition to some of the more renown vampire novels by the likes of Bram Stoker and Anne Rice. As Biersach tells it, this occurs because an approach at establishing the nature of vampires is based off one's own philosophy and beliefs. Anne Rice's and Bram Stoker's beliefs are in conflict with Catholicism and truth, so their errors translate into skewed or distorted versions of vampires.
Because the book is over 500 pages, you'll have to find a way to make it through several sleepless nights before finishing it. But after you finish this classic Biersach thriller, you'll finally be able to rest in peace.
Father Amorth openly states that this book is not intended to demonstrate truths such as the existence of demons, the reality of demonic possession, and the power to expel demons, because those truths have already been revealed and are constantly taught by the Magisterium. Instead, Amorth wrote this book to serve as guidelines for other exorcists because it’s so hard to become learned in this area, largely because there is no longer any master/apprentice type of learning process.
There are some pretty fascinating cases that Amorth touches on, whether the possessed victim has superhuman strength, is totally immovable, or is a young child that provides the priest with some eerily profound answers to questions. There is one special chapter that is actually written by a victim of a demonic possession. And from the sound of it, it was a very severe one indeed.
The book concretely illustrates the battle of good versus evil in the world, and in doing so, reaffirms the importance of the sacraments, particularly that of Confession and Holy Orders. It is interesting to note that both the victim of a possession and Fr. Amorth state that Confession is more powerful than the rite of exorcism when it comes to expelling an evil influence from an individual.
Fr. Amorth’s words force you to reflect how your own life is similar to that of those who are possessed. Like them, Satan’s influence ebbs and flows with you based on how frequently you receive the sacraments, pray, and make an effort to lead a good Christian life.
By popular demand, Fr. Amorth wrote a sequel that is loaded with detailed accounts of possessions, each illustrating a unique purpose. He also seeks out to prove that demons do exist, and that the one of the Church’s primary roles is to expel them.There is plenty of content relating to the angels, Satan’s fall and role as prince of all creation, the six categories of Satan’s extraordinary activity (as opposed to ordinary, or temptation), the four principle causes of possession, and once again, the methodology for priests performing exorcisms.
One of the most interesting and unique parts of the book is its discussion on the “nefarious influence of certain music.” Amorth points out in an eye-opening analysis that music of evil influence abides by four principles. His explanation is excellent at peeling back a layer of self-deception that so many people have regarding popular music.
Hungry Souls recounts many eerie stories from trustworthy, Church-verified accounts of earthly visitations from the dead in Purgatory. Alongside these accounts are images from the "Museum of Purgatory" in Rome, which contains relics of encounters with the Holy Souls, including numerous evidences of hand prints burned into clothing and books. Also there are burn marks that cannot be explained by natural means or duplicated by artificial ones.
These stories are engaging yet sobering and written in a way that will incite you with a fervor to start praying for the souls in Purgatory. In addition to that, this book may change the way you view Purgatory: from viewing it simply as a waiting room for heaven, to understanding that it is a place of great suffering. The overall effect of this book is to try to instill in you a horror of sin and push you toward striving for greatness, for holiness.
Last but not least is Shane Leslie’s Ghost Book, which is a one-of-a-kind work, filled with incredible real-life ghost stories that ramp up in intensity the further you progress, eventually reaching a climactic point in the final story. It absolutely has left a huge mark on me, reinforcing the realities of this world and the fight of good versus evil. I don't want to describe too much else so as to take away from the book, however one of the reviews in our bookstore describes it thusly:
This was a wonderful collection of short stories that will stick with me and continue to remind me that there is more to this reality than I see in my rather plain everyday work life. Coffins floating into churches, deceased sons waving goodbye to family members and of course a few terrifying hauntings - beautifully (although sometimes frightening) memorable stories that give further evidence for our Catholic Faith. I do not want to experience such an encounter, but it makes life more meaningful knowing that such is reality. Either every single ghost encounter ever told across all humanity is a fake, lie, or gross misunderstanding, or yes, indeed ghosts do exist...
Patapsco Spirit was recently published in the summer of 2023 by Angelico Press, a very reputable and trusted Catholic publishing house. I noticed they secured a ringing endorsement from my good friend Charles Coulombe who had this to say about the book:
If you ever wondered how M. R. James might have written had he been a modern American, look no further. In this marvelous collection of ghostly tales, Addison Hodges Hart frightens, enchants, and occasionally instructs—without ever descending to the didactic. As with any tellers of ghost stories who succeed at their craft, Hart deals not only with the unseen, but with the intensely regional—in this case a part of Maryland that is close to Baltimore in mileage, but even now far away in soul. These tales are all the more thrilling and real for being squarely set in a moral universe.
So that’s it! There are the 7 books for Catholics which I highly recommend for the Halloween season. But I am sure there are a great many more out there. If you have any book recommendations for Halloween, we would love it if you could post them in the comments section below!
]]>Most people asked the title question to-day would doubtless contemptuously answer “no!” Some few – very few in these United States – might answer in the affirmative. But how well do either really understand what they are denying or assenting to? Just what is a Monarchy? For that matter, what is a republic? Just as our Federal Union, Hitler’s Germany, and North Korea are all called republics, so too are Austria-Hungary, Canada, and Imperial China called Monarchies. But in both cases, what a world of difference! About the only thing you can say that most Monarchies shall have in common is the hereditary principle in choosing the Sovereign – but that is not the case to-day with either the Holy See, the Sovereign Order of Malta, or the Co-Principality of Andorra; nor, for long stretches of history, was it true for either the Holy Roman Empire or the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
There is, of course, as with republics, a great difference between types of Monarchy. This diversity is reflected those which survive to-day. Of these, Great Britain and the Commonwealth Realms (sharing the British Queen but in all ways independent from HM’s UK government – Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, and twelve others), Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Andorra, Samoa, and Spain are Christian Constitutional Monarchies – that is, the Monarch reigns but does not rule, and the politicians do so in Their Majesties’ names. The Holy See, SMOM, Liechtenstein, Tonga, Lesotho, Swaziland, and Monaco are – to a greater or lesser degree – Christian Absolute Monarchies; this means that the Sovereign has the preponderance of political power subject to law and/or tradition (this seems like a lot, but it leaves them unable to bring in abortion or same-sex marriage – the ability to change reality belongs only to absolute “democracies”). There are Islamic Monarchies – Jordan (the closest to Western in style), Morocco, Malaysia (which is, as a Federal Constitutional Monarchy, a case apart), Brunei, Kuwait, The United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrein, Oman, and Saudi Arabia – in these the Will of the Ruler is tempered only by Sharia Law or whatever other codes he chooses to bind himself with. There are three Buddhist Monarchies – Bhutan (where the King recently divested himself of absolute power), Thailand, and Cambodia, in all of which the King’s authority as much or more religious than political. Then there is the Empire of Japan, where under the American-imposed 1947 Constitution the Emperor has no power, but remains an important symbol in national life. There are, in addition, throughout the Third World an army of Sultans, Rajas, Hereditary Kings and Tribal Chiefs, and various other “Traditional Rulers” (as they are called in UN-speak) ruling or reigning over select areas within ostensible republics.
Speaking of which, republics too come in several varieties, knowledge of which shall help us focus in on the question at hand. As with Monarchy, we generally suppose that republics do not rely on the hereditary principle for choosing their Head of State, though that is not always the case, as with North Korea, Cuba, and the Duvalier dynasty in Haiti. There are four major types of republics in the World to-day. The first is the executive republic, where the elected president has many of, most of or more than the powers of such as Louis XIV, Henry VIII, or Alexander III; such are the United States, Russia, France, and most of Latin America. There are Parliamentary republics, where the president – generally elected by parliament and not the populace as a whole – is a ceremonial figurehead with all the weakness and none of the prestige of a Constitutional Monarch (this is why their palaces are generally retirement homes for used-up politicians). Most European republics are of this variety. There are Islamic republics, which claim to incarnate both Sharia and the Will of the People; and then there is a wide variety of failed states – all of whom claim to be republics.
A true red herring that cuts across all of these lines is what media, government, and academia – the unholy trinity of opinion manufacture – are pleased to call democracy. Supposedly, all republics and Constitutional Monarchies are democracies by definition – although a certain strand of American Conservative insists upon the difference between a Constitutional republic such as the United States once were, and a democracy. But what is democracy? One might define it as majority rule, but since the great majority of countries that now have abortion and same-sex marriage had them imposed by judicial or legislative fiat when a great majority of their populations did not want them, this definition does not hold water. Indeed, democracy can be defined as whatever those really ruling a given country wish it to be – hence the old joke that the United States have a representative democracy, the pre-1989 Soviet Bloc featured “Peoples’ Democracy,” and Idi Amin defined cannibalism as “nutritional democracy.” But in reality, it functions as a smokescreen for those in power.
But to call oneself a Monarchist – even before we define our terms further – is to claim heirship to a record of failure in the last century or so. Since I was born in 1960, a lot of Monarchies have been overthrown: Nepal, Laos, Iran, Afghanistan, South Arabia, Yemen, Ethiopia (the last Christian Empire), Rwanda, Burundi, Libya, Zanzibar, and Greece – all of whom did far worse afterwards, however badly they might have been doing before. The same is true of those Commonwealth republics who more or less peacefully overthrew the Queen: Mauritius, Fiji, Trinidad and Tobago, Malta, Ceylon, Sierra Leone, Rhodesia, The Gambia, Kenya, Malawi, Tangyanika (Tanzania after merging with Zanzibar), Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana – and most disastrous of all, the Union of South Africa. My brother was born a mere seven years before me, but in that time. Monarchical attrition was rife: Vietnam, Tibet, Egypt and Sudan, Iraq, Pakistan, and Tunisia all bit the dust. Our father was born in 1926; before my brother came, he saw the overthrow of the Kings of Italy, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Yugoslavia, and the Regent of Hungary – and India and Ireland switched from Dominions to republics. Grandpa hit the jackpot, however! After his birth in 1890, Madagascar, Korea, Portugal, China, Germany (and its constituent Monarchies), Austria-Hungary, Russia, Turkey, and Mongolia all fell – as had Brazil the year before he was born. Certainly the Wars of the Three Kingdoms and the American, French, and Latin American Revolutions to -say nothing of the sad ends of Iturbide and Maximilian in Mexico – did not end well for Monarchists. Bear in mind, of course, that all of these fallen thrones were as different from one another as the surviving one.
Even so, if you google “Why I am a Monarchist,” you shall get about 10,900 results – and that includes only English-speakers. John Medaille, Michael Davis, and Ryan Hunter, Americans all, appear on the first page and give different cogent answers to the question. Mr. Davis asks a very important question: “But perhaps you might ask yourself—you who grew up on tales of King Arthur, and Cinderella, and the Chronicles of Narnia—when did you stop being a Monarchist?” Indeed, indeed. One might well make the argument that, just as the soul is naturally Christian, it is also naturally Monarchist. In any case, each of those gentlemen’s response to the stated question are worth reading.
But we still want to find out a bit more about the varieties of Monarchy before we can discover the answer to the title question – as to whether you, dear reader, really are a Monarchist yourself. Now, I must here admit an open bias. I am not really interested that much in non-Christian Monarchies. I would not have wanted to live under the Ottomans or the Qing. That said, however, such Sovereigns were almost always better than the freedom-talking tyrants who succeeded them. Nevertheless, I shall leave them out of the discussion.
Before I move on to more contemporary matters, however, I want to bring up for your delectation the views of Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas on the matter of governance. They held that there were three kinds of good government – Monarchy, Aristocracy, and what they called “Polity” – that is to say, rule by an educated, landholding, and military-serving citizenry. Opposed to these three were their corresponding bad governments: Tyranny, Oligarchy, and what they called “Democracy” – mob-rule. As far as they were concerned, however, the best form of government was “mixed,” featuring King, Nobility, and landholding, service-minded Commoners. This was the Medieval form of government – and it survives in a desiccated mummified form in the current British system, which resembles its origins in the same way and degree that the Church of England resembles Medieval Catholicism. Of course, neither sage spoke a mixed regime such as that which prevails throughout the West to-day, seamlessly combining Tyranny, Oligarchy, and the Mob! But one other feature of Medieval governance which must be touched upon is the dichotomy between authority and power. Authority – which is the right to say what ought to be done, came from God and was mediated to the Sovereign through the Church, hence the Coronation Rite; Power, the ability to make things happen, was diffused throughout the Estates of the Realm. The King had some, but so too did the Church, the Nobility, the Guilds, the towns – even the peasantry. A good King was like an orchestra leader, while a bad one brought not despotism but anarchy, as contending power-holders fought for more. With us, it is the opposite – power is concentrated in our ruling elites, while authority is dispersed among a largely amorphous electorate.
Regardless of when they were deposed or lost their powers, the Monarchs of Europe have left a strong mark upon every aspect of life, both in the Mother Continent and in the Daughter Nations across the Seas – including our United States. This includes law, the arts, the military, hunting, literature, and even much of the built heritage. Certainly, the first impulses toward government support of historical preservation, conservation, education, agriculture and anything else came from them, and we all benefit from that rich if forgotten legacy. But one supposes that gratitude is not a modern virtue.
In any case, this brings us to another Monarchical division; from the 17th to the 19th centuries, the Royal Houses of the British Isles, France, Spain, and Portugal divided; the last named century also saw the Royal Houses of Savoy and Hohenzollern annex or dominate all the other Sovereign Houses in Italy and Germany, with the influence of the Habsburgs being confined to their own domains. But these struggles were as much over ideology - the nature of the Monarchy in the given country – as genealogy. Within the context of the Modern World, the senior lines wished to retain the Traditional sort of Monarchy as developed in their respective countries, while the junior became the creatures of the new national Oligarchies, who wished to conceal their dominance with Royal trappings. In the Three Kingdoms, the supporters of the older line were first called Cavaliers during the first round of civil wars, and then Jacobites; their equivalents in France were called Legitimists (a name which came also to be applied to all such groups in Europe generically); in Spain were he Carlists, and in Portugal the Miguelists. All lost; with the exception of the Stuarts, who became extinct in the Male line, they all eventually sought refuge (alongside the deposed German and Italian Houses) in Habsburg Austria.
Although the Russian Tsars continued as champions of Orthodoxy, the new Monarchies of the Netherlands and Belgium were founded on more or less liberal principles, while those of Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece were erected on a strange mix of liberalism and Orthodoxy. The Scandinavian Kings, on the other hand, like the British, accommodated themselves to Oligarchical “democracy.” Thus, they survived alongside the British and the Benelux Sovereigns when the World Wars swept away most of Europe’s Monarchs.
All of that having been said, as I am not much interested in the non-Christian Monarchies, neither am I really that interested in the liberal or Constitutional Monarchies – save to maintain the existing one, which do have certain benefits, and in any case would be replaced with something worse. Nor am I unaware that from time to time some of their Monarchs (or in the case of Canada, Australia, and South Africa, their Governors-General) come into salutary Constitutional conflict with “their” governments. But it is Legitimist Monarchy that interests me.
To be sure, the proponents of Traditional Monarchy in the British Isles, France, Iberia, and Central Europe all had very different national mores. But ironically, as an American, it is easier for someone like me to see their commonalities than it might be for them. There are, roughly, five points in common, and it is upon these five points that a Monarchism for the 21st century can be developed. They may be summed up as Altar, Throne, Subsidiarity, Solidarity, and – for want of a better word – Occidentalism. Let us deal with each in turn.
The Altar symbolises the place of the Church in Society. Mediator of Divine authority to the Monarch, the Church Crowns and anoints him. But it also is the animating philosophy, the arbiter of morals. Accompanying public and private life, its ceremonial enriches everything from openings of the legislature and judiciary to school graduations. But these not only sanctify, but symbolise the Church’s proper role in education, social work, and every aspect of life.
The Throne deals with the place of the Monarch himself. Deriving his authority from God and national tradition, in the modern world he must have sufficient power to “protect his people from their politicians,” in the pithy phrase of Franz Josef. No Christian Monarch, as we have mentioned, has ever been absolute over Society in the way that – say – the Supreme Court of the United States is. But it seems to me that powers vested in the presidency by the Constitution, as opposed to the ones usurped by subsequent presidents and the judiciary – would be sufficient. Moreover, where subjects, enamoured as they are with the supposed power given them by voting, are content to allow presidents to usurp power, one can imagine how watchful they would be for any such actions on the part of a Monarch – precisely because he was hereditary.
All of the groups referred to earlier included provincial or local liberties – what we call to-day subsidiarity – among their rallying cries. This means that, politically, as much power as can be wielded effectively is devolved to the lowest possible level. In other words, while the King and his ministers preside over foreign and military affairs, whatever can be best done by the Provinces is left to them. They in turn leave to the counties what is best for them, and they to the towns and villages. But in, with, and under these levels of governance are Leo XIII called “Mediating Bodies,” and which modern commentators call “civil society” – churches, unions, societies, guilds, schools, and organisations of all kinds that are neither government nor business – all the way down to the family, each with the autonomy proper to it. Moreover, none of this is a gift, but a right, as confirmed in numerous Coronation oaths throughout European history.
Solidarity or Class Cooperation has gone by many names through the past few centuries: Solidarism, Social Monarchy, Distributism, Guild Socialism, Corporatism, and a number of others. What these various systems have in common is the idea that economics must be for the Common Good, and the first end of the Common Good is to provide sufficiently so that the inhabitants of a place can concentrate on the Salvation of their Souls, rather than just avoiding starvation. Ideas of how to achieve this vary considerably; but at the end of the day, the Sovereign is the guardian of all of the economic interests among his subjects, and do his level best to give them both sufficient harmony and sufficient freedom to pursue their welfare in this world and the next.
