YES, I'M ANNOUNCING THE GOOD NEWS FROM ATOP THE HILLS!

"BECKET" IS BEING RERELEASED IN 29 THEATERS ACROSS THE UNITED STATES! JUSTICE IS FINALLY SERVED TO THIS LONG-NEGLECTED EPIC!


"Becket" was a film released in 1964 starring Richard Burton as Saint Thomas Becket and Peter O'Toole as King Henry II. After all these years, this film has finally been restored and remastered and all that jazz, and is being released here in San Antonio in two weeks. This is one of my favorite movies of all time, an epic of royal intrigues and duty to God over the state.

An excellent old-school Lenten image from Ken of Hallowed Ground. These penitents are from the Confraternity of Mercy, a lay order in Florence, Italy, founded in 1244 that, aside from being a penitential society, apparently also operates a volunteer ambulance service.

From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say: "Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." (Matt 4:17)

I felt this news story was worth its own separate entry.

It was announced recently that His Royal Highness Prince Henry of Wales (Prince Harry) will be deployed to Iraq, as he requested. Prince Harry serves in the British Army as a Reconaissance Troop Commander (tank commander) in the Royal Horse Guards and 1st Dragoons cavalry regiment, aka the Blues and Royals, which is the highest cavalry unit in the British Army's order of precedence after the Queen's Life Guard.

Prince Harry has done some pretty shameful things in the past and has an overall reputation for drinking and partying, but for some reason, I feel really inspired that His Highness is doing this. It will restore some much-needed honor and credibility to the House of Windsor. It's my hope that someday, kings and princes (and perhaps even presidents) will all ride with their soldiers to battle once again.





Prince Harry standing at attention to the left of the horse



A mounted soldier of the Blues and Royals on guard duty at Whitehall, London

Here's some random news from around the world. First, I'd like to start on a lighter report:

KFC appeals to higher authority for papal blessing for new Fish Snacker Sandwich.

"KFC's new Fish Snacker Sandwich, a tender, flaky filet of 100 percent Alaskan Pollack topped with tangy tartar sauce and served on a warm sesame bun, extends KFC's popular Snacker line-up and is ideal for American Catholics who want to observe Lenten season traditions while still leading their busy, modern lifestyles. The company has turned to Pope Benedict XVI, beseeching him to bestow his Papal blessing for this innovative new menu item. Vatican officials confirmed they received KFC's request, and the company is hopeful to get the Pope's blessing this Lenten season."

That's right. So do your duty and support popery by eating KFC's Fish Snacker Sandwich!

A strange story, from CNN.com: Mummified body found in front of blaring TV.

Mon Feb 19, 1:50 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Police called to a Long Island man's house discovered the mummified remains of the resident, dead for more than a year, sitting in front of a blaring television set.

The 70-year-old Hampton Bays, New York, resident, identified as Vincenzo Ricardo, appeared to have died of natural causes. Police said Saturday his body was discovered Thursday when they were called to the house over a burst water pipe.

"You could see his face. He still had hair on his head," Newsday quoted morgue assistant Jeff Bacchus as saying. The home's low humidity had preserved the body.

Officials could not explain why the electricity had not been turned off, considering Ricardo had not been heard from since December 2005.

Neighbors said when they had not seen Ricardo, who was diabetic and had been blind for years, they assumed he was in the hospital or a long-term care facility.

Grody! This society needs to start taking care of its elderly better.

Now, for some atrocious legal cases.

From CSMonitor: Dad wasn't dad after all, but still owes child support. Excerpt:

Sixteen months after his divorce, Richard Parker made a devastating discovery. A DNA test revealed that his 3-year-old son had been fathered by someone else.

Mr. Parker immediately filed a lawsuit claiming fraud by his apparently unfaithful ex-wife. He took his case all the way to the Florida Supreme Court.

Last week, the Florida justices ruled 7-0 against him. They said that Parker must continue to pay $1,200 a month in child support because he had missed the one-year postdivorce deadline for filing his lawsuit. His court-ordered payments would total more than $200,000 over 15 years to support another man's child.

"In no other area of the law do we punish the victim for the conduct of two other people". Apparently, in Florida, and in many other states, a man can be punished for his wife committing adultery with another man. I saw this story on the Fish Eaters forum. The most illustrious Lady Vox Clamantis offers her solution:

In this case, I think the wronged, legal father should be held liable because I believe that children born of marriage should be presumed to belong to the husband. However, the powers that rightfully belong to fathers should also be his, and she should get kicked to the curb for being a lying adultress. In other words, he should get the child and the responsibility for that child, and she should move along (or apologize, change her ways, and act as a grateful mother and wife). Further, men should not be held liable for children born outside of wedlock. Doing these two things would restore the patriarchy necessary for civilization.

Indeed.

From the Philadelphia Inquirer: Mom sues Abington school district over son's Jesus costume. Excerpt:

An Abington Township woman and her 10-year old son have sued the Abington School District, saying that the principal at the Willow Hill Elementary School there would not allow the boy to wear a Jesus costume, complete with a paper-and-twig crown of thorns, during a Halloween parade there last fall.

Instead, the suit says, he was told that he could wear only his white robe, without the crown, and should say he was a Roman emperor. The boy wanted to wear the costume to make a statement about his Christian beliefs and his opposition to the pagan aspects of Halloween, the suit says. Other children were allowed to dress as devils and goblins, the suit says.

Diogenes of CWNews cites yet another atrocity in the NAB (or in this case, the RNAB, Revised New American). This time, one in which the NAB apparently really tries to eliminate the references to Christ in the Old Testament.




Besides the Chair of Peter, 22 February also happens to be the birthday of the Father of our Country, His Excellency President George Washington. True, it's "President's Day" now to honor all the presidents, and it's not even on Washington's birthday anymore, but I'll always think of the day as belonging to our Pater Patria. Father Phillips writes some on the subject.

This week is full of celebrations, even though it's the beginning of Lent. Today (or rather, yesterday since it's early in the morning on Friday now), I went to early morning Mass to celebrate the Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter in Antioch. This is distinguished from the Chair of Peter in Rome, which is on 18 January. Before Peter moved to Rome, he was Bishop of Antioch for a time. 22 February is the day traditionally believed to have been when Pope Peter established his see there. Other traditions considered it to be the very day in which Peter confessed that Jesus was the Messias and was given the keys to the kingdom of heaven.

The Mass I went to was for the parish school, the Atonement Academy. After Father's short sermon on the Chair of Peter, he went on to talk about the junior class at the school going out into the world to be soldiers of Christ. He had the junior class come forward as he blessed their class rings at the altar, emblazoned with the school's coat of arms and Fidelitas ("fidelity"), and put them on each student's finger. I really didn't get anything as neat as that when I was at Churchill H.S. I really got gipped at public school.

On a side note, it was believed by some that today would be the day when His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI would issue the motu proprio for the Tridentine indult. Alas, it was wishful thinking. It didn't happen. This is a summary of what the Pope did say today. Also, the Pope has much wisdom to read from his speech at an audience last year on the feast day.



But about the Chair: a chair is often a symbol of authority or office. The chief of a board of directors is a "Chairman". A judge makes his rulings in court from the "bench". A leading professor holds a "chair". A king pronounces his decrees from a "throne". Every bishop has a throne, called in Latin a cathedra, in his cathedral, where he rules over his diocese.

The Chair of Peter is all of these things, for the Pope is a chairman over the college of bishops. With the bishops, he is a judge, charged with interpreting Scripture through the lends of Tradition. He is the great teacher of the gospel for the entire Church. And, he is the steward of the kingdom of heaven on earth until the King, Jesus Christ, returns again.

The Golden Legend by the medieval Archbishop Jacobus de Voragine has a great reading for this feast day, explaining the three types of chairs that the Chair of Peter holds.

Today is also a good day to talk about my favorite Bernini sculpture, the Cathedra Petri, housed in St. Peter's Basilica. That story starts with the original chair that was traditionally believed to have been used by St. Peter himself to teach the gospel from and from which he presided during the Mass. For centuries, the same chair was used for the coronations of all the popes, and was brought out again for the Pope to sit on while administering the Sacrament of Confirmation to neophytes. The chair has been augmented by ornamentation since its first use, of course, but the core of the chair has been dated to the 1st century.

By the time of the 1600's, the chair had suffered from deterioration and could no longer be safely used. Pope Alexander VII commissioned the great sculptor, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, to create a suitable reliquary for it. The chair is now encased in a giant sculpture of gilded bronze above the high altar in the head of the Basilica.

The sculpture depicts a glorified Chair of Peter being supported by four of the most important Doctors of the Church. The two in front, wearing the mitres, are Doctors of the Western Church, Sts. Ambrose and Augustine. The two in the rear, with bare heads, are the Eastern Doctors, Sts. Athanasius and John Chrysostom. These four Doctors all wrote heavily on the primacy of the Pope over all the bishops and his authority over the entire Church. It's interesting to see, though, that the Doctors aren't actually holding the Chair up with their hands. The Chair is being supported by thin ribbons, symbolizing a a spiritual bond between the Chair and the four bishops. The back of the chair depicts the crucial scene in which Christ hands over the keys to the kingdom of heaven to Peter. Above, angels hold up the papal crown and keys over where Peter's head would be if he were to sit on it. The Holy Ghost, in the form of a dove, inspires and guides the Pope from error when solemnly defining dogma ex cathedra (from the chair).



Today's first Scriptural reading in the Mass came from a very early papal encyclical: the first letter of Saint Peter, in the fifth chapter. Here, we see the wisdom and counsel of our first shepherd, Pope Peter, in his instructions to the priests ("ancients") of the Church:

The ancients therefore that are among you, I beseech who am myself also an ancient and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, as also a partaker of that glory which is to be revealed in time to come:

Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking care of it, not by constraint but willingly, according to God: not for filthy lucre's sake but voluntarily; neither as lording it over the clergy but being made a pattern of the flock from the heart. And when the Prince of Pastors shall appear, you shall receive a never fading crown of glory.

In like manner, ye young men, be subject to the ancients. And do you all insinuate humility one to another; for God resisteth the proud, but to the humble he giveth grace.

Be you humbled therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in the time of visitation; casting all your care upon him, for he hath care of you.

Be sober and watch; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist ye, strong in faith; knowing that the same affliction befalls your brethren who are in the world.

But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto His eternal glory in Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little, will Himself perfect you and confirm you and establish you.

To Him be glory and empire, for ever and ever. Amen.

Saint Augustine


Saint Athanasius


Here, you can see the apse in St. Peter's where the Cathedra Petri is housed. Sadly, the traditional high altar appears to be removed, and in its place, a modern Novus Ordo table with pews arranged to surround it in modern fashion.

However, here you can see the inscription above which says in Latin on the left, O Pastor Ecclesiae, tu omnes Christi pascis agnos et oves ("O pastor of the Church, you feed all Christ's lambs and sheep"), and the same thing in Greek on the right; for Peter was shepherd of both Rome and Antioch, and the Pope is shepherd of both east and west. It quotes the final instruction of Christ to Peter in John 21 to "feed My sheep".

I took my friends to Mass this evening for the Dies Cinerum, or Day of Ashes. It was a Mass according to the Anglican use, so it had an interesting custom carried over from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.

In the days of the "Reformation" in England, many radical Protestants wanted to abolish Ash Wednesday, which was considered a popish superstition. It's said that Queen Elizabeth I wanted to abolish Ash Wednesday, but her desire to preserve the fish market won out, so it was maintained. Before the priest would bless the ashes, he would turn to face the people and "console" the radical Protestants with these words which remind us of Lent's root in the early Church:

BRETHREN, in the primitive Church it was the custom to observe with great devotion the days of our Lord's Passion and Resurrection, and to prepare for the same by a season of penitence and fasting. This season of Lent provided also a time in which converts to the faith were prepared for holy Baptism. It was also a time when such persons as had, by reason of notorious sins, been separated from the body of the faithful, were reconciled and restored to the fellowship of the Church by penitence and forgiveness. Thereby the whole Congregation was put in mind of the message of pardon and absolution contained in the Gospel of our Saviour, and of the need which all Christians continually have, of a renewal of their repentance and faith. I therefore invite you, in the name of the Church, to the observance of a holy Lent, by self-examination and repentance, by prayer, fasting, and self-denial, and by reading and meditation upon God's holy Word. And now, to make a right beginning of repentance, and as a mark of our mortal nature, let us now kneel before the Lord, our maker and redeemer.

Right now, Shannon is in preparation for baptism through the RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) and will be baptized on the vigil of Easter. It was the custom in earlier times to prepare new converts for entry into the Church by forty days of rigorous penance, coupled with daily instruction in the Scripture and doctrine (in some places, 3 hours of instruction per day), and consummated with baptism on the vigil of Easter. As Catholicism became the dominant faith of western society and most members were baptized at birth, the Church set to remind us of these times by making the observance of the forty days mandatory for all Catholics every year; this is the historical origin of Lent.

The custom of being marked on the forehead (or in some European countries, the top of the head) with ashes comes from the Hebrew custom of Biblical times, in which people would tear their clothes and wear dust on their heads as a sign of penance for sin (1 Samuel 4:12, 2 Samuel 13:19, Job 42:6, "Therefore I reprehend myself, and do penance in dust and ashes").

The ashes are made from the burnt remains of the palm fronds of the previous year's Palm Sunday. When imposing the ashes upon a person, the priest usually says words such as: "Remember, man, that thou art but dust, and unto dust thou shalt return." They quote the words that God spoke to Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:19) when He cast them out of the garden of paradise.


This is His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI's message for Lent, 2007, prefaced by commentary from Chiesa. The Scriptural theme for the year is from John 19:37, "They shall look on Him whom they pierced." A small quote:

Lent is a favourable time to learn to stay with Mary and John, the beloved disciple, close to Him who on the Cross, consummated for all mankind the sacrifice of His life (cf. Jn 19:25).

With a more fervent participation let us direct our gaze, therefore, in this time of penance and prayer, at Christ crucified who, dying on Calvary, revealed fully for us the love of God.

From WFAA.com: Italian girl, 13, forced to have abortion.

An Italian judge has ordered a 13-year-old girl from Torino to abort her unborn child because her parents were opposed to the baby, according to La Stampa newspaper.

Italian legislation states that a minor is not allowed to decide whether to abort or not and the decision falls entirely on the guardians or parents.

The paper reports that the girl didn't want to abort the baby but had to after the ruling.

The girl got pregnant by her 15-year-old boyfriend but despite this she still wanted to keep the baby.

However her parents demanded an abortion. After the abortion, the girl went into a frenzy and threatened to kill herself.

"The unborn baby is still a life and I defend life whatever the situation." Severino Poletto, Archbishop of Torino told the paper.

"Society must take of this child. I certainly oppose abortions but this case allows us to reflect on the situation. We have to take a step back and ask ourselves how this could have happened to a 13-year-old girl." he added.

Where is the outrage from feminist groups about a girl's "right to choose"? Don't girls also have a "right" to choose life as well as abortion?

Back when I used LiveJournal, this time of year would be when I would rail against the excesses of Carnival in its various incarnations around the world, especially Rio Carnival in Brazil and Mardi Gras in New Orleans, Louisiana. Truly, such excesses, such as baring breasts for beads, mass distribution of condoms for nightlong orgies, and all-around drunkenness are still to be condemned. However, this year, instead of merely condemning, I would like to reclaim this day for Christ and popery, as it once was.

The word Carnival comes from the Latin words carnis for "meat" and vale for "farewell"; Carnival means "farewell to meat", a time to feast and be merry before the arrival of Lent. Depending on the local custom, the Carnival season can last from two weeks before Ash Wednesday to Twelfthnight (the twelfth night after Christmas). In its most debauched days, the Carnival of Venice lasted six months.

Carnival season culminates in the day before Ash Wednesday, called Fat Tuesday (Mardi Gras in French). In the days before refrigeration and when Lenten fasting rules were much more rigorous, households had to use up their entire stock of fats, eggs, and butter before Lent began. Especially in England, housewives would use this up by making and serving pancakes. Vox Clamantis explains the English custom of pancake races:

In these races, women must run while flipping a pancake so many times, and whoever crosses the finish line first wins. The largest pancake race in England is in Olney, in Buckinghamshire. There, the women must wear a dress, apron, and bonnet, and flip the pancake three times -- while ensuring it is intact after they cross the finish line, of course. The story told to explain the origins of this race is that in 1445, a homemaker heard the shriving bell (the bell rung to summon people to Making Waffles, by Joachim De Beuckelaer, 1550-1560 (detail)confession on this day) as she was busy working in her kitchen. Not wanting to be late, she rushed about and ran off with her skillet still in hand.

Fat Tuesday is occasionally called "Shrove Tuesday" after the word "shrive", meaning "to confess". It was traditionally a day when priests would hear confessions before the start of Lent.


The custom of wearing masks comes from the old Republic of Venice during medieval times. Mask-wearing was such an integral part of Venetian culture that even inquisitors and the papal nuncio would be wearing them during Carnival. The modern-day parades come largely from the professional parade organizations called "krewes" that came up in New Orleans in the late 19th century, ironically from a group of Protestant businessmen who formed the Mistick Krewe of Comus. However, there's a theory that the original parades came from medieval times, when the king or lord would dub knights before Lent. The new knights would parade on horseback in the village and perform the chivalrous duty of distributing some of their wealth to the poor; hence the modern practice of parade floats distributing fake money.

Mardi Gras festivities conclude on midnight. In New Orleans, when the church bells ring, the music stops, and mounted police clear the streets. Father Ray Blake of Mary Magdalen Parish gives a neat description:

Carnival, carni vale, meat farewell.
By now the partying in the parish is full flow, dancing, feasting, opera going, street parties eating fat and meat and all of that sort of thing, then tomorrow at midnight amid the sound of party-poppers and raucous laughter the Church bell will ring out and silence will fall over the city. Then dancing will turn into solemn penitential processions, the feasting to strict fasting, the opera to sober oratorios, and all will say farewell to meat and fat. By Holy Week our bodies will be thin and sallow chastened by the rigours of a Holy Lent. The masks that have hidden our identity during carnival are cast off and trodden underfoot, we stand barefaced before the living God. Riotous partying will give way to rigorous conversion.

In the quest to restore all things in Christ, even Fat Tuesday, I found this prayer for the day from the blog Happy Catholic:

Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation,
for it is from your goodness that we have this day
to celebrate on the threshold of the Season of Lent.

Tomorrow we will fast and abstain from meat.
Today we feast.
We thank you for the abundance of gifts you shower upon us.
We thank you especially for one another.
As we give you thanks,
we are mindful of those who have so much less than we do.
As we share these wonderful gifts together,
we commit ourselves to greater generosity toward those
who need our support.

Prepare us for tomorrow.
Tasting the fullness of what we have today,
let us experience some hunger tomorrow.
May our fasting make us more alert
and may it heighten our consciousness
so that we might be ready to hear your Word
and respond to your call.

As our feasting fills us with gratitude
so may our fasting and abstinence hollow out in us
a place for deeper desires
and an attentiveness to hear the cry of the poor.
May our self-denial turn our hearts to you
and give us a new freedom for
generous service to others.

We ask you these graces
with our hearts full of delight
and stirring with readiness for the journey ahead.
We ask them with confidence
in the name of Jesus the Lord.

Below are some amazing Carnival masks and costumes seen in Venice:











This one is my favorite. I'd like to wear something like this with Shannon:

This Wednesday will be Ash Wednesday, the first day of the Lenten season. This is a refresher of the current laws for observing Lent, according to the 1983 Code of Canon Law:

-Ash Wednesday and Good Friday: fasting and total abstinence from meat

-All Fridays of Lent: abstinence from meat, unless a solemnity/feast day should fall on a particular Friday


Fasting according to canon law means eating only one normally sized meal for that day, at suppertime. Two smaller meals, which must not equal the size of the main meal when put together, are allowed if necessary for sustenance. No snacking between meals. The law of fasting is binding upon all Catholics between the ages of 18 and 59 years on pain of mortal sin. However, it's a good thing for younger or older Catholics to maintain the fast, and certainly something that God will not forget on the day of judgment. Also, the law of charity applies here, so of course those who are pregnant, sick, or performing extraordinarily hard labor, such as soldiers in wartime, are excused from the fast. It would be a good idea to check with your pastor and obtain a dispensation from him for whatever circumstances prevent you from holding to the fast.

Total abstinence from meat means not eating the flesh of mammals or fowl for the entire day. Since canon law is written in Latin, the Latin word for "meat", carnis, applies only to the flesh of mammals or fowl, not to fish. Therefore, fish, which was especially a staple food of men such as Our Lord Jesus and His Apostles, is permitted. However, this reminds me of a Protestant friend of mine who once complained of the hypocrisy of seeing the lobster restaurant that he cleaned tables at packed to the brim on Lenten Fridays. Fridays are a day of penance, and the food eaten on that day should be penitential; that is, simple and cheap. I wouldn't consider a night at Red Lobster to be an act of penance.

The specific canons from 1983 are found below:

Can. 1249 All Christ's faithful are obliged by divine law, each in his or her own way, to do penance. However, so that all may be joined together in a certain common practice of penance, days of penance are prescribed. On these days the faithful are in a special manner to devote themselves to prayer, to engage in works of piety and charity, and to deny themselves, by fulfilling their obligations more faithfully and especially by observing the fast and abstinence which the following canons prescribe.

Can. 1250 The days and times of penance for the universal Church are each Friday of the whole year and the season of Lent.

Can. 1251 Abstinence from meat, or from some other food as determined by the Episcopal Conference, is to be observed on all Fridays, unless a solemnity should fall on a Friday. Abstinence and fasting are to be observed on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday.

Can. 1252 The law of abstinence binds those who have completed their fourteenth year. The law of fasting binds those who have attained their majority, until the beginning of their sixtieth year. Pastors of souls and parents are to ensure that even those who by reason of their age are not bound by the law of fasting and abstinence, are taught the true meaning of penance.

Can. 1253 The Episcopal Conference can determine more particular ways in which fasting and abstinence are to be observed. In place of abstinence or fasting it can substitute, in whole or in part, other forms of penance, especially works of charity and exercises of piety.

The current laws of 1983, which have only two fast days and abstinence only on Fridays, are admittedly pretty lax. The entire 1983 Code of Canon Law is pretty lax compared to the 1917 Code, which was before Vatican II Council. However, the spirit of the law trumps the letter of the law, and it is highly recommendable to observe the old fasting and abstinence days, even and especially when they're no longer required of us by law.

The law of 1917:

Partial abstinence and fasting on ALL days of Lent, except for Sundays and 1st class feast days. Partial abstinence allows the eating of soup made from meat, but not whole meat. But yes, in traditional Catholic countries, the meat market essentially died during Lent season. If you've ever read Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal" in school, Swift tells the British government how to lessen the number of Catholics in Ireland and satirically says that "we are told by a grave author, an eminent French physician, that fish being a prolific diet, there are more children born in Roman Catholic countries about nine months after Lent than at any other season."

Total abstinence and fasting on Lenten Embertide. The Ember days are the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday before the beginning of each of the four seasons of the year. Catholics used to maintain the Old Testament Jewish custom of fasting before each season to call God's blessing on the fields (see Zacharias 8:19). For the spring season, those days are the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after the Quadragesima Sunday (First Sunday of Lent). This year, they fall on 28 February and the 2nd and 3rd of March. Remember on these days to ask God for good rain and sunshine for the spring season.

Total abstinence and fasting on Ash Wednesday, all Fridays, and all Saturdays. This is the same as in the 1983 Code, but extends the law to all Fridays, not just Good Friday, and also all Saturdays, for on Saturday, Christ rested in the tomb.


With all these rules, the most important thing to remember is WHY they exist. The word "Lent" comes from the Old English word for the spring season, lencten. During spring, the hours of daylight "lengthen" as the earth draws nearer to the sun (or the sun draws nearer to the earth, for geocentrists). The Anglo-Saxon word for the month of March is lenct. In Latin, the season is called quadragesima (forty days). Hence, in Spanish, it's called cuaresma, and in French, carême.

Lent is a season of penance that the Church has maintained ever since the earliest times, lasting forty days (not counting Sundays) before the Resurrection of the Lord on Easter Sunday. The number forty appears many times in Scripture, such as the forty days of the great flood in Noah's time, or the forty years that the Israelites wandered in the desert with Moses, and most importantly, Jesus Christ's total fast in the wilderness after He was baptized by St. John the Baptist in the Jordan:

Then Jesus was led by the spirit into the desert, to be tempted by the devil. And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, afterwards he was hungry. (Matthew 4:1-2)

Catholics fast partially because of the power that it adds to prayer. In the gospels, the Apostles once attempted an exorcism and failed until Christ Himself appeared and cast the demon out. The Apostles asked why they couldn't, and Christ replied saying that they must fast:

And Jesus rebuked him, and the devil went out of him, and the child was cured from that hour. Then came the disciples to Jesus secretly, and said: "Why could not we cast him out?" Jesus said to them:

"Because of your unbelief. For, amen I say to you, if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain: Remove from hence hither, and it shall remove: and nothing shall be impossible to you. But this kind is not cast out but by prayer and fasting." (Matthew 17:17-20)

Some Protestants rebuke Catholics for fasting, saying that fasting was abolished after the Resurrection and that it's vain effort to win God's favor; yet Christ said that His followers would fast after He left:

But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days. (Luke 5:35)

The Apostles also fasted before ordaining new priests: "And when they had fasted and prayed, and laid their hands on them, they sent them away." (Acts 13:3)

The most popular custom among American Catholics during Lent is to sacrifice some habit for the season, such as smoking, eating chocolate, or watching television. This is a praiseworthy custom, of course. When choosing what to abstain from, it's important to remember that it shouldn't be a sin that we intend to resume after Lent is over. Catholics are called to renounce all sin from baptism, no matter what. Instead, we should sacrifice something that's not a sin, but also something that we could do without, for the complete Christian lives "by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of God."


Vox Clamantis of Fish Eaters lists some lesser known but still excellent customs for Lent. Among them include:

-confession at least once during Lent, especially before Easter Sunday. In addition, confessing to family members and asking forgiveness from them.

-regular reading from Scripture and other spiritual works. Vox quotes the recommendations of Maria von Tropp: "the Book of Jeremias and the works of Saints, such as The Ascent of Mount Carmel, by St. John of the Cross; The Introduction to a Devout Life, by St. Francis de Sales; The Story of a Soul, by St. Thérèse of Lisieux; The Spiritual Castle, by St. Teresa of Avila; the Soul of the Apostolate, by Abbot Chautard; the books of Abbot Marmion, and similar works."

-praying the Seven Penitential Psalms (Psalms 6, 31, 37, 50, 101, 129 and 142 according to Douay-Rheims numbering). This custom was instituted by Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) for all days of Lent. If that's not possible, one can pray them on the seven Fridays of Lent.