The last is the most difficult to define, but basically it is this: from the time that Christianity became the Established Church of Armenia, Ethiopia, Georgia, Nubia, and the Roman Empire, there has always existed the notion of Christendom, of the Res Publica Christiana – the idea that in a vague and loose way, all Christian realms were part of the same entity – despite whatever disputes they might have among themselves. This was expressed in different ways: the idea of the Holy Empire – whether Byzantine or Holy Roman, the Reichsidee, as the Germans put it. Used as we are to identifying Empires with despotism, it is difficult for us to understand what that meant originally: an organic but free union. As Viscount Bryce describes it,
“The territories over which Barbarossa would have declared his jurisdiction to extend may be classed under four heads: -- First, the German lands, in which, and in which alone, the Emperor was, up till the death of Frederick the Second, effective sovereign. Second, the non-German districts of the Holy Empire, where the Emperor was acknowledged as sole monarch, but in practice little regarded. Third, certain outlying countries, owing allegiance to the Empire, but governed by kings of their own. Fourth, the other states of Europe, whose rulers, while in most cases admitting the superior rank of the Emperor, were virtually independent of him.”
This idea would be carried on in different ways down to 1806. But this underlying unity was not merely Imperial; the Muslim invasion underscored the fact that Christian lands were really one – Abendland in German, l’Occident in French. Despite the disruption brought about between East and West in 1054 and then with the Protestant revolts, the survival of this idea is indicated by the Crusades and the various Holy and Catholic Leagues against the Muslim menace, down to the 18th century. Much the same might be said about the various anti-French Revolutionary coalitions, culminating in the Holy Alliance. A touch or two of this same spirit might be detected in the foundation of the European Union and the United Nations, far as those bodies may have strayed from any resemblance to this ideal.
All of which having been said, what does this mean for the Monarchist of the 21st century? Obviously, if one lives in a country with such a tradition, it is a matter of either increasing the position of the existing Monarchy to something approaching its days of greatness or restoring it where it has been overthrown. But what of the United States? Surely it is an impossible notion for our country – irrelevant at best, ridiculous at worst? By no means.
It is certainly true that Monarchism as an organised force in our country departed with the Loyalists in 1783. There have been a few – mostly literary figures – who have claimed the title since: Fitz-Greene Halleck, Ralph Adams Cram, and T.S. Eliot, to name a few, as well as ethnic figures such as Wilfrid Beaulieu, Pedro Villasenor, and Alcée Fortier who have had connections to foreign Monarchist groups. There have been and are philosophical Monarchists who without loyalty to a particular dynasty believe it in one or more of its various forms to be a better form of government. There are religious Monarchists who – whether Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican, Lutheran, Muslim, Buddhist, or Hindu – consider Monarchy to be the form of government most favourable to their Faith. Ever since 1789, foreign revolutions have sent thousands of emigres to our shores, and often they and/or their descendants retain some loyalty to their ancestral dynasty. Lastly, there are the Anglophiles, who to a greater or lesser degree wish that our country was still connected somehow to Great Britain.
But such Monarchism is a sentiment to indulge, not a cause to fight for. Still less is there a dynasty or even a unified “Crown of America” to rally around. There were abortive attempts to offer that Crown to Bonnie Prince Charlie, Prince Henry of Prussia, and Washington himself – all of whom refused it. San Francisco’s beloved Norton I claimed to be “Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico” – but it was the major symptom of his madness, for all that his adopted city accepted his scrip as legal tender. Harry Turtledove and Richard Dreyfuss imagined a world where the American Revolution had never occurred in The Two Georges. Walter Miller’s A Canticle for Leibowitz, which chronicles the history of the Church in a future post-Atomic War North America also shows successive the rise of the Harq-Hannegan dynasty from barbarian warlords to Tudor-style Emperors of Texarkana to Constitutional Monarchs of the Atlantic Confederacy. When the latter power is faced with an atomic war even worse than the one that almost wiped out mankind before, the Defence Minister refers to “His Supremacy’s Government.” In response, a lady reporter shoots back: “His Supremacy is an eleven-year-old boy, and to call it his government is not only archaic, but a highly dishonorable–even cheap! –attempt to shift the responsibility for a full denial from your own.” My own Star-Spangled Crown was an attempt to imagine a future where a truly American Monarchy was able to tie up the many loose ends in our national life.
But does any of this have any relevance to these United States outside the realm of fiction? Yes, I believe it does. Let us look again at those five points of Traditional Catholic Monarchy, and see where they might bring us. At first glance, the most opposed to the American ethos and impossible to bring to fruition would be the first – the Altar. This country has always prided itself on its religious diversity? Surely the adoption of Catholicism as the religion of the nation is not worth considering? Put in those terms, yes. But let us look at reality. Every society has an animating philosophy that functions as its state church – in the Soviet Union it was Communism. With us it was a combination of a synthetic religion of the country that basically deified the American experience and could be indulged in alongside any other faith, and a shared moral consensus. But the latter was destroyed during the 60s, and the former is dying before our very eyes. Something must replace it, if the Country is to survive, Why not Catholicism? Orestes Brownson foresaw its necessity for national liberty as early as the 1840s. Seen in this fashion, our evangelising our native land becomes as much a patriotic as a religious duty. If ever we accomplish it, the national institutions shall adjust to it – even as did those of Rome and the barbarians, from which adjustment came Christendom. Obviously, we are speaking of a long-term project; but one has to start somewhere – and this is something any Catholic American Monarchist would join in on as a sine qua non.
The second is even harder – the Throne! But again, not as much as one might think, given the quasi-regal status of the American presidency. As Harvard University Press says of Eric Nelson’s The Royalist Revolution, “On one side of the Atlantic, Nelson concludes, there would be kings without monarchy; on the other, monarchy without kings.” Of course, as we have seen during the Obama and Trump administrations, the current system makes the Head of State president not of everyone, but only of those who voted for him – while those who did not despise him. The personal staff of the president at the Whitehouse incorporates all the functions of both the Royal Household and Downing Street. In my novel I proposed a fictionalised version of the House of Liechtenstein as our prospective dynasty, because the youngest heir will inherit the claims to the British Isles of the Stuarts (under whom 12 of the 13 colonies were founded) and so descends from the French and Spanish Bourbons - thus encompassing within himself all three of our foundational Monarchical traditions. But, in truth, it would be extremely difficult to simply install a Monarch in this country – although it would probably be wise using a European dynast than an American family – sectional neutrality alone would call for it. In any case, there is little to be done in this area as things stand at the moment – save to speculate - and to vote for presidential candidates who might execute the office with a touch of style and dignity, as did FDR and JFK (whose policies I definitely did not agree with) and Ronald Reagan (with whom I did!).
Subsidiarity, however, is another thing entirely. This country was built on State Sovereignty – anything that would encourage State’s rights is important. But more than that is the need for healthy communities: county and city, town and country. Intelligent participation in local politics, local historical societies, historical preservation, conservation, cultural activities, and stimulating local businesses are all things that should attract Monarchists – both because the ends are worthwhile in themselves and because of the training one will get in doing things and the opportunities that will emerge to share one’s beliefs. Above all, as the afore-mentioned American religion dies, it is taking with it American patriotism. A new patriotism must be constructed form the bottom up: love of town leading to love of county, to love of State, to Region, and then to the totality of the States – a love of country based not upon some abstract ideology, but upon what is actually here. Evangelisation requires love of those to be evangelised – this we cannot do without exploring our area thoroughly. We must regain a sense of the Commonweal, of our country as a proper realm, filled with things that go together to make up a worthy focus of loyalty and love.
That sense of Commonweal, where we can, must bleed over into our economic life. Solidarity means not only looking after the poor, the sick, and the elderly, it also means trying to reconcile the various competing economic claims according to our state in life. If we are in Management, we should try to accommodate labour; if are with the Union we ought to try to see what we do in common with management. Shopping at local businesses and farmer’s markets is also something we can do in attempting to build a community worthy of a Monarch. We need to learn and where we can, employ, the Social Teachings of the Church. All of these, oddly enough, are possible sources of Monarchist action.
So too with forming our views regarding that Europe from whence we or our fathers came. We must remember that Europe, and many of Europe’s Sovereigns – from Ferdinand and Isabel who bankrolled Columbus, to King Christian X of Denmark, from whom we bought the Virgin Islands – erected the solid foundations upon which our national life has been built. When Europe is healthy, so are we; when not, not. To-day, as we know, Europe is in bad shape. The Mother Continent needs the Five Principles more now than ever before. The Austrian Paneuropa Movement, headed by the Archduke Karl von Habsburg, has some insights into just what Europe is:
“Christian motivated thinking and acting is the only alternative to the inhumane ideologies of Marxism, consumerism, Islamic fundamentalism and other sectarian doctrines of salvation. It is rooted in the realization that there is an absolutely valid order of values that extends beyond all times and forms and is anchored in the transcendental. Anyone who violates them not only damages the community, it also becomes a plaything for uncontrolled and uncontrollable forces. That is why we also want to know and shape politics in accordance with these values. Christianity has shaped Europe for almost two millennia. That's why Europe will be Christian, or it will not be Europe anymore.”
They go on to explain that:
“Europe is not just a geographical term for us, encompassing the area between the Atlantic and the Urals. Because of their centuries of common destiny, the peoples of our continent form a spiritual unity, which finally should follow the political, so that Europe can exist in peace and freedom as an equal partner of the great powers. The soul of this continent is Christianity. Whoever takes it out of political action, makes Europe a soulless body, a fragile construction that is exposed to all the influences and currents of the Zeitgeist.”
But in addition to the altar, the Throne too is important for Europe. Fr. Aidan Nichols, O.P., in his Christendom Awake! would call the Holy Roman Empire back into being:
But even if we do as the good Dominican suggests, and “dare to exercise a Christian imagination on an as yet unimaginable future,” what relevance would a loosely connected Christian European Empire made up of constituent Monarchies have for our American homeland – even if that same unimaginable future saw our States recast as a similar Monarchy of their own? Well, as the manifesto of another organisation, Identita Europea, puts it: “By encouraging an EUROPEAN IDENTITY we do not intend to promote a ‘western culture’ which absorbs and dissolves all diversities in a leveling attempt. On the contrary, our aim is to enlarge this identity beyond the European boundaries, thus recovering that large part of our continent ‘outside Europe’ – from Argentina to Canada and from South Africa to Australia – which looks at the old continent not as a distant ancestor but as a real homeland.” We owe it to ourselves to encourage the attempts of Europeans to revive their Continent – which, in a very real way, is ours too.
ALL OF THIS HAVING BEEN SAID, IT IS TIME NOW TO ANSWER THE QUESTION POSED BY OUR TITLE.
then you may well indeed be a Monarchist yourself. If nothing else, it is something worth deeply thinking about.
]]>Black as Night is the second book in a delightful series (preceded by The Shadow of the Bear). Follow the girl with "skin as white as snow" this Advent season as she faces both peril and promise.
When it comes to Catholic fiction, Doman's modern fairy tale retellings have always been at the top of my list. She deftly weaves the source material into a contemporary setting by likewise drawing profound spiritual elements into a creative and enthralling plotline. The reader is invested in her wonderful characters and what will become of them, leading to an emotional read. As a hopeless romantic, I loved the poignancy and beauty of these clean love stories. I also greatly appreciated finding "kindred spirits" in her characters, similar to when I read works by L.M. Montgomery or Jane Austen. As a counter-cultural Catholic woman in modern society, I have discovered that such a phenomenon is not always easy to find in novels of today. While I enjoyed all of Doman's books, Black as Night was my favorite. In addition to the deep reflections brought into the tale, some of the Catholic inclusions were also just plain "fun." After all, who can resist a retelling that turns the seven dwarves into seven lively, one-of-a-kind friars?!
Synopsis: During the summer in New York City, seven friars who work with the homeless stumble upon a runaway girl named Nora, while Bear Denniston searches for his missing girlfriend, Blanche, in a thrilling retelling of the classic "Snow White" story.
My second novel, The Rose and the Sword, includes Advent as both a setting and source of reflection. While I Thirst is the first book in the series, Books 1 and 2 of The Veritas Chronicles have been read and enjoyed out of order. Spiritual warfare, in the context of fighting against unexpected evil in the real world, is a key theme. Many faithful young Catholics will be presented with trials in a secular society and, with the armor of Christ, will be better prepared to face them. This novel was also written with the hope of refuting anti-Catholic misconceptions, especially those concerning Mary and the saints. The heroism of becoming a “little flower,” purity, and a brief pro-life storyline are other themes. While the series is officially categorized as YA Fiction, it has been enjoyed by all ages, from 14 to 65+.
Vincent Frankini of Tumblar House and Off the Menu has praised The Rose and the Sword as "classic good versus evil," citing "a counter-cultural approach between the protagonist and the villain(s)." He also stated, "Marinello-Sweeney is one of my favorite writers of characters because she is not afraid to include colorful...idiosyncrasies that are the stuff of life." Reviewers have called The Veritas Chronicles "poetic," "literary," and "thought-provoking." More review excerpts are included on the author’s website. Signed copies are available through Tumblar House at no additional cost.
Synopsis: Can a rose survive in winter? Rebecca Veritas is a new college graduate, eager to pursue her dreams as a clinical psychologist. After receiving a full scholarship for an internship recommended by her old professor and friend Dr. Everson, she leaves the quiet suburban town of Cedar Heights for the big city of Los Angeles. As she adjusts to her new surroundings, beginning to work with her assigned mentor and a wide variety of clients with all the enthusiasm of a fresh intern, she finds solace in a mysterious antique bookstore. Yet, as her thoughts still linger on someone from her past, she is unaware that the present has the potential to haunt her the most. As time passes, a growing sense of unease quickly transitions into more disturbing events that make her question if all is as it seems. When circumstances take an eerie turn, Rebecca will find herself a player on a larger scale than she had ever anticipated, a scale that could cause one to pay the ultimate price.
In this riveting sequel to I Thirst (2013 YATR Literary Award for Best Prologue), the adventures of Rebecca Veritas, the young, introspective dreamer with an inclination toward random insanity, continue.
While this isn't a Catholic novel, it includes Catholic elements—from feisty nuns to saint shout-outs—that are respectfully and tastefully employed. The Enchanted Sonata is a beautiful, imaginative retelling that combines "The Nutcracker" and "The Pied Piper" stories in an unique and compelling way. Not only is it a wholesome read that is perfectly appropriate for a Catholic audience, but the Christmas setting would make it an even greater delight to read during this season.
Heather Dixon Wallwork has been one of my favorite authors ever since I read her novel Entwined, a stunning retelling of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses" that also includes a reference to daily Mass. I quickly fell in love with the perfect blend of personality and classicism inherent in Dixon's writing style. Her works are always filled with an enchanting storyline, spellbinding language, and rich and colorful characters that will remain in your heart. Humor is sprinkled throughout with hysterical scenes that will likewise stay with you. While the romance is lovely and, again, very "classic" in the quality of its presentation, I also appreciated the strong emphasis on the importance of family; the intricate dynamics thereof are developed in such an artful and moving way. In each novel, there was a certain depth and profound Truth to the all-encompassing theme that encircled all other sub-themes and dynamics.
Grab a mug of hot chocolate, and enjoy this novel by the fireside as Christmas tree lights glimmer in the background!
Synopsis: Clara Stahlbaum has her future perfectly planned: marry the handsome pianist, Johann Kahler (ah!), and settle down to a life full of music. But all that changes on Christmas Eve, when Clara receives a mysterious and magical nutcracker. Whisked away to his world—an enchanted empire of beautiful palaces, fickle fairies, enormous rats, and a prince—Clara must face a magician who uses music as spells...and the future she thought she wanted. The Enchanted Sonata, a retelling of "The Nutcracker Ballet" with a dash of "The Pied Piper," will captivate readers of all ages.
This one is especially for the boys—though it also thoroughly captured my attention! The journey of Timothy Clement is a powerful testimony to forgiveness and hope that invests the reader emotionally from the very first page. In a carefully-drawn spectrum reminiscent of Les Misérables, our modern-day Jean Valjean eventually passes down the Christ-like legacy of love after encountering a series of human "guardian angels," most notably Brother Jude. While initially feeling disdain for the religious, a friendship is eventually born that is both beautiful and real, portrayed masterfully in both dialogue and wordless moments. Throughout the novel, Baker also seamlessly weaves a profound thematic thread pertaining to St. Anthony of Padua, the Patron Saint of Lost Articles. It is well-developed and poetic, remaining one of my very favorite elements of the book. As Timothy's mother lays dying, she gives her son a St. Anthony necklace, telling him, "He helps find people who are lost." I found this to be a beautiful variation on finding "lost articles." The richness of the symbolism will strike a chord with readers as Timothy refuses to part with the necklace even when its full meaning is unknown, even in the most dismal of circumstances when he is "lost."
The novel is also a beautiful tribute to the use of the gifts that God has given us. Art is especially highlighted as a gift that may be used for both good and ill, to harm or to heal. In a day and age in which the mainstream celebrates misuse of art and other special gifts, Please Don't Remove MarGreat's Glasses! serves as a keen reminder that may stimulate dialogue long after the last page is read. If you are looking for a story of redemption this Christmas, check out MarGreat!
Synopsis: Please Don’t Remove MarGreat’s Glasses! is an inspirational tale of redemption for young adults which demonstrates the healing power of God’s immeasurable grace.
Timothy Clement was like every other high-privileged teenager. The only thing that mattered to him was parties, girls, money and his ride into Yale Law School. Life was good. After a night of drinking and gambling, Timothy found himself on the wrong side of an illegal gambling scheme which would change his life forever.
Losing his brother due to his own irresponsible behavior was the wake-up call he needed. After his brother’s death, Timothy’s family abandoned him. He found himself imprisoned, broke and alone. After several years in prison, Timothy was paroled back in to society. Trying to fit back in would prove to be his biggest challenge.
Just as he thought there was no hope of living a normal, productive life, a man named Jude took him in, gave him a place to sleep, and tried to teach him to put his faith in God. Timothy, being an atheist, would hear nothing of the sort. Can this God-fearing man show the atheist the road to eternal love and salvation?
Looking for a middle-grade novel for your child? Are you yourself young at heart? Seven Riddles to Nowhere may be considered a Catholic version of the highly-acclaimed novel The Westing Game with its own distinctive twists and turns. It is an engrossing and fun mystery novel filled with adventure and suspense. While I have never been to Chicago, I found myself captivated by the journey of Kam and his friends as they searched the churches in the area for clues. The cathedrals were described in such vivid detail that I almost felt as if I were there, and the Catholic nerd in me was thrilled at the symbolism and intricate images therein. It is no surprise that Cattapan is also a teacher, as this novel would serve as a fabulous educational tool for students at the middle or high school level taking English, religion, or local history courses. The author is a master at developing quirks and other distinctive attributes that allow you to get to know her characters deeply and feel as if they are real people—from Kam, a selective mute, to his best friend, Vin, whose other best friend is hand sanitizer, from Vin's sister, the excitable Analyn, who is always looking for the opportunity to eat, to *her* best friend, Nakia, the resident Catholic Nerd Expert. These unique characters gather together to solve a mystery that has the reader guessing alongside them.
While Seven Riddles to Nowhere is a lighthearted novel, its themes are far from shallow or trivial in scope and speak to the mission of young Catholics today. In fact, I could see it being read as a precursor to World Youth Day to get young people enthused about the event. It is both timeless and timely. If you're looking for an enjoyable book for your child (or yourself!) this Advent that also provides good lessons to learn, Seven Riddles may be the answer you seek.
Would you like to see more? Tumblar House has a large selection of Catholic novels, intuitively sorted and categorized for easy browsing.
]]>Ultra-Realism is also known as Neo-Platonism. So let's start with the first part --- neo-Platonist. A "Platonist" is a follower of the Greek philosopher Plato (428-348 B.C.). A disciple of Socrates (indeed, Plato's written accounts of his teacher's thoughts are the only record we have of them), Plato was also the mentor of Aristotle, with whom, however, he disagreed in several ways. Plato's writings on various topics are voluminous. In a nutshell, he taught that spirit is superior to matter, and that this physical world at once symbolises and conceals a greater, spiritual one.
Various of his later followers over many centuries amplified or elaborated one or another of his teachings. These are called Neo-Platonists. There were and are many different schools of them, often differing wildly. The Church Fathers, the Catholic writers of the first six centuries, were all Neo-Platonists. Their teachings on the supremacy of the spiritual, etc., were filtered through and corrected by Christian Revelation. For example, they did not regard the flesh as evil, in the way that some Neo-Pagans did; rather, although they found it inferior and often trying to the spirit, they knew that the Body is destined to rise in glorified form on the Last Day, and spend eternity with the Soul in heaven (or in hell, if that's how the individual goes!).
As to Ultra-Realism, this refers to a specific Platonic teaching. Plato held that both abstract ideas like "love" and "truth" and concrete things like "horse" or "table" were earthly manifestations of certain "archetypes" or "universals." Thus, we are men because we partake of the Universal "Man."
For Plato, these Universals subsist in a supernal realm of their own, of which this one is a mere reflexion --- even as the things in it are reflexions of the Universals. Christian Neo-Platonists, however, taught that, while real, the Universals exist in the mind of God. They are, so to speak, the patterns through which He continues to will the existence of Creation minute-by-minute. This is called, in terms of classical philosophy, "Realism."
Plato's student Aristotle, however, was a materialist --- he believed that matter was self-existent, with neither beginning nor end, and that there is no personal God. For him, although the Universals are real in a sense, they derive their reality from the sum total of their physical manifestations. In other words, where Plato would teach that horses are horses because they reflect "Horse," Aristotle held that "Horse" is "Horse" because it reflects horses. The distinction (and the very ideas discussed!) may seem terribly abstract, but as we shall see, they have had frightfully concrete results.
At any rate, when Aristotle was re-discovered in the 13th century, and popularised by St. Thomas Aquinas, his view of the Universals came to be called "Moderate Realism," as opposed to the older view, which received in its turn the title of "Ultra-Realism." After a while, the two titles came to be used interchangeably with Neo-Platonist on the one hand, and Aristotelian and Thomist on the other. But of course, the two "Realist" titles refer to only one aspect of either body of teaching, and in fact there have been Moderate Realists who were Neo-Platonists in most other areas.
One key area where the question of the Universals affects Catholic dogma is in understanding the Fall of Man. For the Ultra-Realist, it was a simple question. Typical of their views was that of Odo of Tournai (d. 1113), summarised by Paul Glenn thusly:
The human race is of one specific substance. At first, this substance was found in only two persons. They sinned, and being the whole human substance, this entire substance was vitiated by their sin. Hence Original Sin is transmitted by natural necessity to all human individuals. New births are not productions of new substances, but are merely new properties of the already existing human substance. Individual men differ only accidentally.
By the same token, Baptism has the effect of removing the individual from the substance or Universal of Fallen Humanity, and inserting him into that of Redeemed Humanity. In a nutshell, it makes of him a new creature. This is all rather reminiscent of genetics, actually --- not surprising in the light of the 1311 definition of the Council of Vienne, that the soul is the form of the body. In this last we see again Plato's assertion that the material symbolises the spiritual.
But for the Moderate Realists, the whole question of the Fall is problematic. If the Universal "Man" derives its reality from the sum total of men who have ever been or ever will be, how could the Sin of Adam taint them all? As Fr. Frederick Copleston, S.J., a leading Thomist and historian of philosophy put it, "How Theologians understand Original Sin to-day is not clear to me." Nor could it be.
Another key teaching of most Ultra-Realists is that --- in contradiction to Aristotle --- the Will precedes the Intellect. That is, that the Will is the basic motive force of the personality which dominates and controls the Intellect, the faculty which receives and processes information. Central to understanding the significance of this teaching is the notion of Good Will versus Bad Will. Good Will is love of Truth; Bad Will is love of self. Obviously, all human beings have both sorts, in quantities which vary from time. But to the degree that an individual is Good-willed, his intellect will discern the Truth. To the degree that he is Bad-willed, his intellect will accept or interpret perceived reality according to what fulfils his selfish motives. Thus, someone who knows better can apostatise, while someone with a minimum exposure to the Faith can convert. Of course, there are all sorts of other repercussions.
For the Moderate Realist, however, the Intellect precedes the Will: one can only know Good if one is exposed to it or taught it. In a word, the individual is at the mercy of his upbringing and education. Of course, were this true, all those educated alike, with similar early-life experiences, would turn out the same way. There could be neither apostasies nor conversions. We know that this is not the case however. There are a number of other differences, but these are perhaps the most germane.
These are questions you might well ask a Thomist! But let's tackle them in reverse. Firstly, for one's salvation, per se, all you require adherence to the Church's doctrine. But we do not live in a vacuum. One has to live one's Faith, and deal with the world around him while he does so. Philosophy in general is one's way of looking at reality. The minute you begin to apply the Faith to living --- presto! You are a philosopher! Then it becomes a question of what philosophy you will use. The criteria are simple: does the given philosophy a) gibe with the Faith?; and b) does it correspond to objective reality? (there are of course schools of thought which maintain either that there is no objective reality or that we cannot know what it is if it exists --- we need not worry about those).
By this yardstick alone, Aristotelianism and its derivatives are found wanting, because of their materialism: they are philosophies ill-fitted for Catholics, because they deny the basis of Catholicism (even though some of them affirm the Faith consciously), and because they are simply untrue, as we shall see.
Indeed I do. In fact, it rocked the very foundations of both the Medieval Church and State. Medievalist Norman F. Cantor of New York University says:
We do not, however, need the romantic projection of the Middle Ages. Directly accessible to us is the medieval intelligentsia's perception of its own culture and society. In assessing their own world, medieval intellectuals were heavily conditioned by a persistent idealism that saw in society around them signs of the earthly incarnation of the Heavenly City. The perception of the early-twelfth-century poet Bernard of Morval was the base line in Medieval assessment: "God's own nation, God's own congregation. Magnificent towers, fair homeland of flowers, thou country of life [Trans. E.J. Martin].
The central dogma of the Incarnation likewise governed the social perceptions of medieval people. They were preconditioned by the dogma of the Incarnation, and the philosophy of "realism" which underlies it, to find the ideal within the material, the beautiful within the ugly, the moral and peaceful in the midst of violence and disorder. "The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us," full of grace and truth." Since everything was of divine creation, medieval intellectuals had no doubt that all the pieces would ultimately fit together in an idealistic, morally committed structure. Whatever they saw or experienced was part of a divine manifestation.
The Catholic or universal Church does not merely aim to be an aggregation of particular Christian communities and of the believers composing them; she regards herself as a superior power, as a reality distinct from and independent of the individuals belonging to the fold. If the Idea, that is, the general or universal, were not a reality, "the Church" would be a mere collective term, and the particular churches, or rather the individuals composing them, would be the only realities. Hence, the Church must be [Ultra-] realistic, and declare with the Academy [Plato's School]: Universals are real. Catholicism is synonymous with [Ultra-] realism.
These notions had political repercussions as well. If a given Pope or Emperor were evil, this was not held to diminish the essential goodness of the Institutions which they headed. Moreover, resistance to evils committed by Pope or Emperor did not necessarily imply disloyalty to Church or Empire.
Similarly, the doctrine grew up on the national level of the "King's Two Bodies." The Body Political was simply the King as embodiment of the Crown. He never died, nor could do any wrong. He was Crowned and anointed by God through the medium of the country's leading prelate, and in some places was held to have miraculous powers. Loyalty to the King was indeed a holy obligation.
But there also subsisted in the person of the King the Body natural. This was the human being who wore the Crown at the moment. He could sin, he could err, he would die. If he stepped out of bounds, if he broke the law, then loyalty demanded he be compelled to step back within its bounds. Hence Magna Carta is couched as a gracious confirmation of the rights of his Bishops and Barons by a loving King. We moderns might consider it an exercise in hypocrisy, since we know that King John was forced to sign it by the great men of his realm. But it would not have been seen that way by either the King or the Magnates.
This is because, for the Medievals, Law was also seen as something self-existent; it bound King and Subjects alike. It could not be created, and legislation in our sense did not exist. Rather, it was something to be discovered and concretely applied to any given situation. It was thus considered natural that different provinces should have wildly differing systems of law, and that the King should reign in each province in accord with its particular legal code.
But that reign was, in itself, a very intangible thing. The medieval world distinguished between authority and power. Authority, which came from God, was the right to say what ought to be done; power was the ability to make it happen. In a word, it was the difference between a doctor's authority to prescribe, and his patient's power not to fulfil that prescription. Without the Secret Police and Internal Revenue of the Modern State, the King's power outside his capital, palaces, and estates was limited. Power was widely diffused among the Church, nobility, and guilds. But the King's authority, subject to the law, was unlimited. Hence, although there were no FBI nor RCMP to enforce it, the King's Peace was observed on the King's Highways. When private citizens or groups suppressed banditry, they did not (although unsubsidised by and often unknown to the King) enforce peace on their own account, but in the name of the King. If His Majesty wanted to bring a restive city or great lord to heel, he must declare them outside his protection --- "outlawed." In a word, the Medieval state, to a degree unbelievable to us to-day, rested upon an act of collective Faith, a product of Neo-Platonism.
This being true of national entities, it was truer still of the Holy Roman Empire. In theory, the Empire had never died. Rather, it encompassed all of Christendom, and its frontiers ran wherever a baptised Christian lived. Founded by Constantine and renewed (in the West) by Charlemagne, it formed the psychological and spiritual bedrock of all European governance. As Viscount Bryce puts it:
The realistic philosophy, and the needs of a time when the only notion of civil or religious order was submission to authority, required the World State to be a monarchy: tradition, as well as the continued existence of a part of the ancient institutions, gave the monarch the name of Roman Emperor. A king could not be universal sovereign, for there were many kings: the Emperor must be universal, for there had never been but one Emperor; he had in older and brighter days been the actual lord of the civilised world; the seat of his power was placed beside that of the spiritual autocrat of Christendom. His functions will be seen most clearly if we deduce them from the leading principle of medieval mythology, the exact correspondence of earth and heaven [Neo-Platonism again! CAC]. As God, in the midst of the celestial hierarchy, rules blessed spirits in Paradise, so the Pope, His vicar, raised above priests, bishops, metropolitans, reigns over the souls of mortal men below. But as God is Lord of earth as well as of heaven. So must he (the Imperator coelestis ) be represented by a second earthly viceroy, the Emperor ( Imperator terrenus), whose authority shall be of and for this present life. And as in this present world the soul cannot act save through the body, while yet the body is no more than an instrument and means for the soul's manifestation, so there must be a rule and care of men’s bodies as well as their souls, yet subordinated always to the well-being of that element which is the purer and more enduring. It is under the emblem of soul and body that the relation of the papal and imperial power is presented to us throughout the Middle Ages. The Pope, as God’s Vicar in matters spiritual, is to lead men to eternal life; the Emperor, as vicar in matters temporal, must so control them in their dealings with one another that they are able to pursue undisturbed the spiritual life, and thereby attain the same supreme and common end of everlasting happiness. In view of this object his chief duty is to maintain peace in the world, while towards the Church his position is that of Advocate or Patron, a title borrowed from the practise adopted by churches and monasteries of choosing some powerful baron to protect their lands and lead their tenants in war. The functions of Advocacy are twofold: at home to make the Christian people obedient to the priesthood, and to execute priestly decrees upon heretics and sinners; abroad to propagate the Faith among the heathen, sparing not to use carnal weapons. Thus does the Emperor answer in every point to his antitype the Pope, his power being yet of a lower rank, created on the analogy of the papal "Thus the Holy Roman Church and the Holy Roman Empire are one and the same thing, seen from different sides; and Catholicism, the principle of the universal Christian society, is also Romanism. "
Nor was this view confined to the West. Between 1394 and 1397, Anthony IV, Patriarch of Constantinople, wrote a letter to Prince Basil I of Moscow, reprimanding the Muscovite Prince for having had the Byzantine Emperor ’ s name removed from the liturgy. The Patriarch took a particularly grave view of Basil's statement: "We have the church, but not the emperor." To acknowledge the authority over Russia of the Patriarch but not of the Emperor is, Anthony points out, a contradiction in terms: for "it is not possible for Christians to have the Church and not to have the Empire. For Church and Empire have a great unity and community; nor is it possible for them to be separated from one another." And, in an attempt to make the Russian sovereign see the grievous error of his ways, and in pursuance of his own duty as "universal teacher of all Christians," the Patriarch solemnly reiterated the basic principle of Byzantine political philosophy. "The holy Emperor," he writes, "is not as other rulers and other governors of other regions are." He is anointed with the great myrrh, and is consecrated basileus and autocrator of the Romans --- to wit, of all Christians." These other rulers, "who are called Kings promiscuously among the nations," exercise a purely local authority; the basileus alone is "lord and master of the oikoumene," the "universal Emperor," "the natural King" whose laws and ordinances are accepted in the whole world. His oecumenical sovereignty is made manifest by the liturgical commemoration of his name in the churches of Christendom; and, as the patriarch’s letter pointedly implies, the prince of Moscow by discontinuing this practise within his realm had deliberately rejected the very foundations of Byzantine law and government.
There are few documents which express with such force and clarity the basic theory of the Medieval Byzantine Commonwealth. The Patriarch Anthony’s letter is a classic exposition of the doctrine of the universal East Roman Empire, ruled by the basileus , successor of Constantine and vicegerent of God, supreme law-giver of Christendom, whose authority was held to extend, at least in a spiritual and "metapolitical" sense, over all Christian rulers and peoples. The fact that this solemn and defiant political profession of faith was made from the capital of a state that was facing political and military collapse, only emphasises the astonishing strength and continuity of this political vision which pervades the entire history of Byzantium and had hitherto been accepted implicitly by the nations of Eastern Europe.
This Imperial ideology, on the surface so foreign to our own time, is nevertheless a key concept to grasp. Accepted from Ireland (whose High King was held to "take stock" from the Holy Roman Emperors by the Brehon Laws) to Russia, it has had numerous repercussions in subsequent history.
Kings and Emperors alike owed their allegiance and their authority to the Church; indeed, it may be said that the Catholic religion expressed via Neo-Platonism was quite simply the animating spirit of all sectors of society, high and low. Because we tend to-day to focus our attention (favourable or otherwise) on the externals of the Church --- her clergy, laws, and property, we tend to forget that these were not the major concerns of Medieval Christians. For them, the Church was a living thing, a Universal bound about and nourished by the Seven Sacraments, through which she rescued those who entered her through Baptism from the fallen world. Outside her portals lay only death and the dominion of the devil; inside her bosom alone could humanity find personal salvation. The figure of Noah’s Ark was used to illustrate this point. Church membership was necessary to avoid hell not because of mere technicality, but because only her Sacraments applied the merits of Christ directly to the believer. Without this application, the ruin wreaked by Adam’s Fall on Creation could not be expunged from the individual’s soul, nor could he be incorporated into the Body of Christ, without whom, as the Gospels told our ancestors, no one could come to the Father.