-reciting the Prayer Before a Crucifix (En ego, O bone et dulcissime Iesu...) When prayed on Fridays of Lent, a plenary indulgence is granted along with the normal conditions.


The Church observes Lent in the Mass by omitting the Gloria hymn and the Alleluia before the Gospel reading, except on 1st class feast days and Laetare Sunday. Hymns during Lent generally take on a more penitential theme as opposed to praise. The clergy wear purple vestments, as purple is a color of penance that recalls to mind the purple robe that the Roman soldiers gave to Christ to mock His kingship. At my parish, at Sunday Mass, the priest omits the Confiteor at the beginning of Mass and instead performs the Asperges Me, which is the rite of sprinkling the congregation with holy water. Also, my parish has a public Evensong (Vespers), Stations of the Cross, and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament on Lenten Fridays.

This is a very good blog by a certain lady who appears to love the great British champion, Sir Winston Churchill: V for Victory!

Some of the gems I found on that blog are:

A Dirty Old Man--At the Age of Four.

December 3, 2003: "We Got Him!"

Betcha Didn't Know Vatican II Said THIS!

And one of the biggest eye-openers ever: Just Keep Reminding Yourself: This is Progress. Definitely check that one out. It's scary.

This is an old episode of The Simpsons, in which Homer and Bart convert to Catholicism. The Simpsons account of Saint Sebastian is.... interesting.

LOL at King-James-onlyism! I encountered what seems to be the most extreme type of King James onlyists yet, embodied in the teachings of Peter Ruckman and his followers. Now, I can certainly sympathize with them as far as their criticisms of new, modernist Bible translations. But the belief that the 1611 so-called "Authorized" Version of the King James Bible is "advanced revelation", that it's even more inspired than the original language texts, and that Greek and Hebrew texts should be corrected by the KJV is shameful. There's apparently an even smaller sect that believes "that the KJV was written in eternity, and that Abraham and Moses and the prophets all read the 1611 KJV, including the New Testament. These individuals believe that Hebrew is actually English."

What I want to know is how come the Anglicans, the ones who actually made the KJV and support the British monarch's supremacy over the Church, don't subscribe to this doctrine, and how come the Baptists, who would have been considered damnable heretics by the authors of the KJV, do. Not even King James himself would have indulged in this level of idolatry, I don't think.

On a side note, something that disturbed me on the above website was a passing mention about the military vocation, comparing the butcher Oliver Cromwell to Joshua and King David:

13. A Christian should only serve in the military if he feels the Lord has called him to do it. Since the job of the military is to kill the enemy, a Christian should be certain that God has called him to kill people in the wars of his country. Joshua was called to do that. David was called to do that. Oliver Cromwell was called to do that. Of course, any Christian who is drafted should obey and go into the military (Rom. 13).

I've been meaning to do this one for a while.....

Blessed Karl von Habsburg (1887-1922) was the last Emperor of Austria, the last Apostolic King of Hungary, and the last ruler of the Habsburg dynasty. He was also a saint among emperors, perhaps the last great man of the pre-modern age.

Karl was born to Archduke Otto Franz of Austria in 1887. Like many saints and saintly figures, Karl lived a life of almost perpetual illness. When he was born, a nun sufferng from the stigmata prophesied that Karl would live a life of suffering, so a group of people was assigned to pray for him at all times. As a child, he was known for his generous heart; even though he lived in a castle, he did chores to raise money for the poor. He was noted especially for his many hours spent in prayer and his devotion to Jesus and the Blessed Sacrament.

At the age of 16, Karl joined the Austrian army as a second lieutenant, building a reputation as a loyal soldier who loved his troops. At the age of 24, he fell in love with the beautiful and devout Princess Zita of Parma. He took her to a Marian shrine and proposed to her in front of the Blessed Sacrament. When they married in 1911, Karl said to Zita: “Now we must help each other get to Heaven.”

Karl came onto the world stage when his uncle, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated by Serbian extremists, making Karl the heir-apparent to the throne of Austria. When the First World War broke out, Karl as a military officer commanded the Austrian army at the front, valiantly leading his men to victory on the eastern front. More importantly, in a war characterized elsewhere by mindless carnage, Karl upheld the Christian code of chivalry and compassion:

. . . to ensure that the wounded are taken care of as quickly as possible and that the troops are always provided for as well as possible…I forbid the order to take no prisoners…I forbid most emphatically stealing and plundering and wanton destruction. Every soldier in the 20th Corps must be filled with the conviction that we are the bearers of culture, even in the land of traitors.

In 1916, Karl was recalled to Emperor Franz Joseph's bedside, where he fervently prayed the rosary as the old emperor lay dying. That year, Karl was crowned Emperor of Austria and then Apostolic King of Hungary.

On 30th December, 1916, Karl knelt in the Church of St. Matthew in Budapest before the Prime Minister and the Primate of Hungary to receive the holy crown of St. Stephen from their hands as King Karl IV. The Empress Zita was crowned by having her shoulder touched by the crown. Immediately after Karl swore to the constitution in the open air before a cheering crowd of nobles and citizens. Then he rode up the so-called Royal Hill to swing his sword to all four points of the compass to demonstrate the King's willingness to defend the borders of the Lands of St. Stephen.

Immediately upon ascending the throne, Emperor Karl dedicated himself to making peace and ending World War I. The same month of his accession to the throne, he engaged in secret peace talks with the French but in the infamous "Sixtus affair", the Prime Minister of France, Georges Clemenceau, revealed the letters that Karl wrote to the press, and made Karl appear a traitor to the world. After this, Germany used the affair to compel Austria to an even stronger alliance during the war.

In the mean time, Emperor Karl made many reforms and charitable decrees to lessen the burdens of war on his nation, such as the 26 January edict against the rise of housing costs; the establishment of the Ministry of Social Welfare and the Ministry of Public Health; and the 2 July declaration of general amnesty for political crimes. He used his palace horses to pull coal wagons for the people of Vienna to keep warm, and gave away much of his fortune to relieve the poor. More importantly, Karl was the only WWI leader who forbade his troops from using mustard gas. He also forbade his troops from using submarine warfare, bombarding civilian targets, and dueling. Instead, Karl created a "great books" program to educate soldiers in the classic works of philosophy, literature, and other studies. Karl also warned the Germans against using submarine warfare, which would later cause the Americans to join the Allies. When the Americans joined, Karl knew that the Central Powers would lose the war, and refrained from entertaining the notions that the Germans had about victory.

Another chance for peace came later in 1917 when Pope Benedict XV gave his peace plan; but every world leader rejected it, except for Karl. President Woodrow Wilson vocally rejected the plan, perhaps merely on the grounds that it came from a pope; although Wilson's later "Fourteen Points" were taken sometimes almost verbatim from Pope Benedict's seven points.

In 1918, Karl followed Wilson's plan by reconvening the Imperial Parliament to discuss the possibility of the Austrian provinces exercising autonomy; the plan backfired and the government declared itself a republic. When the socialists took over, they exiled Karl to Switzerland. However, Karl never abdicated his throne, saying:

"My crown is a sacred deed entrusted to me by my God. I must never give up this bond or my people.”

In 1921, hearing the call of the people of Hungary who clamored for the return of their king, Karl made two attempts to sneak into Hungary, once by train in disguise and once by plane. The previous year, the Hungarian government declared Hungary to be a monarchy once more, but refrained from calling Karl out of exile, and appointed Admiral Miklos Horthy as regent instead. Horthy at first assisted Karl in returning, then betrayed and arrested him. Karl was exiled to the island of Madeira, where he spent his last days with his wife Zita and his eight children.

When living in exile, Karl said to his wife: “God has given me the grace so that there now remains nothing on this earth that I would not be willing to sacrifice out of my love for Him and for the benefit of the Holy Church.” Due to the poor conditions, he fell ill with pneumonia. He received the Last Rites on his deathbed. With the Blessed Sacrament exposed in his room and with a crucifix in hand, Karl's last words were: “Thy Holy Will be done. Jesus, Jesus, come! Yes—yes. My Jesus, Thy Will be done— Jesus” and gave his his ghost at the age of 34.

On 3 October 2004, Pope John Paul II beatified Karl based on a miracle directly associated with him and documented by three medical professionals. In 1960, a Brazilian nun, previously bedridden, was miraculously healed when she prayed for the beatification of Emperor Karl. With this, the Pope wrote:

The decisive task of Christians consists in seeking, recognizing and following God's will in all things. The Christian statesman, Karl of Austria , confronted this challenge every day. To his eyes, war appeared as "something appalling". Amid the tumult of the First World War, he strove to promote the peace initiative of my Predecessor, Benedict XV.
From the beginning, the Emperor Karl conceived of his office as a holy service to his people. His chief concern was to follow the Christian vocation to holiness also in his political actions. For this reason, his thoughts turned to social assistance. May he be an example for all of us, especially for those who have political responsibilities in Europe today!

Karl's and Zita's engagement


Emperor Karl and Crown Prince Otto


Emperor Karl on horseback after his coronation


The Emperor brings food to a lonely infantry soldier


Emperor and Empress kneeling at Mass before boarding the train to try to retake Hungary


The Emperor dies


The Emperor's portrait hanging outside Saint Peter's Basilica during his beatification Mass


Pope JPII blesses Archduke Otto, eldest son of Blessed Karl


Austrian Imperial Cavalry in attenadance

I really am terrible with being awake during daylight when I'm an unemployed, unschooled bum, and so I decided to stay awake the entire night. It really is a glorious morning with the birds chirping outside with me puerusing the Novus Ordo GIRM, tarnished only by the fact that my feet are cold as dead flesh.


I was also perusing Andrew Cusack's blog archives and found some old gems. This one here is for Pablo:

March 28, 2005
The Reconquest of Madrid

On this day in 1939, Madrid was reconquered by the Christians, the final victory in the Spanish Civil War. The price of victory, however, was high:

- 12% of all Spanish priests were martyred. (In one diocese, Barbastro, this was as high as 85%). - 72,344 officially executed by the Socialist/Communist/Anarchist government, with many more informally killed or massacres. - Around 20,000 churches and chapels damaged or destroyed

As Warren Carroll points out in his history of the war, after giving thanks at a Te Deum service at the Church of Saint Barbara in Madrid, Franco prayed:

Lord, benevolently accept the effort of this people, which was always Thine, which, with me and in Thy name, has vanquished with heroism the enemy of truth in this century.

And then Franco laid his sword upon the high altar, vowing to God never to take it up again unless Spain itself was faced with invasion. (A vow he kept).

An amusing anecdote about Franco:

Much was made last year about the statue of Saint James portrayed as the Slayer of the Moors ('Matamoros') at his cathedral in Compostela:

On Sunday, in a ceremony that will resound with ancient symbolism, King Juan Carlos will pay homage to the Moor Slayer on his saint day by making the annual National Offering at Santiago. The dictator Gen Francisco Franco once sent his only Moroccan general, Mohamed ben Miziam del Qasim, to make the offering. Sensitive officials covered the base of the statue with cloth to hide the decapitated heads of his compatriots.

(The Daily Telegraph, July 22, 2004)

Francisco Franco, rest in peace.

Pablo will also appreciate this from Cusack's blog:

Bill and Ted

His Imperial Majesty Wilhelm II, the German Emperor, and His Excellency Mr. Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States of America.

This is one of my favorites that I found there: James II, Our Catholic King.


By the end of today or early tomorrow, I should have a long blog entry on some subject of wanton popery (!).

Some random wanton popery for your eyes....



The Cathedral of Our Lady of Strasbourg is found in the city of Strasbourg, France, which once belonged to Germany. Several previos versions of the cathedral have existed ever since Saint Arbogast in the 600's. After the cathedral which had been built under the reign of Charlemagne burned down in 1176, the version you see today was built. You can see that it smatters of several different architectural styles and influences, but is a triumph nonetheless. I really don't see how one can consider this to be a product of the so-called "dark ages".





















Saint Arbogast


One of the great masterpieces of this church is the astronomical clock.

"The animated characters launch into movement at different hours of the day. One angel sounds the bell while a second turns over a sandglass. Different characters, representing the ages of life (from a child to an old man) parade in front of Death.

On the last level are the Apostles, passing in front of Christ. The clock shows much more than the official time; it also indicates solar time, the day of the week (each represented by a god of mythology), the month, the year, the sign of the zodiac, the phase of the moon and the position of several planets. All these automatons are put into operation at 12:30 PM."

One of the most advanced mechanisms of the entire world at its time was this clock, which calculates the "Computus", the date of Easter, "the Sunday that follows the fourteenth day of the moon that falls on March 21 or immediately after".




An unusual globe, not for earth but for the stars


A clock to calculate the solar and lunar equinoxes; the feast of St. John the Baptist and Christmas, respectively


For over two hundred years, Strasbourg was the tallest building in the entire world. During the French Revolution, the revolutionaries considered tearing the tower down because it was a "threat to equality". The villagers saved it by placing a Phrygian cap on top.

This is true faith.

From Ken of Hallowed Ground: Christianity is Not a Book Club!



For my part, I would be most honored to be kneeling in a muddy pit with a gun in my face for the name of Jesus.

Good riddance, Amanda Marcotte resigned from her position on the John Edwards campaign.

LOL, I love this series of cartoons found on The Curt Jester (they're mostly splices of infamous Jack Chick cartoons):

I'm shocked (but not surprised) that Ms. Marcotte has the nerve to call herself a victim of "right wing shills" and that a great deal of the left has joined her in singing the song.

But to the point of today's post:

why is it that nowadays, all those Church teachings which are being criticized in the media are all sexual; clerical celibacy, women's ordination, anti-contraception, anti-abortion, and the like?

In the past, heretics would dispute with the Church over issues such as transubstantiation, Marian veneration, papal authority, sola Scriptura, and the sacraments with their (mis-)interpretations of Scripture, or their ideas of what Christ actually taught. Why is it that those of today who oppose these sexual teachings do so only on the grounds that it's "absurd" or "impossible"? Where are the quotations from Scripture, Tradition, or the Magisterium to support their positions? Where are the testimonies of the saints or Early Church Fathers for their side? Where is any sign that these are legitimate theological concerns, and not just people who can't control their genitals?

The belief in transubstantiation: that mere bread and wine can actually turn into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ is, I would say, the hardest belief to be comprehended by the human mind, and thus the hardest Catholic belief to accept. And yet, the Eucharist is the center and summit of all Catholic belief. So, if a person can accept this doctrine which is both the hardest doctrine and the center and summit of all belief, shouldn't the Church's teachings on abortion, contraception, et al. be very easy in comparison?

Mmmmm, feasting time.....

Okay, not really. Today, we honor the memory of Saint Valentine, a Roman priest who was martyred in the year 270 on the Via Flaminia. We don't know much about Father Valentinus, and many of the stories about him are confused with two other Valentines who share the same feast day. Most souces agree, though, that Valentinus was martyred because of a law passed by the Roman emperor of the time, Claudius II, sometimes called Caludius the Cruel, who banned soldiers of the Roman legions from marrying because he believd it distracted them from fulfiling their service contracts. Father Valentinus officiated the sacrament of Matrimony to many Christian legionaries in defiance of the law, and for this, he was imprisoned and, refusing to deny Christ before the Emperor, was beheaded.

In the year 486, Pope Gelasius I declared 14 February to be the feast day of three saints by the name of Valentine (since the Latin word valens means "valor", it was very popular among early Christians), saying, "... whose names are justly reverenced among men, but whose acts are known only to God."

There's a widespread belief that the customs associated with this great feast were imported from the pagan feast of Lupercalia. This was propagated by the great hagiographer, Father Alan Butler (of Butler's Lives of the Saints fame), supported by the fact that Pope Gelasius also abolished the celebration of that pagan feast in the future Papal States, but still false. Our custom of exchanging cards actually originated in the High Middle Ages, around the time of Geoffrey Chaucer, who wrote:

For this was sent on Seynt Valentyne's day
Whan every foul cometh ther to choose his mate.

The medievals believed that the middle of February was when birds would choose their mates, and with Saint Valentine's record of martyrdom in the name of holy love, it's no wonder that this day has become a day for lovers.

Interestingly enough, though, our commercialization of this holiday has surpassed the fact that the Vatican has suppressed Saint Valentine's feast day in the post-Vatican II calendar. Indeed, Valentine isn't remembered in the Novus Ordo Mass for 14 February, except for those churches around the world which house his relics. Valentine is still remembered in those churches which celebrate the Tridentine Mass, though. My Shannon sent me a holy card with today's Collect that the priest prays after the Gloria in the Tridentine Mass:

Grant, I beseech Thee, O almighty God, that (Name of loved one), who celebrates the heavenly birthday of blessed Valentine, Thy Martyr, may by his intercession be delivered from all the evils that threaten (him/her). Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.

I'm at my father's house in College Station now, so I have cable TV, and for me, that means lots of EWTN. I really like this channel and especially Mother Angelica. Two minor, petty annoyances of mine, though: everyone on EWTN says the word amen with the Americanish "ay-men", not the liturgically traditional "ah-men", whether in personal prayer or in Mass. Also, I love Father Francis Mary, but I was watching him celebrate the daily Mass, and although he's very reverent and wrote a good sermon, he sucks at intoning. The Pater Noster and the final blessing were almost grueling to listen to!

I'm a strong believer that, as St. Augustine said, "to sing is to pray twice", and that the best public Mass is one that's mostly or entirely sung. I believe that, if they're not already doing so, seminarians should have courses in liturgical singing and intoning. While I was training in the Army, the chaplains would sing the per ipsum, et cum ipso (by him, with him, and in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit.....) and it usually sounded awful. I wonder if a priest is so bad at singing, he can just recite that part. I believe that if a priest is such a bad singer, it can distract a soul from good prayer and thus be detrimental for the parishioner.

On the other hand, we traditionalists often emphasize that the Mass is directed toward God, and not the people (epitomized by the facing ad Orientem). I doubt God recognizes good or bad singing like we do. What do you think?

Archbishop 10-K's vanity is revealed: I suffer from a lack of comments on my blog. In fact, I thrive on comments. I spend hours a day on blog entries sometimes, so please leave comments. That way, I can rest assured that someone actually reads my blog, LOL. Perhaps I should think of ways to make entries more Socratic.

I encountered another great blog today: Catholic Church Conservation. It has quite a few hair-raisers within. I'll point out a few "favorites".

Carnival Time Again. Some images of wacky or even possessed priests in the Diocese of Linz, Austria.








Next wacky bit: Mass for Unbelievers. Some disco company was allowed to set up what looks almost like a rave inside the Basilica of the Holy Apostles in Cologne, Germany. The producers called it a "Mass for Unbelievers". I can see why....






Ah, the wonderful fruits of Vatican II and being accepting of others. I did like this story, though: The Inevitable Consequences of Communion in the Hand.

Someone in a German church received Communion in the hand, put the Host in his pocket, and attempted to flee the scene with it. The priest grabbed his arm roughly "like the police are trained to do", which resulted in the thief getting bruises and a swollen joint. The thief then complained to the police. The priest apologized, but the thief didn't accept and said he was a big meanie. Wise words from the priest in question:

"The Host has a high value. It is the holiest for us Catholics. We pray to God in the form of a Host. In order to protect the Host, if necessary, I would give my life.”

I don't have anything substantial for today, other than this article about His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI's public audience yesterday, which coincides with what I was saying yesterday both about the feast of Lourdes and of assisting the least among us.

Some discussions with Pablo today on rap artists:

[02:47:12 AM] Archbishop 10K: I was looking at Tupac's Wiki just now, and this statement reminded me of our ongoing joke about trumped up charges:
[02:47:15 AM] Archbishop 10K: "The day following the incident, December 1, 1994, Shakur entered the courthouse in a wheelchair and was found guilty of three counts of sexual abuse, but innocent of six others, including sodomy."
[02:47:42 AM] Pablo: hahahahhahahaha
[02:48:06 AM] Pablo: Truly, that Judge was trained under my Tribunalship
[02:50:25 AM] Archbishop 10K: Then look at this one about Diddy:
[02:50:27 AM] Archbishop 10K: "Combs had attended an all-white Catholic school and became an altar boy. At age 11, his family moved to suburban Westchester County, north of New York City, where Combs worked two paper routes. He later went to an all-boys prep school in Manhattan, then enrolled at Howard University where he majored in business administration."
[02:50:52 AM] Pablo: HAHAHAHA
[02:50:59 AM] Pablo: That man was bred to be a prince
[02:51:05 AM] Pablo: no street cred whatsoever

I really need to get out of here, i.e. this apartment. I have to listen to evangelical Protestant/heretic radio all day long.

I kinda like this idea: Italian journalist calls for Catholic Anti-Defamation League. Among other things, this article demonstrates that the popular anti-Catholic legend that, during the siege of Beziers the Abbot Arnaldo Amalrico of Citeaux told his men to "kill them all; God will recognize his own", actually never happened at all, and that at the time period in question, it was the Cathar heretics who were known for their cruelty and brutal violence.

Madrid, Feb 9, 2007 / 02:52 pm (CNA).- Catholic journalist Vittorio Messori has called for the creation of a Catholic “Anti-Defamation League” in order to combat what he calls the “ideological manipulation” of history by those who are against the Church.

“Catholics,” he said, “now reduced to a minority (at least at the cultural level), should follow the example of another minority, the Jews, and create their own ‘Anti-Defamatation League,’ without seeking any kind of censorship or privilege, but rather only the possibility of rectifications based on specific facts and authentic documents.” Messori words came in his latest column published by the Spanish daily “La Razon.”

Messori points as an example to the case of the Catharists (a heretical group also known as the Albigensians), who take a lead role in The Da Vinci Code book and movie, along with other works, forgetting that their members “were followers of a dark, ferocious and bloody sect of Asian origin.”

In his column, the Italian journalist commented that for some, the most famous incident associated with this group is the “siege and taking of Beziers in July of 1209,” where supposedly some 40,000 people were massacred. The problem, he said, is the incident never actually took place.

The alleged massacre supposedly occurred at the order of Abbott Arnaldo Amalrico of Citeaux, “spiritual advisor to the crusaders,” who told the barons who asked him what to do with the conquered city: “Kill them all,” he reportedly said. “God will recognize those that belong to him.”

“Coincidently, we have many contemporary chronicles of the fall of Beziers, but none of them include anything about that ‘kill them all’,” Messori stressed.

He also pointed out that seventy years later, “a monk named Cesareo de Heisterbach, who lived in a monastery in northern Germany and had never once left, wrote a fantasy pastiche known as ‘Dialogus Miracolurum’,” in which he invented “the miracle” that “while the crusaders reeked havoc in Beziers (…) God had ‘recognized his own,’ allowing those who were not Catharists to flee the massacre.”

The reality, says Messori, is that Catholics did not want a massacre, and thus they sent ambassadors to the city to try to secure surrender. “Therefore, after a long period of tolerance, Pope Innocent III decided to go to war only when the Cartharists, in the previous year, killed his envoy who was bringing a peace proposal.”

The peace efforts of the great saints like Bernard and Dominic had also failed as well,” Messori notes.

The journalist also recalled that “the Catharists replied with fanatical violence to the offer to dialogue and negotiate,” attempting a surprise attack, but they were met by the Ribauds, who were mercenaries and adventurers and who pursued them all the way to the city. “When the Catholic commanders arrived with the regular troops, the massacre had already begun and there was no way to stop those furious ‘Ribauds’,” Messori writes.

“20, maybe 40,000 deaths?” Messori asks. “There was a massacre, unthinkable to the mentality of those times and explainable by the exasperation caused by the cruelty of the Catharists, who not only in Beziers, but for years persecuted Catholics.”

Therefore, he adds, “Only a storyteller like Dan Brown [of Da Vinci Code fame] can speak with ignorance about a ‘Albigensian meekness’.” Messori notes in his column that the principal episode occurred in the Church of the Magdalena, where there was room for no more than 1,000 people, and that Beziers was not left unpopulated and destroyed, because there was further resistance and a new assault was necessary.

“An Anti-Defamation League would not only be desirable and necessary for Catholics, but also in order to establish a just and realistic judgment about the past of Europe, forged during so many centuries by the Church as well,” Messori wrote in conclusion.

Today, 11 February, happens to be the anniversary of the first apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Saint Bernadette Soubirous. This coincides with the Marian apparition that I was going to write about next.

OUR LADY OF LOURDES

Bernadette Soubirous, born in 1844 near the town of Lourdes, France, grew up as a simple villager in an extremely impoverished family. She was the eldest of five children and sought work to support her poor family, sometimes waiting tables at a tavern and other times as a shepherd girl on a farm outside the city. She was known to have a difficult time in school and with her catechism, even though she was very pious and devout.

It was on 11 February 1858, when Bernadette was 14 years old, that she, her sister Marie-Toinette, and a friend named Jeannie went to a grotto called Massabielle to look for firewood. Bernadette just finished removing her stockings to cross the river in the grotto when she heard a gust of wind and looked up to see, inside the grotto, a Lady clad in blue and white with a yellow rose on each foot, holding a rosary of white beads. The Lady signaled Bernadette to come closer. Not knowing who the Lady was and not knowing what to do, she pulled her rosary out of her pocket and prayed with the Lady until she faded away about 20 minutes later, in silence. This was the first of 18 similar apparitions.

During the first few apparitions, the townspeople of Lourdes believed that Bernadette lost her mind because only she could see the Lady, and because the Lady said few words or none at all. By the seventh apparition, one hundred villagers came to see Bernadette speak to the Lady, after which the local police commissioner interrogated her for several hours. At the ninth apparition, on 25 February, the Lady instructed Bernadette to drink the water at the grotto, pointing at a rock which appeared to be completely dry. Bernadette dug her hands in it three times and was finally able to find some water in the ground underneath. The next day, the hole grew into a spring which has, to this day, been yielding 27,000 gallons of fresh water daily, even in times of drought. Later that day, Bernadette was interrogated by the Imperial Procurator, and troops from the local garrison were stationed at the grotto.

In the thirteenth apparition on 2 March, the Lady issued Bernadette an instruction: "Please go to the priests and tell them that a chapel is to be built here. Let processions come hither." Bernadette took the instruction to a local priest, Father Dominique Peyramale. Father Peyramale had little faith in visions, and told her that if the Lady was real, then she must reveal her name. Father Peyramale then discussed the matter with the bishop, and both concluded that Bernadette be banned from visiting the grotto. For over two weeks, Bernadette visited the Lady and asked her name, but she would just watch and smile in silence. Finally, on the sixteenth apparition on 25 March, the Lady looked up to heaven with her arms stretched downwards, then, as though she had received an answer of approval from above, clasped her hands in prayer, turned her head to face Bernadette and said, "I am the Immaculate Conception."