The Medieval synthesis in Church and State began to unravel early in the 13th century. This was due in large part to the growth of Aristotelian philosophy. As we have seen, the basically materialist, Aristotle did not believe in a transcendent world of spirit superior to this one, by which actions in this world must be gauged; he held that the Universals derived their reality from the sum total of their parts --- their physical manifestations. Although initially condemned by Church authorities (and regarded with suspicion by the Franciscans, Augustinians and other theological schools for a considerable time afterward), the attempted synthesis of Aristotlianism with Catholicism had far reaching effects upon a society based in large degree upon the unseen.
It took time for the Aristotelian worldview to pass down through society (indeed, amongst much of the European peasantry it would be 1914 or later). But its results were close at hand. The notion of Christendom as an invisible yet tangible organisation began to break down almost immediately. The trans-national effort needed to establish and maintain the Crusader States in Palestine and Syria began very quickly to wither as national rulers looked more to their own affairs. By 1291, the last posts in the East had fallen. From that time until 1571, when another international force defeated the Turks at the battle of Lepanto, Islam would sweep through Asia Minor and the Balkans. Even Lepanto did not halt their advance on land, and so late as 1683 the Turks would come close to taking Vienna. The Muslims would roll over Greek and Bulgar, Serb and Romanian, Croat and Magyar, with very little help from the distracted West. Nor would the Russians receive much either, when the Tartars overwhelmed them. These lessons would not be lost on the Christian East.
Kings ever more considered themselves independent of the Empire, while the Guelph and Ghibelline struggles between supporters of the Pope and the Emperor, the two pillars of Christendom, reduced Germany and Italy to anarchy. Nor was the intangible King’s peace spared, as the Thirty Years War (as much a French civil conflict as a struggle between France and England) enveloped France, after which the Wars of the Roses shattered England. Castile and various other Spanish states likewise suffered civil war, even while struggling to eject the Moors from their remaining possessions. The Black Death slaughtered thousands, while the rise of a money economy altered the nature of European commerce profoundly. Some men prospered, others went broke, and a bourgeoisie began to rise alongside banking. The Church itself suffered the Great Schism; if ever there were a signal that the old Christendom was vanishing, surely the spectacle of three warring Popes was it.
As the 15th century progressed, however, in France, England, and elsewhere, Kings and Princes attempted to tame the chaos with a new order, based not upon theory, but fact: the nobles must be tamed, the Church controlled, the provinces unified. The Tudors in England and the Valois in France set themselves just that task. Nor were they the only ones.
All of this was merely external, however. The internal effects upon Church belief were if anything, more devastating. The earlier mentioned problem with Original Sin boiled and bubbled along. Then too, the obvious contradictions between Catholic teaching and Aristotelian philosophy led some philosophers to the "Double Truth," the notion that something can be true in philosophy and false in theology, or vice versa. Thus, as in Orwell’s 1984, a Churchman could hold two mutually contradictory positions with equal fervour.
In time (about 1492, to be precise), a New World was discovered, which appeared to be completely un-evangelised. In it were multitudes who had never heard --- as it was thought --- of Christ and His Church. To the still basically Neo-Platonic rank-and-file of Church members, this was a grand opportunity. The spread of the Gospel to Men of Good Will had always been a major priority. But for Aristotelians it posed a major problem.
Since, for them, the Intellect preceded the Will, they were at a loss to understand why God would have created so many who had no opportunity to receive the Faith. Not for them the knowledge of St. Francis Xavier that he had been sent to the East Indies by God at the time he was due to the Good Will and receptivity of his hearers; not for them the miraculous bilocations of Ven. Maria de Agreda to similarly Good-Willed Indians; no, they must decide for themselves that God had created folk who were incapable of receiving the Faith.
This settled, they then attempted to maintain the justice of God by inventing the notion of Invincible Ignorance, a term borrowed from Moral Theology. In that area, it simply meant that if a person did not know a sin was wrong, he was not responsible. The Aristotelians then taught that if a person did know the Faith, he did not need to know it, he did not have to belong to it. He would be saved on his own merits, so to speak, without membership in the Church, the definition of which they could not arrive at anyway. In time, this became the idea of the "Anonymous Christian" --- universal Salvation. In a word, the adoption of Moderate Realism led, over many centuries, to the eventual political extinction of Christendom, and essential dismissal of the Church as irrelevant by its most influential theologians.
There is a long list, to be sure. In truth, I should probably start with St. John the Evangelist. The prologue of his Gospel (to say nothing of its body, his Epistles and the Apocalypse) sum up the whole of Christian Neo-Platonism/Ultra-realism. One could add St. Dionysius the Areopagite, convert of St. Paul, first Bishop of Athens, first Bishop of Paris, and author of The Divine Hierarchies and other works. (Yes, I am aware that people since Luther have declared that these four qualities belong to four separate Dionysii, and insist on calling the author the "Pseudo-Dionysius;" I consider their pretensions exploded by the writings of such as Dom Gueranger and the martyred Archbishop Darboy).
I will give a chronological listing with names and dates, and suggest that you run to the encyclopaedia to look them up!
St. Justin Martyr (d. 166)
St. Irenaeus (140-202)
St. Hippolytus (d. 235)
St. Clement of Alexandria (150-214)
Origen (185-254) Arnobius (d. 325)
Lactantius (d. 330)
St. Athanasius (295-373)
St. Basil the Great (331-379)
St. Gregory Nazianzen (330-391)
St. Gregory of Nyssa (332-395)
Synesius (370-413)
Nemesius of Phoenicia (5th century) St. Hilary of Poitiers (320-368)
St. Ambrose (340-397)
St. Jerome (331-420)
St. Augustine (354-430)
St. Leo the Great (400-461)
St. Prosper of Aquitaine (d. 463)
Claudius Mamertus (d. 473)
Boethius (480-522)
St. Gregory the Great (540-604)
St. Gregory of Tours (539-594)
St. Leander (534-601)
St. Isidore (570-636)
St. Idlephonse (d. 667)
St. Bede the Venerable (674-735)
As you can see, the list encompasses virtually all of the Church Fathers. And, of course, while this is not a matter of Faith, on matters of Faith the unanimous opinion of the Fathers approaches Infallibility! Anyway, let’s continue into the Middle Ages.
Alcuin (735-804)
Fredegis (early 9th century)
John Scotus Erigena (810-878)
Gerbert [Pope Sylvester II] (945-1003)
St. Anselm (1033-1109)
Odo of Tournai (d. 1113)
Bernard of Chartres (d. 1130)
Thierry of Chartres (d. 1155)
William of Conches (1080-1154)
St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1091-1153)
Hugh of St. Victor (1096-1141)
Robert Grosseteste (1170-1253)
Richard of St. Victor (d. 1175)
Walter of St. Victor (mid-12th century)
Bernard of Tours (mid-12th century)
William of Auvergne (d. 1249)
Alexander of Hales (d. 1245)
St. Bonaventure (1221-1274)
Roger Bacon (1214-1294)
St. Albert the Great [to a degree] (1193-1280)
Alexander of Hales (1170-1245)
Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini [Pius II] (1405-1464)
Peter of Tarentaise [later Bl. Innocent V] (1224-1276)
St. Thomas Aquinas [surprise!] (1225-1274)
The inclusion of these last two will surprise many, no doubt. But it is warranted because both were far more beholden to their predecessors than to Aristotle. Nevertheless, St. Thomas Aquinas is regarded as the great Catholiciser of Aristotle, and so, from now on, opposition to one is to some degree, opposition to the other. Of course, it should be bourne in mind that St. Thomas was canonised for his heroic virtue, not his philosophy.
Richard Fishacre (d. 1243)
John of La Rochelle (1190-1245)
Hugh of St. Cher (1200-1263)
Thomas of York (d. 1260)
Etienne Tempier (d. 1279)
Robert Kilwardby (1215-1279)
William de la Mare (d. 1290)
Gerard of Abbeville (1220-1272)
John Peckham (1220-1292)
Henry of Ghent (d. 1293)
Richard of Middleton (d. 1300)
Roger Marston (d. 1303)
Bl. Raymund Lully (1235-1315)
Matthew of Aquasparta (1240-1302)
Giles of Rome (1247-1316)
Peter Olivi (1248-1298)
William of Ware (1255-?)
Bl. John Duns Scotus (1266-1280)
Antonius Andre (d. 1320)
Francis of Mayron (d. 1325)
Meister Eckhart (1260-1327)
John of Bassoles (d. 1347)
Peter of Aquila (d. 1361)
John Tauler (1290-1361)
Bl. Henry Suso (d. 1366)
Bl. John Ruysbroek (1293-1381)
Gerard Groote (1340-1384)
Florentius Radewijns (1350-1400)
Peter d’Ailly (1350-1420)
Henrik Mande (1360-1431)
John Gerson (1363-1429)
Raymund of Sabunde (d. 1432)
Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464)
Denis the Carthusian (1402-1471)
Cardinal Bessarion (1403-1472)
Johannes Rechlin (1455-1522)
Joannes Mauburnus (1460-1501)
Trithemius of Sponheim (1462-1516)
Pico della Mirandola (1463-1494)
John Colet (1467-1519)
Girolamo Seripando (1492-1563)
Paracelsus (1493-1541)
Geronimo Cardano (1501-1576)
Johann Gropper (1501-1559)
Maurice O’Fihely
Antonio Trombetta
Francesco Licheto
Bernadino Telesio (1508-1588)
Francesco Patrizzi (1529-1597)
Johann Arndt (1555-1621)
Tommaso Campanella (1568-1639)
Godfrey Goodman (1583-1656)
Luke Wadding (1588-1657)
Henry More (1614-1687)
Claude Frassen (1620-1711)
Lodovico Sinistrari (1622-1701)
Bl. Junipero Serra (1713-1784)
Ignaz Frank (d. 1794)
Franz Wallraf (1748-1824)
Karl von Eckartshausen (1752-1803)
Joseph de Maistre (1754-1821)
Louis de Bonald (1754-1840)
Franz von Baader (1765-1841)
Joachim Ventura de Raulica (1792-1861)
Louis Bautain (1796-1867)
Augustine Bonnetty (1798-1879)
Casimir Ubaghs (1800-1875)
Alphonse Gratry (1805-1872)
Dom Prosper Gueranger (1805-1875)
Charles Lindley Wood, Lord Halifax (1839-1934)
Vladimir Soloviev (1853-1900)
Arthur Machen (1863-1947)
Louis Charbonneau-Lassay (1871-1946)
Emile Grillot de Givry (1874-1929)
Montague Summers (1880-1947)
Dietrich von Hildebrand (1889-1977)
J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973)
Leonard Feeney (1897-1978)
Valentin Tomberg (1900-1973)
The first was, to a degree, St. Albertus Magnus, followed of course by St. Thomas himself. Of course, the argument may be made that St. Thomas himself was not a Thomist, as that word is generally received. He did, after all, quote St. Dionysius the Areopagite more than he did Aristotle. At any rate, here are some of the more prominent Thomists down to our own day.
St. Robert Bellarmine
John Quidort
Thomas Jorz
Thomas Sutton
Herve of Nedellec
Peter of Auvergne
Godfrey of Fontaines
Humbert of Preuilly Paul Socinas (d. 1494)
John A Lapide (d. 1494)
Dominic of Flanders (d. 1500)
Thomas de Vio Cajetan (1469-1534)
Francis de Sylvestris de Ferrara (1474-1528)
Francis de Vittoria (1480-1546)
Dominic de Soto (1494-1560)
Melchior Canus (1509-1560)
Bartholomew de Medina (1527-1581)
Peter Fonseca (1528-1599)
Domingo Banez (1528-1604)
Francis Toletus (1532-1596)
Louis Molina (1535-1600)
John de Mariana (1537-1624)
Francis Suarez (1548-1617)
Gabriel Vasquez (1551-1604)
Richard Hooker (1553-1600)
Marsilio Vasquez (d. 1611)
John of St. Thomas (1589-1644)
Jean Baptiste Gonet (d. 1681)
Antoine Goudin (1639-1695)
Blaise of the Holy Conception
Joseph Saenz de Aguirre (d. 1699)
Matteo Liberatore (1810-1892)
Joseph Kleutgen (1811-1883)
Desire Mercier (1852-1926)
Joseph Marechal (1878-1944)
Jacques Maritain (1882-1973)
Etienne Gilson (1884-1978)
Mortimer Adler (1902-)
Karl Rahner (1904-1984)
Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984)
Emeric Coreth (1919-)
Some might object to the inclusion of Rahner, Lonergan, Marechal and Coreth on this list; nevertheless, on all issues where more mainstream Thomists disagreed with the Neo-Platonists, Augustinians, and Scotist, the "Transcendental Thomists" (as Rahner, etc. labelled themselves) line up with the Thomists.
Why indeed? How to explain fads in philosophy, or anywhere else? As we mentioned, Aristotelianism is materialistic. Did society become more materialistic as Aristotelianism grew in influence, or vice versa? It is a sort of chicken and egg question. But certainly, as the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Enlightenment succeeded each other, physical world loomed ever larger into view, and the spiritual ever farther. Moreover, St. Thomas’ canonisation, and the employment of his philosophy (or, to be more accurate, more or less distorted versions of it) in the Counter-Reformation, seemed to grant it official status, as though it were THE Catholic philosophy. Why did moderate realism go out of style? Like any revolutionary idea, it was left behind by more radical developments. Conceptualism arose, which held that the Universals are mere concepts; then came Nominalism, which held that they were mere names. Luther, interestingly enough, was a Nominalist. In any case, over a long period of time, Moderate realism was simply not spiritual enough to satisfy believers, nor materialistic enough to satisfy non-believers. It is revealing that (although there are exceptions either way), strict Thomists have tended to be academics and scholars, whereas Catholic missionaries, lay writers, orthodox liturgists, politicians, and so on have tended toward one or another variety of Neo-Platonism --- even if they have not recognised it as such.
Er, no. It does have a special status of sorts, thanks to Leo XIII's endorsement of it in his encyclical Aeterni Patris. But that same encyclical gave equal status (though it did not treat it in any detail) to the work of St. Bonaventure.
It is important to remember that, prior to St. Thomas, there were twelve centuries of Church life without Thomism. The Church’s doctrinal definitions, her liturgies, all her official acts up to that point were originated without Thomist or Aristotelian influence. When such influence arose in the 13th century, its adherents were called "Moderns," as opposed to the Ultra-realist "Ancients." Several of St. Thomas’ philosophical teachings were condemned in the 1270s by the Archbishops of Paris and Canterbury, and by the Universities of Paris and Oxford. Although the condemnations were lifted after St. Thomas’ canonisation in 1313, the Franciscans and Augustinians did not accept Thomism, preferring in the case of the former St. Bonaventure and Bl. Duns Scotus, and in that of the latter amplifications of St. Augustine. In any case, the definition of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary --- rejected by St. Thomas --- shows that Thomism cannot be considered the sole authentic Catholic philosophy.
Of course, a lot of snide commentary by Thomist writer in the philosophical textbooks of the 1930s, 40s, and 50s led to the use of such phrases as "Exaggerated Realism" for Ultra-Realism. A friend of mine, Stephen Frankini, was so annoyed by this that he took to calling Moderate Realism "Inadequate Realism." In any case, the very existence of such books gave Thomism an "official" feel to it not at all justified in reality.
Not at all. No sooner did Thomism gain wide acceptance in the 14th century, than Nominalism came in and nearly superseded it. After that, Thomism’s finest hour was the period between 1918-1965. This produced the Transcendental Thomism mentioned earlier, and the more mainstream "Neo-Thomism" of men like Jacques Maritain.
In the period since the Council, the corrosive effect of Transcendental Thomism has been made manifest. Less obvious has been that of Neo-Thomism. The materialism implicit in it grew greater and greater; human reason became --- practically speaking --- more important than revelation. In the 13th century, the difference between Ultra- and Moderate Realism seemed to be more one of emphasis, the more so since the proponents on both sides were pious Catholics. Thus, as Angelus Gambatese tells us in his biography of St. Bonaventure (p. 20):
The Platonist sees things in God; the Aristotelian sees God at the summit of things. If both philosophies lead to religion, it is undeniable that the religious element is more spontaneous in a philosophy of the Platonic type for it penetrates its very structure.
By the same token, Aristotelian philosophies, with their reliance on reason, become less and less religious; by so doing they become less authentic. Dogmas become mere formulas, divorced from reality. Jacques Maritain himself, at the end of his life, well described the process in his Peasant of the Garonne:
This "Thomist philosophy" was no theology, since they had withdrawn from it the light proper to theology to transfer it into the kingdom of reason using only its natural powers. Still less was it a philosophy, since it remained structured after the theological treatise from which it emerged, and possessed neither the gait and method, nor the light characteristic of philosophical research. Without the characteristic light of theology, and that proper to theological research, it had practically no light at all. (p. 136).
This was a recipe for disaster --- the very disaster which has overcome us.
An enormous amount --- so long as he always remembers that the revealed Truths of our religion take precedence over any philosophy; and that anything which conflicts with those Truths is simply false.