Berndatte ran back to Father Peyramale with this message and repeated it to him. It was only now did the priest believe what the shepherd girl was saying, for Bernadette was young and illiterate, and wouldn't have known the meaning or significance of that term, since it was used mainly only by and between priests when discussing theology. But the priest knew that four years earlier, in 1854, Pope Blessed Pius IX had solemnly defined the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary as a dogma under what would later be known as papal infallibility.

By the time of the last apparition on 16 July, the grotto had been barricaded by troops and no one was allowed access inside. Bernadette knelt and watched Blessed Mary from afar, saying nothing but appearing as beautiful as ever. Having seen this, Bernadette seemed to have seen all that she ever needed to, and left, never to return to the grotto again.

But by then, thousands of followers had come from distant lands to see what the miracle at Lourdes was all about. A few days after the last apparition, Bishop Laurence of Tarbes opened an official investigation. For three and a half years, interrogators questioned Bernadette, her family, the local clergy and doctors. At the end of 1858, Emperor Napoleon III ordered the barricades to be taken down and free access allowed in the grotto. Ever since, followers have been drinking the water from the spring and reporting miraculous healings. Professor Vergez of the Faculty of Medicine of Montpellier documented thirty-five healings attributed directly to the water that couldn't be explained by natural science. On 18 January 1862, the investigation came to a close, and the Bishop declared,

"We judge : that Mary Immaculate, the Mother of God, really did appear to Bernadette Soubirous, on eighteen occasions from 11th. February 1858 at the Grotto of Massabielle, near the town of Lourdes ; that these Apparitions bear the characteristics of truth ; that the faithful can believe them as true. We humbly submit our judgement to the judgement of the Sovereign Pontiff, who is responsible for governing the Universal Church".

Now convinced of Bernadette's sincerity, the Bishop and priests began following Blessed Mary's instructions. In 1863, sculptor Joseph Fabisch carved a marble statue according to Bernadette's description of the Virgin, to place at the spot where she appeared in the grotto. Because Bernadette was never satisfied with Fabisch's sculpture, he called it the "greatest sorrow of his artistic life." Nevertheless, the statue was taken in procession to the grotto, as Mary had instructed, and placed at the spot where she appeared.

To this day, 5 million pilgrims come to Lourdes per year, and thousands of followers report miraculous healing thanks to the holy water of the grotto of Lourdes. This chart lists 67 healings which have been thoroughly examined by the Lourdes Medical Bureau, a group of priests and doctors, and have been determined inexplicable by natural science.

As for Bernadette, she didn't like the attention shown to her by the world and left study religion at a school operated by the Sisters of Charity and Christian Instruction. There, she finally learned how to read and write, and took her vows as a nun in the Sisters of Charity. She spent her years at the convent in perpetual sickness and died at the age of 35 on 16 April 1879. In 1933, she was canonized a saint by Pope Pius XI.


The Basilica of Lourdes




Saint Bernadette's body, incorrupt

I feel terribly exhausted for some reason. This afternoon, it came to my usual Sunday Mass schedule, so I called Joseph, but he was asleep. I didn't see a couple other friends online and I was too tired to call them, so I went with only Pablo and Angel, and met Ryan who was already there.

Sunday Mass was excellent, as always, marred only by my remembering that the Scripture readings are always read from the NAB. So, just so my life feels more complete, I'll reproduce today's Gospel below, except from the Douay-Rheims Bible instead. Luke 16:17, 20-26.

And coming down with them, He stood in a plain place: and [with] the company of his disciples and a very great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the sea coast, both of Tyre and Sidon...

And He, lifting up his eyes on His disciples, said:

"Blessed are ye poor: for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are ye that hunger now: for you shall be filled.
Blessed are ye that weep now: for you shall laugh.
Blessed shall you be when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you and shall reproach you and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake.
Be glad in that day and rejoice: for behold, your reward is great in heaven, For according to these things did their fathers to the prophets.
But woe to you that are rich: for you have your consolation.
Woe to you that are filled: for you shall hunger.
Woe to you that now laugh: for you shall mourn and weep.
Woe to you when men shall bless you: for according to these things did their fathers to the false prophets."

It's a good thing to remember that the kingdom of God is found among the least of us. It is a good thing for us to show solidarity with our bishops, as Pope St. Pius X wrote in his catechism, "Each one of the faithful, both ecclesiastic and lay, should revere, love, and honor his own Bishop and render him obedience in all that regards the care of souls and the spiritual government of the diocese." And with that, I relate to you the following message:

His Excellency the Archbishop of San Antonio, Jose Gomez, is making his Archbishop's Appeal for the year A.D. 2007 with the theme, "Our Faith Changes Lives". The brochure for the program can be found in .pdf form here. The money donated from the Archbishop's Appeal is what pays for a great bulk of the archdiocese's charitable ministries, including feeding and sheltering the homeless, supporting retired clergy and other elderly, supporting Assumption Seminary and the Daughters of Charity, and quite a few other projects. Christ said, "Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me." It is therefore an essential thing to remember these groups, His "least brethren", and donate some if you can.

[10:19:44 PM] Pablo: Happy Lateran Treaty Day

It's that time of year again already, eh?

Yes; on this day, in 1929, the Lateran Treaty was signed between Pope Pius XI and King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy (in reality, Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Gasparri and Prime Minister Benito Mussolini), which resolved the "Roman Question" by creating the Vatican City.

My friend Ryan and I had a discussion a couple weeks ago about whether the Pope was better off when he had the Papal States, or if he's better off now without them. I'm not sure. I found the entire text of the Lateran Treaty here on Michael Scheifler's (Seventh-day Adventist, rabidly anti-Catholic) website. The terms set there are actually not too bad, until you consider the 1985 amendment to the Treaty which ended Catholicism's position as the official religion of Italy; then the whole thing becomes an ugly slap in the face.



And now I'm starting to think: every time we make a deal with the devil, hoping it'll solve a problem in the short-term, it brings us down in the end. Every concession that the Church and that Catholics as a whole make to the outside world merely serve to undermine the Faith. I don't know why so many people, including most of the hierarchy, insist on "getting with the times".

If the Jews could restore the nation of Israel after almost 2,000 years and resurrect the dead language of Hebrew into something that an entire country now uses regularly, why can't we do the same? Why not restore the Papal States? Why not restore the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of France, and the rest of Christendom? In the words of Pope St. Pius X,

"All the strength of Satan’s reign is due to the easy-going weakness of Catholics."

The blog Hallowed Ground has the following speculation:

OUR LADY OF GUADALUPE

I once believed that the veneration of Our Lady of Guadalupe was only an unholy mix of Christianity and Latin American paganism, akin to Santeria or Voodoo. My mom is still quite creeped out by it. But when I looked closer into the story, something changed my mind....

There are a couple main accounts of this apparition; one called the Huei tlamahuiçoltica, which is a tract written by a vicar in 1649 entirely in the Aztec language of Nahuatl, and Imagen de la Virgen María, Madre de Dios de Guadalupe, a less popular but more scholarly account in Spanish in 1648. Our story begins in Mexico, after the Spanish conquest of Mesoamerica. with a character, Saint Juan Diego. Juan Diego was an indigenous Mexican native born with the name Cuauhtlatoatzin (please don't ask me to pronounce that, but it means "talking eagle") to a peasant family in 1476, a couple decades before the arrival of Christopher Columbus to the Americas. He spent his life working hard in the fields, and had a wife but no children.

In either 1524 or 1525, he converted to Catholicism and was baptized by the Franciscan friar, Father Peter da Gand. Here, he took the Christian name of Juan Diego, and his wife, Maria Lucia. After his wife died in 1529, Juan moved with his uncle closer to the church at Tenochtitlan (the old Aztec capital, now Mexico City), in the city of Tolpetlac, about 9 miles way. On Saturdays and Sundays, Juan would walk those 9 miles to the church in Tenochtitlan for Mass and religious education classes.

In 1531, it was during one of these walks, in which Juan would have to start before dawn to be there on time, in which he saw a lady arrayed in a shining mantle, standing on the side of the road. According to the account in Huei tlamahuiçoltica, the Lady asked, “Juanito, the most humble of my sons, where are you going?” Juan approached and, already knowing the Lady's identity, knelt and said, “My Lady and Child, I have to reach your church in Mexico, Tlatilolco, to pursue things divine, taught and given to us by our priests, delegates of Our Lord.” The Lady replied,

“Know and understand well, you the most humble of my son, that I am the ever virgin Holy Mary, Mother of the True God for whom we live, of the Creator of all things, Lord of heaven and the earth. I wish that a temple be erected here quickly, so I may therein exhibit and give all my love, compassion, help, and protection, because I am your merciful mother, to you, and to all the inhabitants on this land and all the rest who love me, invoke and confide in me; listen there to their lamentations, and remedy all their miseries, afflictions and sorrows. And to accomplish what my clemency pretends, go to the palace of the bishop of Mexico, and you will say to him that I manifest my great desire, that here on this plain a temple be built to me; you will accurately relate all you have seen and admired, and what you have heard. Be assured that I will be most grateful and will reward you, because I will make you happy and worthy of recompense for the effort and fatigue in what you will obtain of what I have entrusted. Behold, you have heard my mandate, my humble son; go and put forth all your effort.”

Juan went with these instructions to the bishop's palace in Tenochtitlan. The bishop-elect, Juan de Zumárraga, didn't believe Juan and sent him on his way. To make a long story short, Juan had to make several trips between the Virgin Mary and the bishop, because of the bishop's unbelief. Finally, on 9 December, the Virgin provided Juan with a proof to the bishop of her apparition: she ordered Juan to climb up the hill where they first met, and cut and collect the flowers growing there. When Juan arrived, he saw a magnificent array of roses and other flowers growing, even though it was in the dead of winter and couldn't have possibly grown there naturally. Nevertheless, Juan cut them and collected them in a bundle in his poncho.

Juan carried the bundle of flowers to the bishop. By now, Juan had a hard time gaining entry to the palace because the doorkeepers saw him as a fanatic. Juan eventually made it into the bishop's chamber and knelt, saying,

“Sir, I did what you ordered, to go forth and tell my Ama, the Lady from heaven, Holy Mary, precious Mother of God, that you asked for a sign so that you might believe me that you should build a temple where she asked it to be erected; also, I told her that I had given you my word that I would bring some sign and proof, which you requested, of her wish.....

As I approached the top of the hill, I saw that I was in paradise, where there was a great variety of exquisite rosas de Castilla, in brilliant dew, which I immediately cut. She had told me that I should bring them to you, and so I do it, so that you may see in them the sign which you asked of me and comply with her wish; also, to make clear the veracity of my word and my message. Behold. Receive them.”

Juan unfolded his poncho and the roses pilled out onto the floor. The roses would have been a proof in themselves, but even greater than that was the mark they left on Juan Diego's cloak: a perfect image of the Blessed Virgin Mary as she appeared to Juan on the side of the road.


The bishop fell on his knees and begged forgiveness for not believing Juan in the first place. The next day, they went together to the site where the roses had grown and began building the church which Mary had requested.

So, what's the big deal? This miracle had a gigantic effect on Mexican and Latin American religion ever since Juan Diego showed the image to the bishop. In the apparition and in the image, Mary appeared in dark skin like the natives and in clothing reminiscent of art from the old Aztec religion and spoke to Juan in Nahuatl; thus Mary showed herself to be not to be a foreign queen, but the mother of the native Mexican peoples. She's called "Our Lady of Guadalupe" because of a Spanish corruption of the Nahuatl word coatlaxopeuh, which means "one who crushes the serpent". This was the word Mary used to identify herself to Juan Diego: recalling to mind the prophecy in Genesis 3:15 that, to Satan the serpent in the garden, "she shall crush thy head". The clothing she wore recalled the description of the queen of heaven in Apocalypse 12, "A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars". Because she stood in front of the sun and over the moon, the Aztecs understood her to be greater than Huitzilopochtli, the dreaded god of the sun, and Quetzalcoatl, the god of the moon. And yet her hands were clasped in prayer, showing that she herself was not God, but rather, praying to a God more powerful than they had ever imagined.

Before the arrival of the Spanish in Mexico, the pagan Aztec religion regularly practiced human sacrifice. Because of famines and crop failures, the Aztec priests believed that more sacrifices needed to be made to appease the gods, so they escalated the sacrifices to 50,000 souls a year, men, women, and children; even infants. "It was considered a good omen if they cried a lot at the time of sacrifice,'' according to one account. A popular form of sacrifice was to take a body to the top of one of the temples, cut open the victim's chest while he was still alive and remove the heart, then toss the body down the steps into a pile to make room for the next victim. The bodies were sometimes eaten, with the thighs and hands being considered the most delicious parts. When the Spanish arrived in Mexico, the barbarous and horrendous practices they witnessed must have reminded them of the Canaanites in the Old Testament who sacrificed their offspring to the pagan god Molech, and whom God commanded the Israelites to exterminate. This is likely what led the Spanish to be so brutal in the conquest of Mesoamerica.

It was also this barbarism which the Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Coatlaxopeuh, she who crushes the serpent, was sent to destroy. A common symbol of the pagan Aztec religion was the serpent, which decorated many of the temples and was a god in its own right. When human sacrifices were held, Aztecs would beat drums made from outstretched snake skin. The serpent, which we know to one of the symbols of Satan from the garden of Eden and from the account of the war in heaven in the Apocalypse, was universal in Aztec paganism. Satan had such a strong grip here that some estimates say that one out of five Aztec children were sacrificed to the pagan gods.






The Aztecs and other native people were resistant to letting go of their old ways, often inciting revolts and rebellions, until the arrival of Our Lady of Guadalupe. She taught a conquered people not to despair, but that their sacrifices were no longer necessary because of the one sacrifice made by Christ on the cross. By appearing as one of them and showing the sign of her presence in Juan Diego's cloak, natives approached the Franciscan friars in hordes to be baptized into the Church. Bishop Zumárraga baptized thousands at a time, just as St. Peter baptized three thousand in the Holy Land. In only ten years, 9 million natives converted to the Catholic faith. Soon, the faith of Christ eclipsed the Latin American continent, and the serpent of Aztec paganism was crushed.

In recent decades, both Mexican secularists and Protestant missionaries have come forth to attempt to disprove or discredit the story of Guadalupe. Juan Diego's cloak, which has been on display at the church which Mary instructed him to have built, was placed under scientific examination.

It's a miracle in itself that the cloth still exists, since it was made out of a cheap peasants' cactus-cloth that would have deteriorated in only 20 years, and yet, has been preserved for almost 500. In 1921, a terrorist entered the Basilica of Guadalupe with the intent of destroying the image on the cloak. He tossed a bomb in front of the image. The blast destroyed the altar and the marble steps in front of it, wrangled the brass crucifix, and shattered glass windows from all around the vicinity; but the image itself was unharmed.

In 1979, an investigation on the cloth by Dr. Philip Callahan revealed that:

The image is composed of minerals which are not known in the outside world.
There are no brush strokes; it is as though the image was painted in a single stroke.
The image is completely flat and feels like a photograph.
The stars on the Virgin's mantle coincide with the constellations that would have appeared over Mexico on the night of 12 December, 1531, when the image was created.


And what of Juan Diego? He retired to live the rest of his life as a hermit in the church of Guadalupe, caring for the image and the pilgrims who came to visit. Juan died at the age of 74 in 1548. In 2002, he was canonized a saint by Pope John Paul II.


Images of the old Basilica of Guadalupe, completed in 1709





The new Basilica of Guadalupe, completed in 1974



Pope John Paul II at the new Basilica of Guadalupe during the canonization of Juan Diego



The Virgin sheltering Juan Diego under her mantle



The Holy Trinity painting the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe



Our Lady of Guadalupe delivering children from the jaws of the serpent



In our culture today, where we sacrifice our own children, born and unborn, to the gods of consumerism, career, and convenience, the message of Guadalupe is more relevant than ever.

Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mystical Rose, make intercession for the Holy Church, protect the Sovereign Pontiff, help all those who invoke thee in their necessities, and since thou art the ever Virgin Mary, and Mother of the True God, obtain for us from thy most holy Son the grace of keeping our faith, of sweet hope in the midst of the bitterness of life, of burning charity, and the precious gift of final perseverance. Amen.

I enjoy writing these essay entries, because in doing them, I end up learning a lot myself.

An apparition is a sighting of God, the Virgin Mary, or some other saint to one or more people. One such event is recorded in the gospels, when Christ stood atop the mount and was transfigured before His apostles, standing beside Moses and Elias (Elijah):

And He was transfigured before them. And His face did shine as the sun: and His garments became white as snow. And behold there appeared to them Moses and Elias talking with Him. (Matthew 17:2-3)

Today, there seem to be a limitless number of reports of apparitions, everywhere from walking statues to her image on sandwiches, and such apparitions can either be roads to idolatry and superstition, or indeed, urgent messages from God. This is why the Church has a strict policy on the examinations of such apparitions to determine whether or not they are "worthy of belief".
Father Mark J. Gantley, a canon lawyer, explains the process:

In 1974 the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued "Norms of the Congregation for Proceeding in Judging Alleged Apparitions and Revelations."

These norms contained the following provisions:

The diocesan bishop can initiate a process on his own initiative or at the request of the faithful to investigate the facts of an alleged apparition. This is especially urgent for him to do if there is danger of the spread of doctrinal or moral errors or false worship. If there are no dangers, the bishop may refrain from looking into it if he chooses, especially if he thinks that not much will come of the event.

The national conference of bishops may intervene if the local diocesan bishop refers it to him or if the event becomes important nationally or at least in more than one diocese.

The Apostolic See (the Vatican) can also intervene at the request of the local bishop himself, at the request of a group of the faithful, or on its own initiative. (The Supreme Pontiff always has a right to intervene in any situation if he chooses. See information on the intervention of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith below.)

In terms of the steps of the investigation:

First, there is an initial evaluation of the facts of the alleged event. This evaluation is based on both positive and negative criteria. As stated above, this investigation is ordinarily conducted by the diocesan bishop (or someone delegated by him).

The positive criteria includes moral certainty (the certainty required to act morally in a situation of doubt) or at least great probability as to the existence of a private revelation at the end of a serious investigation into the case, with consideration of the following circumstances: - an evaluation of the personal qualities of the person in question (mental balance, honesty, moral life, sincerity, obedience to Church authority, willingness to practice faith in the normal way, etc.) - an evaluation of the content of the revelations themselves (that they do not disagree with faith and morals of the Church, freedom from theological errors) - the revelation results in healthy devotion and spiritual fruits in people's lives (greater prayer, greater conversion of heart, works of charity that result, etc.)

The negative criteria includes the following: - glaring errors in regard to the facts - doctrinal errors attributed to God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, or to the Holy Spirit in how they appear - any pursuit of financial gain in relation to the alleged event - gravely immoral acts committed by the person or those associated with the person at the time of the event - psychological disorders or tendencies on the part of the person or persons associated

After this initial investigation, if the occurrence meets the criteria, positive and negative, an initial cautionary permission can be granted that basically states: "for the moment, there is nothing opposed to it." This permits public participation in the devotion in regard to the alleged apparition.

Ultimately, a final judgment and determination needs to be given, giving approval or condemnation of the event.

I'd like to look at some of the more popular apparition accounts, most of which involve sighting the Blessed Virgin Mary.

OUR LADY OF WALSINGHAM

The story of Our Lady of Walsingham begins in 1061 during the reign of the last Saxon King of England, Saint Edward the Confessor, just a few years before the Norman Conquest of 1066.

The Virgin Mary appeared to a young widow, Lady Richeldis de Faverches of Walsingham, near the Feast of the Annunciation. The Virgin led Lady Richeldis in spirit to the little house in Nazareth where Mary and St. Joseph once lived, and where Mary received the annunciation from the archangel Gabriel that she would conceive a son. Mary's instructions to Lady Richeldis were to take the measurements of that house and build an exact replica of it in Walsingham, England. The house was to bring a piece of the Holy Land closer to the English faithful and remind them of the humble origins of Jesus Christ.

"Do all this unto my special praise and honor. And all who are in any way distressed or in need, let them seek me here in that little house you have made at Walsingham. To all that seek me there shall be given succor. And there at Walsingham in this little house shall be held in remembrance the great joy of my salutation when Saint Gabriel told me I should through humility become the Mother of God's Son."

At first, there were great difficulties between Lady Richeldis and the carpenters she commissioned to build the house, to the point where no progress was being made. In resignation, Richeldis prayed to the Virgin that the house would somehow be completed and her command fulfilled. The next morning, Richeldis found the house standing and complete. The Virgin had apparently sent angels the night before to finish the house.

Very soon afterward, a priory of Augustinian friars was built near the shrine, and the Augustinians charged with the care of the shrine of Walsingham. The replica of the house of Nazareth became one of the greatest pilgrimage sites of medieval Europe, along with the shrine of St. Thomas Becket and the Way of St. James. Nobles and commoners walked together on the road to Walsingham, and even most of the kings of England and some non-English ones such as Queen Isabella of France and King Robert the Bruce of Scotland made pilgrimage. The satirical writer Erasmus of Rotterdam made pilgrimage to Walsingham to fulfill a vow, and left an ode written in Greek at the shrine:

…I poor bard
Rich in goodwill, but poor in all beside,
Bring thee my verse--nought have I else to bring--
And beg, in quittal of this worthless gift,
That greatest meed--a heart that feareth God,
And free for aye from sin's foul tyranny.

In his early years, when King Henry VIII was a devout Catholic and "defender of the faith", he made two pilgrimages to Walsingham, walking the last two miles on barefoot instead of the customary one mile. However, as Henry's beliefs changed, so did the fate of Walsingham. When Henry declared himself the Supreme Head of the Church in England, the Augustinian friars in charge of Walsingham were among the first to swear fealty to the King's new title. The subsequent events show the fruits of collaborating with evil: Henry soon ordered all monasteries and convents in England to be destroyed, and all monks and nuns who refuse to forsake their vows be executed. The prior of the Priory assisted Henry's men in looting all the silver and gold vessels and ornamentation, to be melted down to coin. The statue of the Virgin with the Christ child on her lap was taken to Chelsea and burned. Both the priory and the holy house were destroyed. Pilgrimage to Walsingham was banned by law.

In the 19th century, with the rising popularity of archeology, archaeologists found remains of the old shrine. They found that a barn one mile away from the shrine was once the "Slipper Chapel", a chapel where pilgrims would remove their shoes to walk the last mile of the pilgrimage barefoot. A wealthy lady named Charlotte Boyd decided to help restore Walsingham by buying the barn and restoring it to its previous dignity as the Slipper Chapel, donating the property to Downside Abbey. The next year, in 1897, Pope Leo XIII reestablished the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham, and pilgrimages resumed once again. At first, they were unpopular by Catholics because of centuries of being forced to practice their faith in private instead of in public ceremonies and processions. When the Anglicans announced in 1927 that they would attempt to rebuild the shrine under the Church of England, the Catholics finally mobilized to recreate the shrine.

Today, pilgrims to Walsingham increase exponentially to a rate that, even without the gilded walls and the donations of kings that marked the old shrine, rivals even that of medieval England.

O blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of Walsingham, Mother of God and our most gentle Queen and Mother, look down in mercy upon us, our parish, our country, our homes, and our families, and upon all who greatly hope and trust in your prayers, (especially...) By you it was that Jesus, our Savior and hope, was given to the world; and he has given you to us that we may hope still more. Plead for us your children, whom you did receive and accept at the foot of the Cross, O sorrowful Mother. Intercede for our separated brethren, that with us in the one true fold they may be united to the Chief Shepherd, the Vicar of your Son. Pray for us all, dear Mother, that by faith fruitful in good works we all may be made worthy to see and praise God, together with you in our heavenly home.
Amen.

The ruins of the abbey at Walsingham

"The Woman of the Apocalypse" by Peter Paul Rubens

aka, God the Father, Blessed Mary, and St. Michael the Archangel kicking Satan's ass. This would make a good macro with the word "PWNED" at the bottom.

And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.

And being with child, she cried travailing in birth: and was in pain to be delivered. And there was seen another sign in heaven. And behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns and on his heads seven diadems. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was ready to be delivered: that, when she should be delivered, he might devour her son.

And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with an iron rod. And her son was taken up to God and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she had a place prepared by God, that there they should feed her, a thousand two hundred sixty days.
And there was a great battle in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon, and the dragon fought, and his angels. And they prevailed not: neither was their place found any more in heaven.

And that great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, who seduceth the whole world. And he was cast unto the earth: and his angels were thrown down with him.

And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying: Now is come salvation and strength and the kingdom of our God and the power of his Christ: because the accuser of our brethren is cast forth, who accused them before our God day and night. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of the testimony: and they loved not their lives unto death.
Therefore, rejoice, O heavens, and you that dwell therein. Woe to the earth and to the sea, because the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time.

And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman who brought forth the man child. And there were given to the woman two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the desert, unto her place, where she is nourished for a time and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. And the serpent cast out of his mouth, after the woman, water, as it were a river: that he might cause her to be carried away by the river.
And the earth helped the woman: and the earth opened her mouth and swallowed up the river which the dragon cast out of his mouth.

And the dragon was angry against the woman: and went to make war with the rest of her seed, who keep the commandments of God and have the testimony of Jesus Christ. (Apocalypse 12:1-17)

This is a great video clip of what appears to be part of an instructional video or something for priests on how to say the Tridentine Latin Mass. It's in French, so I haven't got a clue. Shannon, when she reads this, will translate for me, I'm sure. Such amazing reverence and attention to detail.....

Thankfully, the Church's 2,000 heritage gives us more English Bible translations than just the NAB, contrary to what the American bishops would want us to believe.

For myself, I enjoy the traditional Douay-Rheims (Challoner) Version of the Bible. But I want to avoid the opinion of some fellow traditionalists who use the DR only and reject all other translations as modernist/evil. This seems to embrace the heresy of some Protestants who believe that Our Lord Jesus spoke only in King James's English (I seriously heard about one Protestant minister who said "if the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me").

Aside from the Douay, I also like the Revised Standard Version (RSV) and the Jerusalem Bible, and I recommend them to those who really can't understand all the thee's and thou's of the Douay-Rheims. But here's some history of the Douay Bible.

First, to read the Douay Bible online, you can go to this website.

During the reign of King Henry VIII, as we all know, the King split from the Catholic Church and declared Catholicism to be outlawed. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, there had grown a sizable community of "recusants" (Englishmen who remained Catholic despite English laws) who had fled England and lived in nearby France, particularly in the city of Douai. There was a university in Douai which had recently been built under King Philip II of Spain (Douai was part of the Spanish Empire at the time). A priest who had been exiled from England, Father William Allen, received support from King Philip and Pope Paul IV to establish the English College at the University of Douai in 1569 to train English Catholics as priests and then send them back into England.