Indeed he did. He followed Aristotle against Plato in asserting that the Universals derive their reality from the sum total of their physical examples. Moreover, he differed from then-accepted philosophy on a number of different issues:
a. Plurality of Forms
This is the teaching that every individual person or thing is made an individual by virtue of being a combination of various "substantial forms" or qualities, which are real in themselves. For example, a certain person is a Man, French, Baptised Catholic, Blue-Eyed, Breathing, Four-Limbed, and so on. Each of these is a concrete expression of a Universal; taken together, they form the individual we call Jean-Luc Sansargent. So it is for very individual person or thing. Aristotle and St. Thomas taught, however, that the individual is simply as he is, and all of his qualities accidental. Again, while seemingly arcane on the surface, this question is filled with all sorts of implications regarding sin and salvation; it was precisely on this point that St. Thomas’ teachings suffered the condemnations earlier mentioned.
b. "Rational Seeds" --- Seminal Reasons
This idea refers to the potentialities locked within each substance and individual, which can lead to change, given the right stimulus. For instance, the acorn has the oak-tree inside it; the wood has the potential to be ash; water can be stem etc. Obviously we can see here a foreshadowing of genetic theory. But this too Aristotle and St. Thomas denied.
c. Divine Illumination
Here we see the Christian acceptance that beyond a certain point, reason cannot go. Man can, by virtue of his reason, figure out that there is a Creator, that He ought to be worshipped, etc. But anything more complex requires direct illumination from God; indeed, without such illumination we can be sure of nothing of importance. Aristotle and St. Thomas denied this, holding that human reason unaided can go quite far, indeed.
d. Subtle Matter
This is the assertion that angels and spirits are made of a matter like but unlike that of the physical world; unlike it that it can be invisible, weighs little, moves quickly, etc; like in that beings composed of it can affect physical objects, and can be, as it were, measured or perceived to some degree. Holders of this belief would assert that only God can be immaterial, for He alone is unchangeable. (Angels, while of immovable Will, did change at least once, when they took up sides at Satan's revolt). Moreover, the Second Council of Nicaea ruled in favour of this belief, when it approved the following passage from a book by John of Thessalonica:
Respecting Angels, Archangels, and their powers, to which I also adjoin our own Souls, the Catholic Church is indeed of the opinion that they are intelligences, but not entirely bodiless and senseless, as you Gentiles aver; she on the contrary ascribes to them a subtile body, aerial or igneous, according to what is written: "He makes His angels spirits, and His ministers a burning fire."
Although not corporeal in the same way as ourselves, made of the four elements, yet it is impossible to say that Angels, Demons, and Souls are incorporeal; for they have been seen many a time, wearing their own body, by those whose eyes the Lord has opened.
In any case, this was also the teaching of Plato; following Aristotle, St. Thomas denied this. There were other issues involved, but these are the best known.
All of the above, to be sure. Also, St. Thomas held that the Will precedes the Intellect; St. Bonaventure believed it was the other way around. But there was more that that at issue; it was a question of the whole tone of philosophy. How rigid is the proper boundary between theology and philosophy? For St. Thomas, the twain could never meet, although theology was superior; for St. Bonaventure, any philosophy which ignored theology simply could not be true. How could there be any real wisdom if one ignores the major facts of existence? And, of course, there was one other little problem. Neo-Platonism does indeed appeal to the poet in us, to the adventurer. It can be little surprise that both Dom Gueranger and Fray Junipero Serra were both Platonists. But Aristotle and his teachings were and are coldly intellectual. Thus we see that part of the problem is a matter of disposition. If one wishes to go out and do great deeds for Christ, St. Bonavenutre and his ilk will inspire him. If he wishes simply to stay in the lecture hall and calmly contemplate reality, he will find the Summa Theologica more to his taste. But as I have said, St. Thomas was not really a Thomist, and refused to finish the Summa. If you really want to understand St. Thomas, read his Office for the Feast of Corpus Christi, and his Catena Aurea. Then (if you can find one) attend Mass in the old Dominican Rite --- the same Rite he offered.
St. Bonaventure and St. Thomas Aquinas were the dearest of friends at the University of Paris; as they were united in life, as they are in heaven, so ought they to be in our esteem.
A Monarchist, to be sure. For a start, it was sentimental; being French-Canadian on my father’s side, I knew that Louis XIV had sent my ancestors to Canada, and that Louis XVI was unjustly murdered. My mother was a fierce Habsburg proponent, and my father had as well an attachment to the Jacobites. What was true of Louis XVI was also true of Charles I and Nicholas II. I felt a great deal of sympathy for the Loyalists, giving up everything for their Monarch and going off in exile to Canada and the Bahamas. And of course, I knew that Christ was King, not President. Certainly the rich symbolism of Royal ceremony had it effect as well.
When I got older I began to study these things in and out of school. It seemed to me that the Reformation and the American, French, and Russian Revolutions were all symptoms of the same basic phenomenon. Moreover, I read various theorists of Monarchy, not least of all Belloc and Chesterton. By the time I left College, I was a confirmed Monarchist.
I then learned of the question of "No Salvation Outside the Church." It was apparent to me from my historical research that certainly the Church HAD taught this dogma, and just as certainly that her spokesmen now denied it. How was this possible for an infallible Church? And if it were possible with this dogma, why not all the others. Surely, if the Church is not necessary for the Salvation of every one, it is necessary for no one. Moreover, the Crusades and the Inquisition would have been the worst injustices, and missionary work of kind useless folly. My discovery of the work of Fr. Feeney supplied the answer: the dogma of Salvation was simply true, despite all the non-infallible claptrap to the contrary.
But this left another question. How did we get into the strange position of a majority of the clergy calling heresy the very dogma which alone justifies their existence (as an income-absorbing class, that is)? In other words, how did we get into this mess.
Again, history provided an answer. In great (though not sole) part, our troubles stem from the attempt to express the Faith through basically materialistic terms. Judged from the perspective of Aristotle, the Catholic Faith is folly. If one attempts to combine the two, he may succeed for his own time; but in the end the inborn tendencies of the philosophy must (and have work themselves out. Rather than seeing the Faith as an organic whole, which has repercussions in every corner of life, from government to art, it becomes a mere set of propositions to be memorised --- or altered, if they do not accord with what appears to be reason.
And so, I became an Ultra-Realist, convinced that the great ruin can only be reversed if the ideas which created the Catholic synthesis in the first place are allowed to act. To do that they must once again be promoted. Thus I stand.
Certainly. As just intimated, my researches into the decline of Monarchy reinforced those into the decline of the Church. The republican Charles Fenyvesi writes:
An age of fable has ended. The world has gotten old; skepticism is our wisdom. We do not believe in the magic of pedigree, and we expect the son not to take up his father’s role. There are no more once-and-future Kings foretold and prayed for; no secret sons and false pretenders; no Royal pathos of trust and betrayal. We have cancelled faith, the gold standard of monarchy, as well as "the Pleasure of His Majesty," once the common currency.
Republican accountability requires a pursuit of the rational. Citizens bow to the technician whose presumption is efficiency and whose excuse is science. He knows all about systems, and "functional" is his highest praise.
With very little alteration, much can be said of the changes in the Church. So you might say that the analogy of the decline of Monarchy prepared me to accept Ultra-Realism, when, like almost all who consider themselves Traditional Catholics, I had always thought that Thomism was simply THE Catholic philosophy.
Constantly, particularly in the New Testament, although the Wisdom books, with their personification of Wisdom as a Holy Woman (and prefiguring of the Virgin) are certainly very much in that style. Throughout the New Testament we are told of the importance of "Good Will." St. John tells us that God "enlightens every man who comes into the world." There is peace "for men of Good Will." The Church is certainly treated like a Platonic Universal in the Epistles, rather than a mere sum of its members. All this stuff about becoming a new creature at baptism and so on. It is for this reason that Moderate Realists rarely look to the Bible as a source of philosophical knowledge, simply dismissing it as religious.
Yes and no. Our belief in the Immaculate Conception goes back to the Bible, when The Archangel Gabriel addressed Mary as "full of Grace," something manifestly impossible if the person so addressed was in Original Sin. The early fathers all believed the Mary was Immaculate from her conception; the Eastern Fathers being more explicit on this point, however, than the Western. The liturgical observance of the Feast started in the East, from whence it spread to England and then to the rest of Europe (ironic in the light of this doctrine’s later denial by the Anglicans and Orthodox. The first serious opposition came from St. Bernard of Clairvaux (an Ultra-Realist) who simply could not believe that the Holy Ghost could be involved in something so unclean (to his mind) as Conception). From his time on, two new issues arose: first, the Aristotelian notion that the soul does not enter the body until the "quickening" became almost universal long before Aristotle’s philosophy was re-discovered; second, it was feared that declaring Our Lady to be free from original sin would somehow diminish Our Lord’s uniqueness. These latter two views were summed up by St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa; after the Summa became the official teaching manual of the Dominicans, that order made denial of the dogma part of its official stance. Even the feast of the Immaculate Conception would only be celebrated by them as the "Sanctification" for a long time.
However, among those untouched at all by Aristotle, the belief continued to spread. Bl. Raymund Lully was the first post-St. Bernard theologian to preach it openly. Then Bl. Duns Scotus described it in the terms we know to-day. But so late as the 17th century, Pope Gregory XV (1621-1623) forbade either proponents or opponents of the doctrine to label each other as heretics --- so there was quite a good deal of confusion until relatively recently."
By no means, although this is a very good question. The answer is threefold:
1) Despite our current political arrangements, the foundations of this country are Monarchical - which are evident in our history, but in our religions, legal system, real estate, military, and much else besides. You cannot love what you do not know, and no real (as opposed to ideological) patriotism can blossom without knowledge of these things - plus, gratitude alone requires that we honour as founders such figures as Ferdinand and Isabel, Felipe II, Charles I, Louis XIV, Carlos III, and the many other Monarchs who presided over our first settlements;
2) In an increasingly globalised world, all of us are in touch with brother Catholics in Europe - many of whom are Monarchists. Republicanism gained a great deal of cachet over there because of American prestige - and American Monarchists are always a real encouragement to their European brethren; and
3) Who knows what the future holds - Voltaire and Rousseau were LARPers, until the French Revolution. If these ideas are inculturation, they shall be available if they are ever needed.
Certainly not! Was St. Louis evil? Charlemagne? All the many saints who occupied thrones? How about King David, or his descendant, Jesus Christ? Why do you suppose that the Bible tells us in the first Epistle of St. Peter (2, 13), to honour the King? Or that the Church composed ceremonies for the anointing and coronation of Kings, and declared that they ruled "by the Grace of God?" The Catholic concept of Monarchy was well defined by Archbishop John Healy of Tuam, Ireland, who wrote before his death in 1919:
The character of Kings is sacred; their persons are inviolable; they are the anointed of the Lord, if not with sacred oil, at least by virtue of their office. Their power is broad---based upon the Will of God, and not on the shifting sands of the people's will...They will be spoken of with becoming reverence, instead of being in public estimation fitting butts for all foul tongues. It becomes a sacrilege to violate their persons, and every indignity offered to them in word or act, becomes an indignity offered to God Himself. It is this view of Kingly rule that alone can keep alive in a scoffing and licentious age the spirit of ancient loyalty, that spirit begotten of faith, combining in itself obedience, reverence, and love for the majesty of kings which was at once a bond of social union, an incentive to noble daring, and a salt to purify the heart from its grosser tendencies, preserving it from all that is mean, selfish, and contemptible. (P.J. Joyce, John Healy, pp. 68-69).
C.S. Lewis put the problem very well:
"Monarchy can easily be debunked, but watch the faces, mark well the debunkers. These are the men whose taproot in Eden has been cut: whom no rumour of the polyphony, the dance, can reach---men to whom pebbles laid in a row are more beautiful than an arch. Yet even if they desire mere equality they cannot reach it. Where men are forbidden to honour a king they honour millionaires, athletes or film stars instead: even famous prostitutes or gangsters. For spiritual nature, like bodily nature, will be served; deny it food and it will gobble poison."
Indeed, indeed!
But what about all the saints who also ruled? As Catherine Goddard Clarke put it in her Our Glorious Popes (p.59):
We have been slowly and deliberately taught that monarchies and kings are bad things, and papal supervision of any kind in government, even over its morals, is a very bad thing… …
Scarcely anyone is ever told any more that France, Spain and Portugal, Poland and Hungary, England and Sweden, all had kings and queens who ruled their lands gloriously and brought untold happiness and well-being to their subjects.
Indeed, the pages of both Dom Gueranger and Alban Butler, whose respective Liturgical Year and Lives of the Saints are true classics, are filled with accounts of Royal Sanctity.
There were, to be sure, corrupt Kings, just as there were and are corrupt clerics. But that does not change the fact that the institutions these fallible humans represent are capable of producing greatness in a way their alternatives cannot.
Examine the history of any republic you like; with the exceptions of such men as Garcia Moreno in Ecuador, Lucas Alaman in Mexico, Engelbert Dollfuss in Austria, and Heinrich Bruening in Germany (all of whom, coincidentally, were Monarchists who thought the time of restoration as yet unripe for their particular countries), it is a record of mediocrities at best, and monsters at worst. Hitler was elected, after all. Given its track record, perhaps the adherents of republics should stick to theory, and leave history be.
Certainly not. Every dictator is a self-made man. Having clawed his way to the top, he considers himself beholden neither to God nor man. His talent for acquiring power is generally unaccompanied by learning or skill in state-craft---hence the often crude and clownish impression made by such folk. Unbound by tradition, he may rule according to his own whim.
A Monarch, on the other hand, is bound by tradition and ceremonial to reign in a certain way. He has been trained for his role since infancy, and knows he owes his position to no talent of his own. In a word, a Monarch may just have a little room for humility; no dictator ever can.
In the sense that it was founded upon a bloody revolution, and in accordance with anti-Christian principles, yes. But God can bring good out of evil---the Fall of Man was redeemed by the Incarnation and Death of Our Lord. As Samuel Johnson observed, "Satan was the first Whig." In a sense, every revolution against a Monarchy, motivated by greed and envy is another Fall. But who can say what kind of redemption may not occur here? Certainly Americans have been capable of great good.
Those which have been installed in accordance with the anti-Christian principles of 1776 and 1789 are. The few which existed prior to that in Christendom were almost all city-states owing ultimate allegiance to a Monarch. But our current set are all imbued with the evil principles mentioned: "A state without a King, and a Church without a Pope."
This is, in a sense, a false question. In Ireland, Portugal, Poland, and throughout Latin America there have been attempts at a "Catholic republic," by which is meant a republican state run according to Catholic principles. But what is involved here is really an anti-Catholic form of government, staffed by Catholics. Should the latter be replaced by a different sort of folk---as has happened in most of the places mentioned, the state and the local society rapidly become secularised. This is simply a case of the chickens coming home to roost, so to speak.
In the case of a Protestant Monarchy, the ones now extant (Great Britain and the Dominions---Canada, Australia, etc., Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands), as well as those overthrown (Prussia and the other Protestant German states), a basically Catholic institution was overlaid with a Protestant veneer. But the nature of the Institution is such that even in such a caseit can bring to the fore individuals reminiscent of their Catholic forebears: George III and Edward VII of Great Britain, Gustavus III of Sweden, and Frederick William IV of Prussia come to mind. The great stability these countries possess, even in the midst of social change and "quiet" revolution, may be laid to what remains of value in their Monarchies. In the case of a few countries, such as Saxony, where in the 18th century the Elector (later King) returned to Catholicism, the benefits to the people were swiftly made manifest.
Taking all of this into consideration, I would maintain that a truly Catholic republic is not possible; what we call by that name is not preferable to a Protestant Monarchy.
In a modern constitutional Monarchy, the tyrants are generally the politicians elected by the people, and the bureaucratic class who actually run the nation; these are of course unimpeachable, and must simply be obeyed. The King serves primarily to remind folk that it was not always so, and may not be again. If the politicians really muck things up, he might be able to get them out of the mess.
In the Middle Ages, if a King broke the law, the great men of the realm would oppose him for his own sake, ala Magna Carta. Did he go too far, the Church would excommunicate him.
I am sorry that you are bothered! After all, you have no control over the selection of your IRS auditor, and innumerable other folk who have more power over you than any Medieval King could have hoped to. But there are two answers to this first question.
The primary one is that, well, not to sound odd, but God gives the Kings a people deserve. The hereditary principle leaves the choice of paramount power to the Almighty; it has been claimed that an attempt to elect him is a denial of providence.
On a more mundane level, the truth is, it works better, and for longer periods. In the words of the saintly Spanish priest, Fr. Jaime Balmes, in his European Civilisation (p. 143):
Regarding things in the abstract, there is nothing more strikingly absurd than hereditary monarchy, the succession secured to a family which may at any time place on the throne a fool, a child, or a wretch: and yet in practise there is nothing more wise, prudent, and provident. This has been taught by the long experience of ages, it has been shown by reason, and proved by the sad warnings of those nations who have tried elective monarchy. Now what is the cause of this? It is what we are endeavouring to explain. Hereditary Monarchy precludes all hopes of irregular ambition; without that, society always contains a germ of trouble, a principle of revolt, which is nourished by those who conceive a hope of one day obtaining the command. In quiet times, and under an hereditary Monarchy, a subject, however rich, however distinguished he may be for his talent or his valour, cannot, without madness, hope to be King; and such a thought never enters his head. But change the circumstances---admit, I will not say the probability, but the possibility of such an event, and you will see that there will immediately be ardent candidates.