The English College at Douai was to be the first seminary according to the specifications of the Council of Trent, which had concluded just a few years earlier. The priests from Douai were called "seminary priests"; before them, priests in England didn't normally receive formal education to that degree before being ordained. Many of the seminary priests also joined the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, and returned to England disguised in civilian clothes to minister to England's persecuted Catholics. Douai has the distinction of being able to claim over one hundred fifty of its students as martyrs under Elizabeth's and James I's regimes.

Among Douai's accomplishments include a new translation of the Bible into English. Contrary to popular belief, English Bibles existed before the Reformation, but they were often incomplete and by the late 16th century had become obsolete at any rate. The source text for the Douay Bible was, as with other Catholic Bibles of the time, St. Jerome's Latin Vulgate, with consultation of Greek and Hebrew texts. The College completed the New Testament in 1582, during a brief relocation to Reims; hence the Rheims portion of the Bible. The Old Testament was completed a few years after, but because of lack of funds, wasn't published until 1609, back at Douai.

The English Protestants reacted to the publication of the Douay Bible immediately. The Douay was printed with footnotes longer than the Biblical text itself, and with the purpose of refuting Protestant errors. Ironically, the DR's popularity was spread by Protestant polemics which printed the DR side-by-side with Protestant translations in attempts to refute the DR's accuracy. At the same time, the DR was published just in time for the writers of the King James Version, published in 1611, to look to it for inspiration; many verses in the King James were lifted directly from the DR. The King James also borrowed many Latinized words from the DR, such as "propitiation" and "emulation". According to Wikipedia, the DR introduced quite a few other Latinized words on its own, such as: "acquisition," "adulterate," "advent," "allegory," "verity," "calumniate," "character," "cooperate," "prescience," "resuscitate," "victim," and "evangelise."

Wikipedia also provides an example of the DR's original 1609 language, from Ephesians 3:6-12:

The Gentils to be coheires and concorporat and comparticipant of his promis in Christ JESUS by the Gospel: whereof I am made a minister according to the gift of the grace of God, which is given me according to the operation of his power. To me the least of al the sainctes is given this grace, among the Gentils to evangelize the unsearcheable riches of Christ, and to illuminate al men what is the dispensation of the sacrament hidden from worldes in God, who created al things: that the manifold wisedom of God, may be notified to the Princes and Potestats in the celestials by the Church, according to the prefinition of worldes, which he made in Christ JESUS our Lord. In whom we have affiance and accesse in confidence, by the faith of him.

You can see how much of the original Latin is simply Anglicized into words like "concorporat" and "comparticipant"; if we were to use the original 1609 DR today, few would be able to read it without eventually throwing the book down in frustration. The DR sold in most stores today was heavily revised by Bishop Richard Challoner between 1749 and 1752. Bishop Challoner was also trained and ordained a priest in the English College at Douai and lived his ministry in disguise in England, offering the Mass in secret houses, taverns, and other inconspicuous places. His revisions resulted in the text you see below, from the same verses as the text above:

That the Gentiles should be fellow heirs and of the same body: and copartners of his promise in Christ Jesus, by the gospel Of which I am made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God, which is given to me according to the operation of his power. To me, the least of all the saints, is given this grace, to preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ: And to enlighten all men, that they may see what is the dispensation of the mystery which hath been hidden from eternity in God who created all things: That the manifold wisdom of God may be made known to the principalities and powers in heavenly places through the church, According to the eternal purpose which he made in Christ Jesus our Lord: In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.

Ah, much better, eh?

The Douay-Rheims Bible was the standard Catholic Bible for English speakers from the time of its publication in 1609 until after the Second Vatican Council and the advent of the *shudder* NAB. It was, for example, the Bible that President John F. Kennedy took his oath of office on. Its influence on the English language, though, isn't as significant as the King James Bible, largely because 1.) most English speakers are Protestant, 2.) under British law, the only Bible allowed to be printed or circulated was the King James (this was true in America as well until after the Revolution), and 3.) the DR Bible was written mostly for the sake of accuracy, whereas the King James was written as a liturgical book, to be read aloud from the pulpits of Anglican churches; and therefore, was written with more poetic language.

I like the Douay-Rheims Bible mostly because of its traditional character and history. I can identify and sympathize with those English priests who carried this Bible with them back to England and who had their blood spilt over in martyrdom and sanctify it. I also like using traditional English when quoting from Scripture because it adds a sense of archaic wisdom. I also have a couple favorite editions of the DR.

The one that I've bought over seven times now is the DR from Baronius Press, the details of which and where you can purchase it are here. It's basically a reprint of an 1899 edition retyped with digital text for that crisp look, and comes with nice extras like maps, engravings, and three papal encyclicals.

The version I'd recommend for those with some money to throw around is the Haydock Bible, which you can buy and read about here. It's a deluxe two-volume set that has illuminations all around like the Bibles of old, and most importantly, has an impressive commentary which is some 10 times as much as the actual Biblical text. The commentary was written by Father George Leo Haydock during the Napoleonic era in the year 1812, referencing and quoting heavily from the Early Church Fathers, Church Doctors, and other saints, and with a talent for refuting Protestant errors and misinterpretations of Holy Writ.

This is a great site which has the entire Haydock New Testament commentary online already, and is working on the Old.

Some other sites of interest:

Preface to the Reader: the original preface to the 1582 Rheims New Testament in the original, 1582 English. It's about 22 pages long on paper and explains the translators' goals, reasons why they chose to translate from St. Jerome's Vulgate instead of Greek and Hebrew texts, etc.

History of the Douay Bible in a Powerpoint-like form, with pretty pictures.

Douay Rheims Bible, King James, and Latin Vulgate superimposed side-by-side online.

An index of quotes from the King James taken directly from the Douay-Rheims Bible.

Providentissimus Deus, encyclical of Pope Leo XIII on the study of Holy Scripture.

Divino Afflante Spiritu, encyclical of Pope Pius XII on the promotion of Biblical studies.



"The Preface to the Reader, treating of these three points of the translation of Holy Scriptures into the vulgar tongues, and namely into English..."


Cover of a Puritan's attempt to refute the Douay-Rheims Bible by printing it side-by-side with the Protestant "Bishops' Bible", which ironically promoted the DR's popularity in England. It says:

"The Text of the New Testament of Jesus Christ, translated out of the vulgar Latin by the Papists of the traitorous seminary at Rheims, with arguments of Books, Chapters, and Annotations, pretending to discover the corruptions of divers' translations, and to clear the controversies of these days, whereinto is added the Translation out of the original Greek, commonly used in the Church of England, with a confutation of all such arguments, glosses, and annotations, as containing manifest impiety, of heresy, treason, and slander, against the Catholick Church of God [my note: for them, the Church of England], and the true teachers thereof, or the Translations used in the Church of England: both by authority of the holy Scriptures, and by the testimony of the ancient fathers."

You might be familiar with the story of the Tower of Babel. After the Flood, the descendants of Noe (Noah) attempted to build a tower that would reach heaven. God cursed the builders of the Tower by making them speak different languages so that they couldn't understand each other and finish the tower.

And the earth was of one tongue, and of the same speech.

And when they removed from the east, they found a plain in the land of Sennaar, and dwelt in it. And each one said to his neighbour: Come let us make brick, and bake them with fire. And they had brick instead of stones, and slime instead of mortar: And they said: Come, let us make a city and a tower, the top whereof may reach to heaven; and let us make our name famous before we be scattered abroad into all lands.

And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of Adam were building. And he said: Behold, it is one people, and all have one tongue: and they have begun to do this, neither will they leave off from their designs, till they accomplish them in deed. Come ye, therefore, let us go down, and there confound their tongue, that they may not understand one another's speech.

And so the Lord scattered them from that place into all lands, and they ceased to build the city. And therefore the name thereof was called Babel, because there the language of the whole earth was confounded: and from thence the Lord scattered them abroad upon the face of all countries.

I was reminded of this story when I was driving my friends Pablo and Michelle back from CCD and Scriptural study class. Pablo's CCD teacher apparently was giving a discussion on the differences between the "hard to understand" Douay-Rheims Bible and the "simpler, more accessible" New American Bible.

Alright, I'm saying it up front: I hate the New American Bible (hereafter referred to as the NAB). The translation is lousy and banal, and yet its presence is felt everywhere in American Catholicism.

The crux of the problem is in the footnotes, which are included in almost every normal edition of the NAB for personal use. Jimmy Akin has cited one particular glaring flaw in the NAB's footnote of Matthew 16:21-23....

[21-23] This first prediction of the passion follows Mark 8:31-33 in the main and serves as a corrective to an understanding of Jesus' messiahship as solely one of glory and triumph. By his addition of from that time on (Matthew 16:21) Matthew has emphasized that Jesus' revelation of his coming suffering and death marks a new phase of the gospel. Neither this nor the two later passion predictions (Matthew 17:22-23; 20:17-19) can be taken as sayings that, as they stand, go back to Jesus himself. However, it is probable that he foresaw that his mission would entail suffering and perhaps death, but was confident that he would ultimately be vindicated by God (see Matthew 26:29)

Yes, that really is in the NAB's commentary, which you can read here on the USCCB's (American bishops' conference's) website. And yes, it really does deny that Christ prophesied in Matthew 16 that He would, to quote the verse itself, "be put to death, and the third day rise again."

The NAB commentary is essentially denying Christ's divinity, power to foresee the future, and the accuracy of the Biblical text in the first place. If one can't trust the Bible at its word, why trust it at all? What's the point of making a Bible commentary in the first place?


But denying the fundamental accuracy and inspiration of the Scriptures seems to be the sole purpose of the entire NAB commentary. The NAB's commentary on Christ's Beatitudes ("blessed are the...") asserts that, for those beatitudes which are unmentioned in Luke's gospel, "The others were added by the evangelist and are probably his own composition." The NAB commentary really does assert that Matthew put his own words into Christ's mouth.

I couldn't hope to cover entirety of the NAB commentary's problems here, since it has to be looked at in the context of an entire slew of errors and other notes which aim to challenge, rather than support, the inerrancy and divine inspiration of the Holy Writ. At times, the commentary appears to be written by atheists; other times, by Jews; and yet other times, by Protestants; but never by Catholics. That's the real scandal of this so-called "Catholic" Bible. You can see for yourself an expose of all the various commentative errors on this article from CAI:

The New American Bible: Is It Good for Catholics?


And just to throw some other nitpicks in there, the translation itself sucks horribly. Consider, for example, the verse from where we get the traditional Hail Mary prayer. It appears in the Douay-Rheims Version as:

"Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women."

This is the NAB's version:

"Rejoice, highly favored daughter! The Lord is with you."

Not only does the NAB omit an entire sentence ("blessed art thou..."), but it reduces the Blessed Virgin Mary's esteem from being "full of grace" to being merely a "highly favored daughter". It might seem innocuous at first, but the change is actually a big deal. When Pope Pius IX infallibly defined Mary's Immaculate Conception as a dogma, he did so with the knowledge that Mary was, according to Scripture, "full of grace", without sin (in the original Greek, kecharitomene). For those millions of Catholics who own only an NAB, they'll read Luke 1 and never see the connection between the Hail Mary prayer and Holy Scripture.

Sometimes the NAB's language is just downright awful. Consider the story in Genesis when Jacob conned Esau out of his birthright in exchange for some food; or as the NAB calls it, "some of that red stuff".

Douay-Rheims Genesis 25:30, "Give me of this red pottage, for I am exceeding faint."

NAB Genesis 25:30, "Let me gulp down some of that red stuff; I'm starving."


The NAB also seems to hate certain theological ideas, such as the existence of hell. The word "hell" appears 120 times in the Douay-Rheims Bible, but only once in the entire NAB. The NAB generally replaces "hell" with nicer words; although it more often than not results in clunky sentences. For example, in Matthew 16:18, Christ's promise to Peter goes from "and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" in the Douay-Rheims to "and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it" in the NAB.

To add insult to injury, that one instance in the NAB is not read in the readings for the Mass. Therefore, most Catholics now live and die without hearing a single mention of hell from the pulpit, even though Christ preached about hell more than any other figure in the entire Bible.


Then, one might ask, why don't we all just switch to a different Bible translation and forget about the NAB? Unfortunately, it's not that easy. A short history of the NAB:

The original edition of the New American Bible was completed in 1970, shortly after the end of the Second Vatican Council, as part of a movement within the American Church to produce Bibles with modern language. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops ruled that the NAB was to be the only Bible used in lectionaries for the 1970 Mass of Paul VI, i.e. the Novus Ordo. The result is that about 98% of all the Masses in the entire country read from the NAB for the Scripture readings. That church down the block from your house might be reading from the NAB even as we speak. My very own parish, Our Lady of the Atonement, is required to read from the NAB in its Latin Novus Ordo Mass, even though the clergy there is aware of its many problems and uses the RSV instead in the Anglican use Masses and in the adult Scriptural studies. The only reason they don't substitute another Bible for the Latin Novus Ordo Mass is because it would be illegal.

The NAB's presence is felt everywhere in that, because it's the only Bible read from 99% of American parishes, it holds a virtual monopoly over the entire Catholic Bible market. Go into a Barnes & Noble or other similar bookstore, and chances are, the only Catholic Bible you'll find there are 12 different editions of the NAB. Even here at the local Catholic gift shop, 75% of the Bibles there are NAB, including all the nice coffee table or family editions. For most Catholics in this country, the NAB is the only Catholic Bible they've ever read or heard. The Scriptures that tell us of "favored ones" and "red stuff" define and shape today's American Catholic experience. It's no wonder that no one here takes the Church seriously.

Tomorrow (or rather, this morning) I'll be at my Army unit's office working all day since I was too sick to go to work for part of this weekend.