Of course, the strife that conflicting parties cause is endemic to the modern state; the welfare of the people is always the first thing to be sacrificed in preparation for the next coup, election, or however the particular republic customarily changes its head of state. It is almost a maxim that those who strive for high office are the least worthy of it.
Elections, long experience shows, do not really provide checks and balances---reflect on the abortion question, as an example. Such a key issue, which goes to the very heart of the power of the State and the meaning of humanity, has never, in the United States, been referred to the ballot box. And even if it were, is the definition of human life something one wants decided by vote? Could it not be altered just as easily? In any case, important questions are rarely decided by the people.
As compared to what? The serf, like labourers everywhere and at all times, had a hard life. He also could not be forced off the land, worked about 30 days a year for his lord (as opposed to the average American's 167 for the IRS), and could NOT work on Sundays and the 30-odd Holy Days of obligation and certain other stated times. One may compare that to any current job description one wants to.
In comparison to the Clinton White House? While it has not been nearly as effective in some ways as one would hope, what government has? Moreover, Queen Elizabeth II, in her role as private adviser to the government, prevented such blunders as Harold Wilson's contemplated invasion of Rhodesia in 1965. Her Governor-General in Australia, Sir John Kerr, in 1975 dismissed the government of Gough Whitlam, who was threatening to fund his regime illegally after the Senate denied him supply. Her Governor-General of Grenada, Sir Paul Scoon, called in American troops after the government there collapsed in revolution and Cuban intervention seemed imminent. In all three cases, a republican government would have spelled disaster.
Much is made of the marital woes of the Royal Family, particularly of the Prince of Wales. But given the kid-glove treatment our own president has received in this area, can it not be asserted that the Prince's annoyance of many influential groups by his stand in such areas as architecture, the environment, and education has been at least a partial source of his woes? This appears from a revealing 21 January 1993 letter he wrote to Tom Shebbeare, director of the Prince's Trust (and quoted on pp. 493-494 of Dimbleby's biography):
For the past 15 years I have been entirely motivated by a desperate desire to put the "Great" back into Great Britain. Everything I have tried to do---all the projects, speeches, schemes, etc.---have been with this end in mind. And none of it has worked, as you can see too obviously! In order to put the "Great" back I have always felt it was vital to bring people together, and I began to realise that the one advantage my position has over anyone else's is that I can act as a catalyst to help produce a better and more balanced response to various problems. I have no "political" agenda---only a desire to see people achieve their potential; to be decently housed in a decent, civilised environment that respects the cultural and vernacular character of the nation; to see this country's real talents (especially inventiveness and engineering skills) put to best use in the best interests of the country and the world (at present they are being disgracefully wasted through lack of co-ordination and strategic thinking); to retain and value the infrastructure and cultural integrity of rural communities (where they still exist) because of the vital role they play in the very framework of the nation and the care and management of the countryside; to value and nurture the highest standards of military integrity and professionalism, as displayed by our armed forces, because of the role they play as an insurance scheme in case of disaster; and to value and retain our uniquely special broadcasting standards which are renowned throughout the world. The final point is that I want to role back some of the more ludicrous frontiers of the 60s in terms of education, architecture, art, music, and literature, not to mention agriculture! Having read this through, no wonder they want to destroy me, or get rid of me...!
Like his Stuart ancestors, he would attempt to play the role of steward of the land; his interest in hunting for example, is very reminiscent of his predecessors': "Despite protests by anti-hunting groups, the Prince of Wales takes a close interest in the sport at all levels and has defended it as an effective form of sporting conservation of wildlife and its habitat in the British countryside," as we read in the Royal Encyclopaedia. So too with what the same source tells us about the Prince's farm at Highgrove:
A particular concern on the Home Farm is environmental conservation: straw is never burned; chemical fertilisers are being reduced as much as possible; and in keeping with the Cotswolds landscape, 548 metres of dry-stone walls have been rebuilt around the land. In 1985 the decision was taken to go organic on three blocks of land as part of a general move to what has been called biologically sustainable farming linked to conservation. The step to full organic status on the whole estate is said to be on line for 1996.
The Prince's refusal to join the Masonic Order, and his denunciation of Henry VIII's split from Rome augur well for him as King Charles III---if he is allowed to reign by the powers-that-be.
How are they guaranteed in any case? As Joe Sobran observed, "if voting actually changed anything, it would be illegal." The King is taught to think of himself as father of his people; the result of this has been that in modern times, Karl of Austria-Hungary; Nicholas II of Russia; Umberto II of Italy; Henri, Count of Paris, a claimant to the throne of France;Michael of Romania, and Constantine II of Greece; all chose abdication and/or exile rather than plunge their nations into bloody civil war. Compare this anxiety for the lives of their children to that of republican leaders from Lincoln to the present.
In the Middle Ages, the notion prevailed that even Kings were subject to the law; the interplay of King, Church, Nobility, Guilds, and landowners provided a great deal of personal freedom. Ultimately, the rights of a subject are bound up with his being a child of the God by Whose Grace the King reigns. In a "free" republic, of course, the citizen's rights are granted at the whim of the political class---or taken away (California smokers, take note!).
Good question! I don't care myself! As for the Church, though, her position is clear. In her liturgy, as in her Bible, as in the actions of her Popes and Bishops, she endorses the institution. In his allocution on the death of Louis XVI, Pourquoi Notre Voix, Pope Pius VI declared that Monarchy is "the best of all governments." The Royal observances of the Church Calendar, Royal rituals such as the Coronation, and Royal patronage of the Church all reflect this. Monarchists in Catholic countries have always demanded a Catholic as well as a Royal State.
The Church tolerates them, as she does all forms of government which allow her to operate. Leo XIII called upon Catholics to "rally to the (French third) republic." This was done for prudential reasons---namely, keeping the republic from voiding the concordat which paid clerical salaries. Apart from splitting the French Church, this had little effect, because the republicans broke it anyway.
No. Without a firm religious base, the Monarchy cannot do much more than ameliorate problems to a degree. And even a full-blown Catholic Monarchy must deal with the fallen nature of King and Subjects.
Here, I have absolutely no idea. Without a firm moral and spiritual foundation in the hearts of our people, we already have the government we deserve.
I suppose we could do worse. Given the answer to question 15, I don't suppose it would do much good, but it would perhaps be better than nothing. Even such a step on the part of the United States would require a spiritual reform of incalculable difficulty.
What was holy about the office, apart from various of its occupants like Bl. Charlemagne and St. Henry, was its role. Gary Potter sums it up admirably in modern terms:
Words express ideas, and some of them now being quoted signify notions likely to be totally foreign to anyone unfamiliar with history prior to a few decades ago: "world emperor," "imperial office,"… This is not the place to lay out all the history needed to be known for thoroughly grasping the notions. However, the principal one was adumbrated by Our Lord Himself in the last command his followers received from Him: to make disciples of all the nations. In a word, the idea of a universal Christian commonwealth is what we are talking about.
To date it has never existed. To-day there is not even a Christian government anywhere. However, from the conversion of Constantine until August, 1806 – with an interruption (in the West) from Romulus Augustulus in 476 to Charlemagne in 800 – there was the Empire. It was the heart of what was once know as Christendom. Under its aegis serious European settlement of the Western Hemisphere began and the Americas’ native inhabitants were first baptised, which is why the feather cloak of Montezuma is to be seen to-day in a museum in Vienna. After 1806 a kind of shadow of the Empire, the Austro-Hungarian one, endured until the end of World War I, when its abolition was imposed as a condition of peace by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson. Since 1438, when Albert V…was crowned Roman Emperor, all the Emperors were Habsburgs. The last was Archduke Otto’s father, Karl.
Of what interest could this ancient history be to us to-day? Well, as the "Russian Newman," Vladimir Soloviev put it, "For lack of an imperial power genuinely Christian and Catholic, the Church has not succeeded in establishing social and political justice in Europe." Nor anywhere else, one might add. Through such efforts as the United Nations and the European and other regional unions, secular man attempts, unconsciously, to rebuild some sort of unity among people. Many writers have attempted to sum up the importance of the Imperial office, and it too is reflected in the Church's liturgy.
The Judges of Israel were directly called by God, with neither acclamation by the people nor constitutional restraint. The fallen nature of the Israelites made such a government unfeasible for long---did not Our Lord complain that Jerusalem murdered the prophets? Having been chosen from all the Earth, the Israelites ought to been gratified that they had been given such a unique---and to our way of thinking, undemocratic---system of government. Instead, they demanded the natural manner of rule enjoyed by all other peoples---hence God's anger. But He nevertheless showed His approval of the institution both by having Samuel anoint Saul, and by establishing the dynasty of King David, whose last rightful heir according to the flesh, Jesus Christ, continues to rule by right over us all, whether we wish Him or not. It is by Him, and as a reflection of Him, that, as Pope Pius XI's hymn to Christ the King puts it, "Kings the Crown and Sceptre hold," as pledge of His supremacy.
In any case, the Judgeship is completely irrelevant to us to-day. Our republic is certainly nothing like it, and one cannot imagine whom God might choose to rule a heathen people like the Americans. (It is interesting that no such thing has ever happened in Catholic countries). Did we attempt such a thing, we would doubtless have a regime like the Mormons did in pre-Territorial Utah, or the colonists in New Haven, where the ministers would run things. One can imagine what the result would be. Such non-Catholic clerics would have the power of life and death over all citizens, Catholic or not --- and no constitutional or legal restraints on them. Even a non-Christian Monarchy, restrained by local traditions, would be far preferable.
In the sense of everyone not having a vote for King or Emperor? Certainly. But I am going to reveal a deep secret of reality --- no regime is, can be, or ever has been democratic! Some have been representative, in the sense that a majority of the population has some voice in the selection of their leaders (though virtually none in the policies those leaders carry out). But the larger the area to be governed, the less those votes matter. In reality, power is inevitably in the hands of those individuals and/or institutions in the given society whose money or land give them preponderant influence, as well as those who actually administer the State from day-to-day.
With our system, for instance, no one can be elected to national office who does not enjoy the support of one or more special interests ---- how could it be otherwise? It takes a great deal of money to be elected, and unless one is a millionaire oneself, how else to acquire it.
What makes such a system unfortunate is that, while maintaining the illusion of popular control, the real powers in the State are unaccountable for their actions. Thus, if a congressman votes for a bill disastrous to the interests of his constituents, he will be the object of their ire, rather than the employer of the lobbyist who suborned the legislator's vote. Correspondingly, said constituents will appeal to their representative for help, rather than to the company or interest behind him. Thus the real powers-that-be may exercise their power without any responsibility to the populace. It is ironic that this "un-democratic" way of doing business should be the stock-in-trade of all "democracies," but there it is. Perhaps replacing the House of Representatives with a House of Lobbyists would help make government more accountable.
That having been said, what is necessary in government is not "democracy," whatever that may be, but accountability and responsibility. As noticed earlier, modern Monarchs have felt so responsible they have often given up their thrones rather than shed their subjects’ blood.
[author name="Charles A. Coulombe"]
Christians Should Celebrate the Crusades, Not Shame Them
Out of all of the events in Christianity’s long and eventful history, none have created more animosity and bitterness towards the Faith than the Crusades. All too often we are told the grim tale of the barbaric and greedy crusaders who traveled to the Holy Land to capture land and loot in the name of claiming converts for Christianity, all while terrorizing the peaceful Muslim inhabitants and committing intellectual theft against their more civilized and advanced culture. The problem with this common version of the story is that it is almost entirely false, as sociologist Rodney Stark proves in his book titled “God’s Battalions: The Case For The Crusades.”
Dr. Stark is co-director for the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor and the best-selling author of “The Rise of Christianity.” In this book, Dr. Stark dismantles the dominant narrative repeated about the Crusades and analytically invalidates the previously held assumptions by scholars, historians, and religious leaders about this controversial event. This book not only proves the common claim made about the reasons for the Crusades false, but also challenges many facts of the campaigns that have been crafted with the purpose of putting the crusaders in a negative light, along with all of Christianity.
Rodney Stark’s book consists of ten chapters. The book’s timeline goes through the early Muslim incursions into the Christian West, the start of the Crusades, the capture of Jerusalem and the establishment of the Crusader States, and the eventual fall of these kingdoms to resurgent Muslim forces. This book was as informative as it was entertaining. I could hardly put it down! Although there is a lot of information and facts for the reader to digest, it isn’t so much so as to overwhelm the reader. Details about battle formations, geography, and stories of prominent individuals all serve the greater purpose of proving Stark’s thesis and make his book a much more engaging and thrilling read.
Stark also relies heavily on studies and prominent scholars who have detailed histories of the Crusades. He incorporates tables and statistics quite prominently to prove his points, such as his data table used to illustrate the years it required to convert primarily Christian and Jewish areas into Islamic ones (Stark, 31-32). This aspect of his book ensures the reader is gaining reliable information and an expert opinion.
The most important feature of “God’s Battalions” is its refutation of the most persistent misunderstandings about the Crusades: why they happened. The most common claim is that the Crusades were launched to conquer new lands, take possession of valuables and loot, and to convert as many people to Christianity as possible. However, Stark demonstrates that this is simply not true. The Crusades were launched in 1096, yet Muslim incursions and conquests of Christian lands had been occurring for hundreds of years prior. These conquests all involved the murder, rape, and enslavement of Christians and the desecration of holy sites such as the Holy Sepulchre by the Fatmid Caliphate in 996 (910). This issue was so urgent that when Pope Urban ll gave his infamous speech at Clermont, he detailed the persecution of Christian pilgrims as one of the primary reasons for the Crusades needing to be launched.
Other myths surrounding the Crusades are also thoroughly and factually disproved. For example, crusaders didn’t make the grueling journey to the Holy Land and risk death by sword and sickness to gain land or wealth. Rather, they went because they felt they had been called by God to defend the cradle of their religion; the Crusades were also a way to atone for the many sins that knights often committed during war. Additionally, the crusaders often sold most of their possessions in order to finance their journey and expected very little in return.
Nor was Islamic culture in a thriving “Golden Age,” as so often mentioned in books and entertainment, when the Christian forces arrived in the Levant. While it is true that many advances were made in the Islamic world, they were usually the result of the non-Muslim subjects living under Islamic rule, such as Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians among others. One particular example is how the only way Muslims were able to ever construct fleets to defeat later crusader armies was by copying the designs of European ships (75).
Stark illustrates that Islamic society was not only not “advanced,”but it also wasn’t incredibly “civilized” either. While the massacres of civilian populations committed by crusaders are routinely highlighted to bring modern followers of Christ to shame, the same acts committed by Muslims are often overlooked, as Stark lists countless atrocities committed against civilians by Muslim soldiers. Take the famous Muslim leader Saladin for example. He is routinely cited as being a tolerant and merciful ruler when compared to the cruelty of the Christian soldiers. Yet in reality, he was quite brutal, often beheading prisoners of war and selling city inhabitants into slavery, as illustrated by what he did to half of the population of Jerusalem in 1187 (198). Stark stresses how the rules of war during this time were very different from what they are now, and that by “imposing the Geneva Convention on this time,” we as a modern society gain nothing (158).
Rodney Stark’s “God’s Battalions” creates an urgent need for Christians, and people as a whole, to take a closer look at the Crusades. This event is not as black and white as it has been historically portrayed, but rather it is a complex tale that details the desperate struggle of Christian Europe against the approaching Islamic hordes. The men who fought as crusaders were not greedy plunderers, but rather devout Christians who were fighting for their lives, their civilization, and their faith. These soldiers should not be depicted as villains but venerated as heroes instead. After reading this book, I am more than convinced that they were truly serving in God’s battalions.
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(The following is a transcript of a lecture by Fr. Ripperger from Sensus Fidelium entitled Problems Today. Headlines and highlighted quotes have been added for clarity).
We come now to traditionalist problems which are actually affecting the process of recouping their tradition. I just want to make it clear, I’m not singling anybody out here, I don’t have in mind anyone in particular here. These are just general problems that you see pretty much across the board in almost every traditionalist apostolate. I just want people to be aware that these are the kinds of problems that we’re up against and why it’s actually causing damage to the traditional movement and why the tradition isn’t being recouped as quickly.
I could start out by saying that there's a whole list of problems that we suffer from. Part of it is because of human beings that are suffering under the effects of original sin. But there are particular problems that I think really need to be addressed because they're rather grave, and they are affecting people quite a bit.
The first has to do with the fact that the traditionalist movement is slowly becoming a Gnostic movement by among some, and by Gnostic we mean that they think that only they have this secret knowledge that nobody else seems to have or get and somehow there's something special about them because they get it and these other people don't. How do we know it's becoming Gnostic? They're constantly looking down and bad-mouthing everybody who goes to the New Mass, and things of that sort. Somehow or another they're special. But there's a darker side to this Gnostic aspect. Aside from the fact that it's rooted in pride and it's rude and it's haughty and it's presumptuous, because they presume that it's on their side and not on the grace of God that they can do these things, but there's a dark side.
Every Gnostic movement always suffers from grave problems of the impurity and so is the traditionalist movement. This is a serious problem. I'm not saying this as my own perception, although it is true that I noticed this some time ago. This is something that traditional priests are starting to discuss because it's becoming a serious problem. Why is this? Well it's pride. Pride is the vice in which a person judges himself greater than he is. So what does God do? He allows you to lapse into the lowest, basest, vulgarest forms of sins in order to lower your estimation of yourself. Well what's happening is, because traditionalists are so proud, they're really following into serious problems regarding the sixth commandment and it's across the board.
The second problem is it’s becoming a generational spirit. What's a generational spirit? It's one in which if parents commit particular kinds of sins, they open the door to demons inserting themselves into their family life, and it gets passed from generation to generation. Now my own estimation of this is, is that the generational spirit is pride. But it's also becoming a generational spirit of impurity, because you're seeing it almost it's across the board, where the parents had a problem with the impurity, they haven't gotten it under control, or they've never done anything to undo this the generational spirit in their family or some spirit of pride.
And it's getting passed from generation to generation. What’s this mean? It means that kids that are coming up who are normally good kids, who are doing what they normally do (okay they might be disobedient here and there what-have-you), but they're getting to be 10, 11, 12 years of age and they're seriously struggling with impurity when they shouldn't be. There's nothing in the family other than the externals of the family life, but then you find out the father has a problem of pornography or self-abuse or they're doing other things or what-have-you. And this is where it's becoming a serious problem. If you look at the number of sins against the sixth commandment, sins like self-abuse, pornography, fornication, among traditionalists, they are not any better than the people who go to the New Mass. In fact, there's some estimates by some priests that it's worse than is among the New Rite people.
This is a serious problem. It's going to drag us down. Why? Because if we're not careful, we're going to end up suffering what St. Paul says which was “and God gave them over to their lusts and they started sleeping men with men and women with women.” It's already happening among the youth of the traditional movement, because of this generational spirit. If parents don't want this problem among their children, they've got to get their act together. If they've started stuff in the past they've got to get this generational line straightened out and cleaned up.
Then there's also another Gnostic side to the traditional movement, and that is this isolationist attitude in relationship to the world. Now the world can have a variety of different meanings. You don't leave the world because it's bad. You don't try and avoid aspects of the world because it's bad. You try to avoid aspects of the world principally because it's good. But Gnostics always view everything in the world as bad and this is how traditionalists are becoming. This has never been part of the tradition, that is, this isolationist mentality with “circle the wagons, everyone's got to hide and just keep away from I can't let my kids talk to anybody whatsoever until they're 25 maybe 30 years of age if then.” This has never been part of the Catholic religion to be an isolation shunning people and that kind of thing. Why? Because how are you going to evangelize people? How are you honestly going to attract people to Mass? You're not going to attract people. Why? Because there's a natural human psychology. People aren't going to go to some place where they know people are looking down on them. This isolationist attitude, this isolation, occurred only in certain kinds of monasteries. This was to devote themselves full-time to God. Catholic families are not in that position. They're supposed to be in the world, not of it. Traditionalists don't want anything to do with the world whatsoever. That's not their role. Their role is to transform the world by being good and holy people in the world. That's their function. Yes, the world is bad.
Many traditionalists deny their children legitimate things because of the fact that it's an exaggeration, it's an excess. So what happens? Well you're ending up with the same kind of phenomenon that you're seeing among Amish. The kids end up just bolting from the traditional movement because they just can't stand the fact that things that are perfectly okay are being denied from them entirely. So we're having attrition rates among them.
Plus there are other problems that the traditional movement has. And don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of the traditional movement. I wouldn't be standing here before you if it wasn't a case. I'm just saying these are problems that are affecting the recouping of the tradition on the side of people outside of the tradition. Why? If you're not holy, we're not meriting the grace for the people outside the traditional movement to see the value of the tradition. So what’s the moral of the story? We're dragging the rest of the church down. That's what it boils down to here. You’re either part of the problem or you're part of the solution. There's no mean. It's called the principle of the excluded middle. So either you're going to be working holy and by the merits of your works are going to be helping the rest of the church, or you're going to be dragging everyone else down. It's part of the mystical body of Christ. It's a unified body.
What are these some of the other problems? Well, becoming depressed. They sit and they'll mull over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over, and by the way I'm saying this over and over again so you get the point. How bad everything is in the church. Okay, yes, it's bad, but it's leading to despair. We may see how bad everything is and then we judge everything to excess. You know “There's no hope. The church is never going to recover. Things are just always going to be bad. The Novus Ordo is invalid. There's no pope.” You just go on and on and on. And then there's also the problem of allowing the anger to consume our life in the view of the church. A lot of people suffer who've come to the traditional movement, but don't let the sun go down on your anger. In other words, you have to bury the hatchet and forgive people. We cannot allow the problems of the church to affect our spiritual lives. It doesn't matter if someone's put the knife in your back. It doesn't matter how bad things are. If it's starting to affect your spiritual life, you have to get your mind off it. And this means that we have to have it a detachment even from the idea of a healthy church even though that is what we must strive for. We must be detached from any vindication from those who harmed us.
Anger’s a real problem among traditionalists. We have to be sure that the problems in the church do not affect our charity, and we have to stop detracting against the Magisterium. Okay, why? Because in the end it destroys people's ability to the virtue of piety. How can you expect people to want to submit themselves to Christ’s legitimate authority handed on through the Magisterium if you're constantly running down the bishops and the priests and the Pope and things of that sort? You should never say anything against somebody unless 1.) it's necessary for that person’s spiritual life or their physical well-being or what have you 2.) it's just. Don't exaggerate it, and 3.) it's charitable. What does that mean? It means that it's proceeds from a desire for people's spiritual well-being and for the love of God, not because you're mad and angry and want to hack at people.
This negative attitude towards the Magisterium is one of the reasons why the Magisterium has been so slow to give us anything, because people have had such a negative attitude. They're just like, well we have to be careful with what we're giving these people, because they're going to end up biting the hand that feeds them. Then they allow their filial devotion to the office of the papacy to wane; that is not making the proper distinctions between the man and the office. It doesn't matter what the man does. The fact of the matter is we must be faithful and loyal to the office. Very often you see trads disrespecting authority and then trads wonder why---traditionalist parents will badmouth the Pope with their badmouth some priests or something and then they wonder why the children have no respect for their parents. Excuse me, but grace flows downhill. If you want your children to have the grace to be obedient and respectful of you, you have to be obedient and respectful of those above you.
Giving in to the vice of curiosity by reading literature which affects our faith or affect us psychologically or spiritually is another problem you see among trads. And this is something that’s clearly demonic because of the fact that it drives people to spend large amounts of time reading every last stitch of literature on how bad everything is. We have an obligation to protect our faith and sometimes that even means avoiding people who tell us the truth for which we are unprepared psychologically, spiritually, or intellectually. If reading this stuff drags you down, you've got to get away from it and stop reading it. We ought to be aware of the problems in the church, but you don't need to read too much for that. It seems like there's a new book every week almost; or there's some new article on how bad everything is. People say “father have you read this? father have you read that?” I'm just like, “I've seen it all. I don't need to read it to know it.”
And I’ll ask these people, when was the last time you read a book on the saints? And they say “Well I find that literature boring or difficult.” When was the last time you did any spiritual reading? “Well, you know, insta-bed. By the way have you read this blast book come out? Oh yeah I've read that three times already! I love that book!” Well what's that mean about your spiritual life?
Engaging in argumentation when they are intellectually unprepared out of a desire to defend what they think is true. This is a serious problem. I've read so much literature by a traditionalist that has theological error in it because they raced in where they were unprepared to defend. In fact, if you really want to follow the tradition, the tradition was until recently that laypeople were forbidden to engage in public debate regarding theological and philosophical matters unless they had permission from a local bishop. But today, now granted, part of the reason that they got involved in it is because of the fact that many of the members of the Magisterium were failing in their jobs. But that doesn't mean that all of a sudden that you race in when you're unprepared. We should rather ask some of the proper background to defend the truth if necessary.
We have to be sure that we're not always trying to seek to beat up on people. This is part of the whole anger thing. Yeah, it's true that the state of the church is bad, but that doesn't mean that when you see people doing something wrong, you beat up on them. We must accept that people aren't going to get it. They're just not going to get it because they don't have the grace. You cannot see the value of the particular tradition without grace. That means that because grace is gratuitous you didn't merit it. You're here because God chose you, not because somehow you think you're special. The same thing applies to these other people. He wants us to merit the grace for them. How are we going to do this if our spiritual lives aren't in order because we're angry, we're impure, we’re this or that. If we're not getting our act together spiritually, the traditional movement will never get off the ground. Now granted God will always raise saints to make sure the tradition is passed. But we'll be part of the problem, not part of the solution. Just because you see the problems, and you have the grace to see the problems, does not give you license to abuse both the grace that you received and other people.
And so what does this all mean? Trads, in my experience, tend to drive more away than they attract very often. And this means that we have to do some serious self-reflecting about how we're behaving in relationship to other people to make sure that they are able to see the value of the tradition. And the only way they're going to see the value is if they see that we're different from everybody else. If we're shopping on Sundays, if we're committing acts of impurity, if we're constantly using vulgarity and profanity, if we're behaving the exact same way, if we suffer from the same worldliness that everybody else does, how do you expect them to see the value of the tradition? They're going to look at it and say “you're no different and it obviously provides you nothing more than the rest of religions or even of the Novus Ordo.” And what does this mean? Well that's not true. That's a false conclusion. It just means that we haven't gotten our acts together. We cannot place the entire onus, by that we mean burden, of coming to the tradition on others. It is our responsibility to make sure that we do what we can to attract people and lead them to the tradition. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
Editor's Note: This is not a condemnation of the traditionalist movement by any means. In the spiritual life, one looks inwardly at one's own flaws in order to improve oneself. So too must we also do that collectively as a movement. As Fr. Ripperger has alluded to, his lecture is rooted in a desire to advance the movement to a greater level, so it can truly become a shining city on a hill.
Regarding Fr. Ripperger's note on generational spirits, I highly recommended you watch his 3 part video series for information on how to discern them and deliver yourself from them. His Deliverance Prayers prayerbook was specifically put together for the spiritual combat.
]]>The following is the Secret of La Salette. The English translation is done by Solange Hertz:
Mélanie, what I am going to tell you now will not always be secret; you can publish it in 1858.
Priests, my Son’s ministers, priests, by their evil life, by their irreverences and their impiety in celebrating the holy mysteries, by love of money, love of honor and pleasures, priests have become sewers of impurity. Yes, priests call forth vengeance, and vengeance is suspended over their heads. Woe to priests, and to persons consecrated to God, who by their infidelities and their evil life are crucifying my Son anew! The sins of persons consecrated to God cry to heaven and call for vengeance, and now here is vengeance at their very doors, for no longer is anyone found to beg mercy and pardon for the people; there are no more generous souls, there is now no one worthy of offering the spotless Victim to the Eternal on the world’s behalf.
God will strike in an unparalleled manner. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth! God will exhaust His anger, and no one will be able to escape so many evils all at once. The heads, the leaders of the people of God, have neglected prayer and penance, and the devil has darkened their minds; they have become those wandering stars which the ancient devil will drag with his tail to destruction. God will permit the ancient serpent to sow divisions among rulers, in all societies and in all families; both physical and moral punishments will be suffered. God will abandon men to themselves and will send chastisements one after the other for over 35 years.
Society is on the eve of most terrible scourges and greatest events; one must expect to be governed by a rod of iron and to drink the chalice of God’s wrath.
Let not my Son’s Vicar, the Sovereign Pontiff Pius IX leave Rome after the year 1859; but let him be steadfast and generous, let him do battle with the weapons of faith and love; I shall be with him.
Let him beware of Napoleon; his heart is double, and when he will want to be both Pope and emperor at the same time, God will soon withdraw from him: he is that eagle who, desiring always to rise, will fall on the sword he wanted to use to force the peoples to exalt him.
Italy will be punished for its ambition in wanting to shake off the yoke of the Lord of lords; thus she will be handed over to war; blood will flow on all sides; Churches will be closed or desecrated; priests, religious will be driven out; they will be put to death, and to a cruel death. Many will abandon the faith, and the number of priests and religious who will separate themselves from the true religion will be great; even Bishops will be found among these persons.
Let the Pope beware of miracle workers, for the time has come for the most astonishing wonders to take place on the earth and in the air.
In the year 1864 Lucifer, together with a great number of devils, will be loosed from hell; little by little they will abolish the faith, and that even in persons consecrated to God; they will so blind them, that without a special grace, these persons will take on the spirit of these evil angels; a number of religious houses will lose the faith entirely and cause many souls to be damned.
Bad books will abound over the earth, and the spirits of darkness will everywhere spread universal relaxation in everything concerning God’s service: they will have very great power over nature; there will be churches to serve these spirits. People will be transported from one place to another by these evil spirits, and even priests, because they will not have lived by the good spirit of the Gospel, which is a spirit of humility, charity and zeal for the glory of God. The dead and the just will be made to rise.
[ Mélanie interpolated here: “That is to say, these dead will assume the aspect of righteous souls who once lived on earth, in order to seduce men more easily; these so-called resurrected dead, who will be nothing other than the devil under these faces, will preach another Gospel, contrary to that of the true Christ Jesus, denying the existence of heaven, if these be not in fact the souls of the damned. All these souls will appear joined to their bodies.”]
There will be extraordinary wonders every place because the true faith has been extinguished and false light illumines the world. Woe to the Princes of the Church who will be occupied only with piling up riches upon riches, with guarding their authority and lording with pride!
My Son’s Vicar will have much to suffer, because for a time the Church will be handed over to great persecutions: it will be the time of darkness; the Church will undergo a frightful crisis.
With God’s holy faith forgotten, each individual will want to direct himself and rise above his peers. Civil and ecclesiastical authority will be abolished, all order and justice will be trampled underfoot. Only murders, hatred, jealousy, lying and discord will be seen, with no love of country or family.
The Holy Father will suffer greatly. I shall be with him till the end to receive his sacrifice.
The wicked will make a number of attempts on his life without being able to harm him; but neither he nor his successor will see the triumph of God’s Church.
Civil governments will all have the same objective, which will be to abolish and make every religious principle disappear, to make way for materialism, atheism, spiritism and vices of all kinds.
In the year 1865, the abomination will be seen in the holy places; in the convents the flowers of the Church will putrefy, and the devil will establish himself as king of all hearts. Let those who are at the head of religious communities be on their guard concerning the persons they are to receive, because the devil will use all his malice to introduce into religious orders persons given to sin, for disorders and love of carnal pleasures will be widespread over the whole earth.
France, Italy, Spain and England will be at war, blood will flow in the streets; Frenchman will fight with Frenchmen, Italian with Italian; then there will be a general war which will be appalling. For some time God will no longer remember France or Italy, because the Gospel of Jesus Christ is no longer known. The wicked will unleash all their malice; even in homes there will be killing and mutual massacres.
With the first lightning blow of His sword, the mountains and all nature will tremble with dread, because the disorders and crimes of men are piercing the vault of the heavens. Paris will be burned and Marseille swallowed up; a number of large cities will be shattered and swallowed by earthquakes; all will seem lost; only murders will be seen, the clash of arms and blasphemies heard. The righteous will suffer greatly; their prayers, their penances and their tears will rise to heaven and all God’s people will ask pardon and mercy and will ask my help and intercession. Then Jesus Christ, by an act of His justice and His great mercy towards the righteous, will command His angels to put all His enemies to death. At one blow the persecutors of the Church of Jesus Christ and all men given to sin will perish, and the earth will become like a desert.
Then there will be peace, the reconciliation of God with men; Jesus Christ will be served, adored and glorified; charity will flourish everywhere. The new kings will be the right arm of Holy Church, which will be strong, humble, pious, poor, zealous and imitative of the virtues of Jesus Christ. The Gospel will be preached everywhere, and men will make great strides in the faith, because there will be unity among Jesus Christ’s workers and men will live in the fear of God.
This peace among men will not last long: 25 years of abundant harvests will make them forget that the sins of men are the cause of all the woes which happen on earth.
A precursor of the Antichrist, with his troops drawn from many nations, will wage war against the true Christ, sole Savior of the world; he will shed much blood and will seek to annihilate the cult of God so as to be regarded as a god.
The earth will be struck with plagues of all kinds; [Mélanie added here: “Besides pestilence and famine, which will be widespread”] there will be wars up to the last war, which will then be waged by the ten kings of the Antichrist, kings who will all have a common design and will be sole rulers of the world. Before this happens, there will be a sort of false peace in the world; people will think only of amusing themselves; the wicked will indulge in all kinds of sin; but the children of Holy Church, children of the true faith, my true imitators, will grow in the love of God and in the virtues dearest to me. Happy the humble souls led by the Holy Spirit! I shall battle along with them until they reach the fullness of maturity.
Nature begs vengeance on account of men, and she shudders with dread, awaiting what must happen to the crime-stained earth.
Tremble, earth, and you who profess to serve Jesus Christ, while interiorly you adore yourselves, tremble; for God will hand you over to His enemy, because the holy places are in a state of corruption; many convents are no longer houses of God, but pastures for Asmodeus and his own.
It will be at this time that the Antichrist will be born of a Hebrew nun, a false virgin who will be in communication with the ancient serpent, master of impurity; his father will be a Bishop (Ev.). [ We spell out the word “bishop” here. In the French text appear only the first two letters of évèque, the French word for bishop, but there is little doubt that this is the word they stand for, because in Mélanie’s first draft of the message the whole word is spelled out.]
At birth he will vomit blasphemies, he will have teeth; in a word, this will be the devil incarnate; he will utter terrifying cries, he will work wonders, he will live only on impurities. He will have brothers who, although not incarnate devils like himself, will be children of evil; at the age of twelve, they will be noted for the valiant victories they will win; soon they will each be at the head of armies, assisted by legions from hell.
The seasons will be changed, the earth will produce only bad fruits, the heavenly bodies will lose the regularity of their movements, the moon will reflect only a feeble reddish light; water and fire will lend convulsive motions to the earth’s sphere, causing mountains, cities, etc., to be swallowed up.
Rome will lose the faith and become the seat of the Antichrist.
The demons of the air, together with the Antichrist, will work great wonders on the earth and in the air, and men will become ever more perverted. God will take care of His faithful servants and men of good will; the Gospel will be preached everywhere, all peoples and all nations will have knowledge of the truth.
I address a pressing appeal to the earth: I call upon the true disciples of the God living and reigning in the heavens; I call upon the true imitators of Christ made man, the one true Savior of men; I call upon my children, my true devotees, those who have given themselves to me so that I may lead them to my divine Son, those whom I bear as it were in my arms, those who have lived in my spirit; finally, I call upon the Apostles of the Latter Times, the faithful disciples of Jesus Christ who have lived in contempt of the world and of themselves, in poverty and humility, in contempt and silence, in prayer and mortification, in chastity and in union with God, in suffering, and unknown to the world. It is time for them to emerge and come enlighten the earth. Go, show yourselves to be my dear children; I am with you and in you, provided your faith is the light enlightening you in these evil times. May your zeal make you famished for the glory and honor of Jesus Christ. Do battle, children of light, you, the few who see thereby; for the time of times, the end of ends, is at hand.
The Church will be eclipsed, the world will be in consternation. But there are Enoch and Elias, filled with the Spirit of God; they will preach with the power of God, and men of good will will believe in God, and many souls will be comforted; they will make great progress by virtue of the Holy Spirit and will condemn the diabolical errors of the Antichrist.
Woe to the inhabitants of the earth. There will be bloody wars, and famines; plagues and contagious diseases; there will be frightful showers of animals; thunders which will demolish cities; earthquakes which will engulf countries; voices will be heard in the air; men will beat their heads against the walls; they will call on death, yet death will constitute their torment; blood will flow on all sides. Who could overcome, if God doesn’t shorten the time of trial? At the blood, tears and prayers of the righteous, God will relent; Enoch and Elias will be put to death; pagan Rome will disappear; the fire of Heaven will fall and consume three cities; the whole universe will be struck with terror, and many will allow themselves to be seduced because they didn’t adore the true Christ living in their midst. It is time; the sun is darkening; faith alone will survive.
The time is at hand; the abyss is opening. Here is the king of the kings of darkness. Here is the beast with its subjects, calling itself the savior of the world. In pride he will rise skyward to go up to Heaven; he will be stifled by the breath of St. Michael the Archangel. He will fall and the earth - which for three days will have been in constant change - will open its fiery bosom; he will be plunged forever with all his followers into hell’s eternal chasms. Then water and fire will purify the earth and consume all the works of men’s pride, and everything will be renewed: God will be served and glorified.
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In our modern age, living one’s life as a traditional Christian may seem next to impossible. One can no longer be an out and proud Christian who is fearless in spreading their beliefs. Rather, it is quite the opposite, as our current American culture, which has been hijacked by militant secularism, ambiguous morals, and a desire to do what feels good over what feels right has led to Christian practices and teachings being pushed to the fringes of society and condemned by our contemporary culture as bigoted or intolerant. The disinterest and failure of many moderate “Christians” to speak out and defend their faith has compounded these circumstances and lead to a mass decline in church attendance and acceptance of the many changes being forced upon Christians of all denominations. Yet in this seemingly endless abyss of darkness lies a small but optimistic ray of light in the form of Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option: A Strategy For Christians In A Post-Christian Nation. Rod Dreher is a senior editor at “The American Conservative” and is an Eastern Orthodox convert from the Catholic Church. In his book, Dreher lays out a plan for orthodox Christians (aka traditional) to preserve their faith, beliefs, and overall way of life using past practices from ancient Christian communities to lay the foundations for a truly counter cultural society. The Benedict Option not only unites practicing Christians to a common cause but also gives a sense of direction for those who may feel lost or abandoned in the truly post Christian times that we live in.
The Benedict Option is in many ways both a historical account and a manifesto for orthodox Christians. The book’s central premise is to call on devout Christians to see that the current society they live in is working against them. In post-Christian America, man is losing his attachment to God, family, and town, and it is only a matter of time before it is impossible to freely express traditional Christian beliefs on issues such as gay marriage, abortion, and matters of sexuality. As such, those serious about their faith must begin to make drastic but necessary changes in their lives if they’re going to preserve both their religion and their way of life. The name of the title of the book, and the plan detailed within it, are based off of an ancient Christian known as St. Benedict, who created a new community of Christians on the fringes of society during the collapse of the Western Roman Empire. This political decline created a massive power vacuum and saw the values of the conqueror's reign supreme, ushering in an age of moral degeneracy and political corruption. Benedict remained in a cave in the wilderness for three years before being offered the position of abbot at a local monastery. He went on to found twelve more monasteries, and created what was known as “The Rule of St. Benedict” to govern the monks. However, this text was also meant to be used by devout laymen. This Rule is essentially a guideline for living in a Christian community, and it provides directions for how to live a life that coincides with the teachings of Christ and honors Him through one’s actions. Dreher’s plan involves using a modified version of this Rule for modern traditional Christians to follow in creating new communities that preserve the Christian faith and inspire a renewed sense of devotion within new generations.
There are three major reasons why Dreher feels Christians need to take up this task. The first is that as society has become more secular, orthodox Christian beliefs on many issues have been deemed unacceptable by mainstream society, and are being used to push Christians out of the public forum and many prominent professions, such as the sciences and academics. Dreher provides plenty of examples of this disgraceful trend that is plaguing both America and the West entirely. For instance, the legal profession in Canada is conspiring to ban law graduates from Trinity Western University from practicing their profession. Their reason being that this school, which is a private liberal arts Christian institution, doesn’t completely file in line with many LGBT issues (182). The stance that society has taken is one of no compromises: you are either with us, or against us, and if you are the latter, you are no longer welcome. Secondly, although roughly 75% of Americans call themselves Christian, the reality is that many follow what is described in The Benedict Option as “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism”, which advocates the existence of God and the afterlife but discards or overlooks the many harsh or difficult teachings of Christ in favor of what makes one feel happy and secure. Adding insult to injury is the reality that churches are no longer the vibrant communities they once were, and can no longer bring together communities like they used to. And thirdly, modern politics, on both the Left and the Right, don’t represent interests of orthodox Christians. The civility that once controlled the exchange of ideas in political discourse has been usurped by a mindset of no middle ground and no negotiations between those who have disagreements on issues. Dreher demonstrates that the Left seeks to diminish if not wipe out Christianity in the West and the old school Religious Right is no longer viable nor relevant. Christians don’t have anyone to trust or rely on to ensure the visibility of religious devotion within political dialogue. And although Trump may have won, someone so “vulgar, fiercely combative, and morally compromised” as him is only going to delay the problem, not solve it (79). Trump’s behavior has had a profound effect. Not only has he not represented the Presidency this way, but now, like a disease, this behavior is now present in many other politicians, causing politics to be incredibly contentious and depraved.
The most positive aspect of this book, apart from its wealth of information and truly unique insight, is the set of steps laid out that could help lay down the foundations for this new type of community. While taking up these tasks would indeed require a great amount of change and adjustment that may be painful at first, they would potentially be for the best in creating and preserving environments where future generations can openly practice their faith free from fear of repercussions. Within the home, these would include setting up daily prayer and Bible study sessions, fasting when appropriate, limiting technology use (especially to reduce exposure to pornography), and in certain cases, homeschooling children with Christian values, especially when it pertains to matters of sex and living as faith-filled Christians. In terms of the greater community, Dreher encourages readers to take action to build solidarity with like minded believers. This involves living in close proximity to a church and alongside other faithful Christians, supporting Christian businesses, and encouraging hobbies that don’t rely on social media or mindless entertainment. Essentially, they are encouraged to live their faith in plain sight, but also separate from our mainstream, atheistic culture. One idea that intrigued me the most was the concept of restructuring Christian education to form a Classical Model, which focuses on teaching the Great Works and instilling critical thinking skills and complex theological understanding within its students from a young age. In fact, a personal visit of mine to a Classical and Christian college is what inspired me to return to the Catholic faith and work harder to be more true to the Church’s teachings.
Almost all of the ideas suggested in this book are much easier said than done, and would require a great amount of work to achieve. Most Christians, even the most faithful, rely heavily on many conveniences of our modern culture and getting them to abandon many of these things, even gradually, will be an immense challenge. Distancing oneself from technology will certainly be the most difficult task to achieve. I use technology (especially my iPhone) quite regularly and find it difficult to be away from it for an extended period of time. And while there are plenty of truly devout Christians out there, many of them also live comfortable lifestyle, and getting them to change their current lifestyle to follow one that is more aesthetic and secluded will be quite challenging. Raising children in this type of lifestyle is another issue. While a Classical and Christian Education is all well and good, it will be sometime before a truly Benedictine community in the U.S will ever be achieved, and our society still demands practical skills in order to make an income and to provide for our families. Many Christians will face hardship in the future if we don’t recognize the path that society is on, which will make some of these actions likely necessary in one form or another in the future.
While The Benedict Option is highly ambitious, it is an important work that every orthodox Christian should read. It will certainly not revive Medieval Christendom anytime soon, but what it will do is cause readers to see that modern society does not recognize or support their faith life. It will inspire one to take a second look at their current lifestyle and whether or not it is helping maintain the Faith, as it has for me. This book is a wake up call that all Christians need to hear, and it is a critical message, as the time when we will need to act urgently to save our Faith and our civilization may be sooner than we realize.
]]>In today’s culture, despite everything we may disagree about, we seem to share one singular, universal truth: that we must uphold the idea of democracy to maintain a free and just society; anything else could lead to the complete opposite. We are told almost from birth that a society whose framework involves the people casting their votes to choose a wise leader is one that is fair and prosperous. We are told that we might disagree on matters of economic practices, border enforcement, and the extent to which morals should be enforced by our government, but we must never abandon the ideals of a democratic society. To do so is a kind of blasphemy, and those who do are thought to support a dark future in which anarchy rules over a vast land of lawlessness, or in which we must all submit to a tyrannical strongman reigning with an iron fist over a helpless populace. However, after reading Charles A. Coulombe’s Star Spangled Crown, I am convinced that we are not being given the complete picture.
Coulombe’s book explores an alternative reality where the United States is close to the brink of collapse. In a desperate attempt to save the nation from complete destruction, the country severs ties with its republican roots and installs a thing we Americans are taught from birth to scorn: a Monarchy. And yet, Coulombe’s story creates an image of a royal institution that is, in many ways, truly American. It is one that doesn’t just rule over the people, but rather one that leads. Additionally, Coulombe provides evidence to prove that those who support the idea of a Monarchy aren’t just a ragtag fringe group seeking world domination, but rather one with a clear vision and purpose, and with history and facts to back up the claims.
Coulombe’s “Star Spangled Crown” is essentially a trinity of writing, divided into three related books that include: a fictional history, a historical account, and a political manifesto. It is a fictional account of the death of a republican United States and its rebirth into a monarchical one. After the 2016 election causes widespread disaster throughout the country, the following elections continue to escalate the situation. Standards of living decline, and widespread killings, based on divisions of race, sexuality, religion, etc., plague the country as the federal government slowly loses more and more control and more oppressive regulations are imposed. The point of no return arrives when the President loses complete control, most likely due to the burden of saving a collapsing nation, and she kills several government officials before she herself is shot. A desperate Pentagon decides that a monarchy is the only option—no one else has any better ideas—and they select for a king Grand Duke Hans Josef ll of Lichtenburg, specifically due to his young age, immense wealth, as well as for his inheritance linked to previous monarchs who had claims in many areas of the United States. Several compromises and a swift vote in the Senate ends the event known as the Instauration, and the newly titled King James IV becomes the first King of the United States.
This is when the second theoretical book, the most dominant of the three, begins. The historical account of the rise and reign of this first king is written in the 22nd century by a man who is defined as the great nephew of author Charles A Coulombe. His purpose in writing this book is to detail the American Monarchy and how this new system of government works.
Each chapter is dedicated to various aspects of society and how they are affected by restructuring of the American education system to fit the Classical Christian and Great Books programs of small Catholic liberal arts schools today, in foreign affairs, and in the Monarchy’s influence on global events, shown by, for example dealing with a resurgent Islamic State terror organization that has become more powerful in this futuristic timeline, having formed its Caliphate in the deserts of the Middle East. This account explains how such an imaginary monarchy would function and why. It links the traditions of the American Monarchy with those of kings from the West and as far back as Ancient China, and explores both their similarities and differences. One learns a great deal of factual history while reading an account of this fictional one.
And finally, the third book introduces the manifesto for an American Monarchism. While fictional, the story is in many ways the author’s desired vision of what American Monarchists want to achieve and the society they want to create. The political message of the book is most clearly presented in the afterword titled "The Empty Throne" and in the Essential Postlude, called “The Varieties of Monarchist Experience.” These sections of the book explain how the Monarchist movement has a long history, and continues to be heavily active today. What’s more, Coulombe explains how religion, especially Christianity and more specifically Catholicism, has deep roots within the tradition of Monarchy. It is implied that we don’t devote our life to Christ the President, but rather Christ the King. Many Monarchists hold devout Christian beliefs and would integrate these values into their respective societies if they could. This book’s reader would not, of course, turn around and call for a king. Coulombe explains in the third book that this story is “not a call for radical change,” but instead prompts the reader to think and consider if there are better alternatives than the democracy we already know. Although Coulombe desires an American king, he claims to be patriotic and to love the United States, despite having issues with many of its core institutions.
What I liked most about this book is its unique approach of being both novelistic and speculative. It is a one of a kind in it’s treatment of historical fiction. Many alternative history novels are out there, but I found this one refresher from the stream of tales about a nuclear fallout and its aftermath, or the imagined versions of a Nazi takeover after an Axis Victory in World War ll. Additionally, it is original in how it presents its underlying political message. Rather than focus on individual characters, such as in The Man in the High Castle, Coulombe’s use of a story in the form of a historical account allows for a more fleshed out scenario of an alternative reality. Nor does it make obvious what should and should not be present in society like The Handmaid’s Tale. That being said, the book isn’t without its weaknesses. The author’s considerable detail on some topics can grow a little dull, such as the minutiae of tinsmithing or Royal ceremonies. The reader may feel overburdened by the sheer quality of detail related in the history of these various traditions, and those many royal families. I had to re-read some passages multiple times to better understand how something functioned or the times being represented. It is a dense read, and not a page turning thriller by any means.
Still, in my opinion, the most important accomplishment of this book is that it shows while many small political movements fail, the Monarchist Movement has a clear idea of what it wants to accomplish, and is convinced that it can achieve. Every fictional aspect of this projected American Monarchy is backed up by historical examples. The author carefully details how these customs came about and how they would change if brought to the United States.While many fringe groups in the political realm, such as anarchists or primitivists, have bold theories, they lack historical basis to back them up. Monarchism differs in that it draws on a long and complex tradition that spans many continents, cultures, and faiths.
As discussed by Coulombe, many countries with active monarchist groups often have or may have the backing of other organizations, including religious ones. One example is how the monarchist movement in Greece, which is partly backed by the Orthodox Church, has some of its members desiring to take back “Constantinople” and restore the Orthodox Byzantine Empire in one version or another.
After finishing this novel, I visited several Monarchist websites and blogs and found the same pattern: those that adhere to this movement are educated, clear thinkers, educated, passionate, and disciplined. They know what they’re doing, and understand what is needed to accomplish their goals.
Finally, Coulombe portrays this fictional American Monarch not as a power hungry tyrant who only wishes to collect taxes and preserve his life of luxury. He is a concerned, dutiful leader who wishes the best for his subjects, is bound by honor, and wants to serve his country. Nor is he an Americanized version of a dictator. Despite the Monarch’s immense amount of power, the average citizen still has an abundant degree of freedom. Property rights are secured, freedom of speech is still mostly protected, people have the right to a trial by a jury of their peers in a court of law, and one can choose to adhere to whatever religion (or none) they choose, despite the Monarch being a devout Catholic. He is thus bound by not only a constitution, but also by morals and traditions, and may not pursue political actions that defy any of those. This can also make Monarchism appealing to many: it is a Christian movement that adheres to helping both preserve and enforce the values that make up the core of Western Christian Civilization. Coulombe, a traditionalist Catholic, emphasizes why he thinks Catholicism is more than compatible with a Monarchist system of government. In the novel, Catholicism is a far more energized faith than in our time. With the project passing of a Benedictine Reform, which renews the sacredness of the Latin-Rite Church, and closer ties with the Orthodox, King James can more easily rule as a Catholic despite the religious diversity of the United States. What’s more, the King himself isn’t entirely fictional! He may appear to have a convenient list of qualifications, but Coulombe claims he is apparently based on a real royal figurehead whose heir possesses many of the same characteristics.
Reading this book has certainly not made me a Monarchist by any means, as I am very much aware of the corruption and abuses that came about due to monarchies throughout history, regardless of whether or not they were bound by a constitution. However, this novel has shown me that this position can be a viable one in our time, especially due to the turbulence of contemporary America’s democratic process and politics. The candidates we have been presented with for various government positions as of late have not been the best and the brightest of our people (In my opinion, Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump prove this point).
Present and past circumstances, in my opinion, make monarchism an alternative worth considering in light of what he have now. I believe that all who love history and are concerned about where the United States is going should read Star Spangled Crown.
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