Just so you all know, there's a strong possibility that I'll be breathing Iraqi sand before the year is out. My unit dissolved and merged with a combat service support battalion, and all medical records for deployment, etc. are being updated. I spent Saturday packing campaign tents and power generators into overseas shipping crates.

It's an important thing to state that while I prefer we had not gone to war with Iraq (we could have picked Iran or North Korea or even China instead), and while I do prefer monarchy or other traditional government forms over the false god of modern-day democracy, and while I also agree with Senator Hagel in that the government bureaucracy seems clueless about how to wage an effective war....

NEVERTHELESS, I wouldn't be taking up arms unless I firmly and resolutely believed that I was doing it for the greater good of both the American and Iraqi people. The United States armed forces are dedicated to nothing more than the preservation of American freedom, security, and sovereignty, and sharing as much of it as we can with the Iraqis while the Washington bureaucrats have their way. If I do have to go to Iraq this year, there is nothing I wouldn't do to relieve the burden of suffering carried by the Iraqi people while we continue our mission there.

THEREFORE, I completely reject, resent, and refute the accusations and slanders that the United States armed forces are conquerors, freebooters, oppressors, or whatever else they may be called to that effect. Before I sleep for my measly one and a half hours before having to get up again, I'm going to post a video that Shannon linked me to. It's a series of images set to a segment of speech delivered by The Honorable Zell Miller, Senator from the state of Georgia, on the subject of United States armed service members. It has an important message for us all.

While we're on the subject of politicians, I feel it necessary to expose the following concern, which I read about on the National Review:

Amanda Marcotte is the official campaign blogmaster for Senator John Edwards. Here are some rather inflammatory remarks she's made in her blog Pandagon:

Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit?
A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.

On the subject of limbo:

There’s a pragmatic reason that the Vatican might be a little hesitant to come right out and say that there’s no limbo (definition here, for those who don’t know much about Catholicism) is because the concept is wielded by everyday Catholics to explain where the souls of unborn babies go, which is just an extra way to guilt trip women who have abortions. But it’s sort of a balancing act, as far as I can tell, because as most people understand it, unbaptized children go to limbo but when Jesus returns, they all get to go to heaven. So it’s a way to guilt trip women who have abortions without casting god as such an uncruel monster as to throw souls into hell that never even had a shot at sinning. So that’s limbo: it sucks enough to make women feel guilty about abortion, but it doesn’t suck so much as to run people off.

I suspect Pope Ratz will give into the urge eventually to come out and say there’s no limbo and unbaptized babies go straight to hell. He can’t help it; he’s just a dictator like that. Hey, fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, the Pope’s gotta tell women who give birth to stillborns that their babies are cast into Satan’s maw. The alternative is to let Catholic women who get abortions feel that it’ll all work out in the end, which is just not doable, due to that Jesus-like compassion the Pope is so fond of. Still, it’s going to be bad PR for the church, so you can sort of see why the Pope is dragging ass.

Which all brings me to recommending this great post by Austin Cline at Jesus’ General about why authoritarian types are so damn interested in cobbling people’s sex lives and meddling around in people’s private sexual decisions, like in this case why the Catholic church is so interested in making sure that people can’t make the perfectly sound decision to limit their family size while enjoying a healthy sex life—either you’re going to have to forgo birth control or you’re going to have to feel guilty to the point where you fear you’re casting babies into hellfire, by their standards. It’s a way to disrupt people’s lives so the church can get more control.

And, back to the issue of birth control, she said:

One thing I vow here and now—you motherf**kers who want to ban birth control will never sleep. I will f**k without making children day in and out and you will know it and you won’t be able to stop it. Toss and turn, you mean, jealous motherf**kers. I’m not going to be “punished” with babies. Which makes all your efforts a failure. Some non-procreating women escaped. So give up now. You’ll never catch all of us. Give up now.

Hmm...... well, let's just hope that the views of Mr. Edwards's blogmaster doesn't correspond with those of Mr. Edwards himself. If they did, then I'd have to call Mr. Edwards the Antichrist.

Especially given the last bit that I quoted, it would seem as though Marcotte were personally provoking me into a random outburst of violence/murder. It was so inflammatory that I did, for a brief moment, think of looking up her address, driving there, and ending her existence on this earth. If I didn't believe in God, I very well might have done that kind of thing in more extreme circumstances. But, in remembering the example and teachings of Christ, it left my mind as fleetingly as it came in. It reminded me that we must all be satisfied not with vigilante justice, but with the final judgment that eternal, almighty God delivers to every one of us. And it is a very certain thing that, as I will be judged for the things I write on this blog (I hope for the better, but given my temperament perhaps for the worse), so too will Ms. Marcotte have to answer for those statements before the eternal Throne after she takes her last breath in this world.

Perhaps there's some hope for this world after all.

There's been more recent controversy in Vienna, Austria when a real estate mogul, Richard Lugner, opened an abortion clinic in his shopping mall (appropriately named "Lugner City" after the Austrian king of tackiness).

Anyway, as a result of this, His Excellency Andreas Laun, the Auxiliary Bishop of Salzburg, declared Lugner to be automatically excommunicated for formally cooperating in the opening of the abortion clinic in his mall, citing the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church and Pope John Paul II's encyclical, Evangelium Vitae.

It was followed by demonstrations outside the clinic. The pro-clinic side, which of course consisted of college students, chanted:

"If Mary had had an abortion, we could have been spared from all this".

I'm also inspired by this recent news: Vatican clamps down on controversial bishops.

Of course, that should be a given, not any outstanding piece of news. I say, they should go all the way and give Bishop Gumbleton the Rite of Degradation. His existence is an embarrassment to the clergy. I also say, death to Call to Action...... well, to the organization, anyway.

It's time to rally the troops to war.

Since I'm here, I'd like to highlight the example set by another brave politician, The Honorable Pierre Lemieux, Member of Parliament (in the Dominion of Canada).

This is the transcript of a speech that Mr Limieux made on 6 December 2006, entitled, "Protecting Marriage and Doing What is Best for our Children".

The speech opens as this:

Mr. Speaker, I am honoured to rise today on behalf of the people of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell to speak on this important motion regarding marriage.

· I highlight that since having become an MP, I have never received so much correspondence as I have on this extremely important issue. My constituents are overwhelmingly asking me to vote in support of the traditional definition of marriage.

· When I say traditional marriage, I mean the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others. It is important to note that marriage is an institution dating back to the dawn of humanity that has existed in all civilizations. This institution predates even the existence of the state, and this House's efforts to change the traditional definition of marriage are damaging not only to Canadian society but to all societies, especially those for whom Canada is a role model.

And I was most surprised by the conclusion of his speech, in which, to my surprise, a Catholic politician actually stands up for his beliefs, closing his speech with an argument from religion:

As I mentioned, I am honoured to stand in the House today to defend and promote the traditional definition of marriage. I am also a Roman Catholic and the church in its wisdom teaches that:

· The intimate community of life and love which constitutes the married state has been established by the Creator and endowed by him with its own proper laws...God himself is the author of marriage.

· The church also teaches unchangingly that marriage is a covenant in which husband and wife express their mutual love and join with God in the creation of a new human person destined for eternal life.

· A major good of marriage between a man and a woman is procreation, that of bringing new life into the world. It is through marriage that the children of that union are best cared for and nurtured. Our children are our future and they must be protected. This issue of marriage must be revisited.

· I also remind my fellow MPs that our time as an MP is short, even when we think it is long, and when we cease to be MPs, sadly, we will likely be forgotten by our fellow man, but not by God, who knows each of us intimately.

· If God himself is truly the author of marriage, then let us be able to give a good account of ourselves when we stand before Him as we must all stand before Him.

· I will be voting in favour of the traditional definition of marriage for us, for my children and for the children of our country. I ask all MPs in the House to join me in voting to defend and promote the traditional definition of marriage.

· I shall conclude my speech as follows,

o “Almighty God, protector of all families, guide us in our efforts to defend the holy sacrament of marriage as the union between a man and a woman. I ask You this in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen”.

Amazing.

Since this was given on 25 January, it's old news now, but I did enjoy this speech from The Honorable Charles Nagel, Senator from Nebraska. It's probably the most honest and principled speech I've heard from an American politician in..... a long time. I was particularly interested in how the Senator mentioned the Palestinians “who have been chained down for many, many years.” It's rather unorthodox for an American legislator to speak against the Jewish/Israeli lobby.

I hope he runs for the Presidency.

I decided to post a portrait of His Most Serene Majesty, the Emperor of Athanasia, and Her Most Serene Majesty the Empress. Click for a larger image. I gave the three piece suit a chance.

In my previous entry on "proofs of faith", I cited an example of the incorrupt body of Blessed Imelda Lambertini. She's just one of over at least one hundred saints and blesseds who have been found to be incorrupt.

Now, let's define incorrupt here: by that, I'm referring to a body or body part that has not decayed since that person's death, without the assistance of embalming, or ointment, or mummifying.

In early Church and medieval times, it was common to exhume the body of someone who had recently been declared a saint and distribute small bits and pieces of his bones as relics to other churches. They found that many of these saints, when they exhumed them, remained completely preserved and even often had a sweet aroma. It eventually became a custom to exhume the bodies of all who had causes for canonization as saints as a sort of preliminary investigation. Ever since the formal process of canonization began in the 1000's, these exhumations have had to have been performed with witnesses and signed affidavits from medical professionals that no fraud had been committed. I'm going to describe just a few of the more famous ones below:


SAINT VINCENT DE PAUL


Vincent de Paul was a French priest during the reign of King Louis XIII, i.e. the Three Musketeers era. He was born in Gascony in 1580 to a poor peasant family. He studied humanities in college and at the age of 20 was ordained a priest. Vincent was traveling by sea to collect an inheritance when Turkish pirates captured him and sold him to slavery. Vincent lived as a slave in Tunis, North Africa for two years until he converted his master from Islam to Catholicism and fled with him back to France.

Because of his experience as a galley slave with the lowest members of society, Vincent dedicated his entire life to serving the poor and unfortunate. He first ministered to galleyed convicts, who lived day to day in shackles in dark, damp dungeons. Vincent frequently visited and ministered to the convicts, doing anything they asked, no matter how undignified. As royal almoner of the galleys appointed by King Louis XIII, Vincent ministered in galleys all over France and built hospitals for them.

Vincent soon extended his ministry to all the poor of France. He established a new order of sisters, the Daughters of Charity, with Saint Louise de Marrillac, out of young girls who wished to serve the poor and sick but needed Vincent's learning. With them and another order, the Ladies of Chairty, Vincent was able to build hospices and homeless shelters all over Paris, and with the support of the King, Cardinal Mazarin, and the nobles of France, built a shelter for a whole 40,000 poor.

His work extended far beyond Paris. During the Thirty Years' War, Vincent raised money to relieve the French provinces on the eastern border which had been ravaged by the enemy mercenaries, including the relocation of 200 young women to shelter in various convents to escape the brutality of the mercenary armies.

In order to better reform France, Vincent knew he had to reform the clergy. The Thirty Years' War kept France from implementing many of the reforms of the Council of Trent. There was particularly a problem with uneducated priests and bishops who inherited their sees as teenagers. Vincent started a new seminary and a program in which seminarians would go on retreats with him in the wilderness before being ordained. By the time of his death, Vincent led 11 seminaries.

With more priests and missionaries, Vincent made the last stage of his ministry by extending outside of France. He sent missionaries to Ireland, Madagascar, Poland, and even to the shepherds in the Roman fields. Especially dear to his heart was the cause of slaves in North Africa. Vincent sent priests to serve the Christian slaves there, and raised money to buy them out of bondage and into freedom.

Vincent died of old age in 1660, during the reign of the Sun King. He was exhumed in 1705 during his beatification process and his body was found incorrupt. In 1737, he was canonized a saint. Vindent de Paul's legacy continues in many charitable organizations, especially that of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, whose presence is felt in almost all parish churches around the world and is responsible for the feeding of perhaps millions of poor souls.

Saint Vincent de Paul petitioning Queen Anne of Austria for alms for the poor



SAINT CATHERINE LABOURE

Catherine Laboure was born to a French farmer, the ninth of eleven children, in 1806 just as the evening Angelus was sounding, during the reign of Emperor Napoleon I Bonaparte. As a girl, Catherine was well-known for her piety, rising at 4am every morning to walk to the local parish church and pray. There are many hagiographic anecdotes to tell about her life. My favorite is of a dream she received as a young girl: Catherine was having a dream in which she was attending a Mass offered by an old priest. The priest turned to face her and gestured her with his finger to approach him, but she stood back. The dream then continued in a sick room, where the priest said, "My child, it is a good deed to look after the sick; you run away now, but one day you will be glad to come to me. God has designs on you - do not forget it."

Later, Catherine made a visit to a hospital owned by the Daughters of Charity (remember them?). She saw a picture of a priest on the wall and asked a sister who it was. The sister replied, "that's our holy founder, St. Vincent de Paul". The priest in the picture was the very same priest Catherine saw in her dream.

Indeed, in 1830 Catherine would join the Daughters of Charity and become a sister. She was extremely devout, often seeing Christ appear on the altar at Mass in whatever form the liturgy described him that day: as Infant, Prophet, Crucified, or King. One day, on the eve of the Feast of St. Vincent de Paul, the mother superior was teaching the sisters about St. Vincent and gave each of them a piece of cloth cut from a surplice (the white gown worn over the cassock) that he once wore. Catherine took the piece and prayed to St. Vincent, asking him to be able to meet the Blessed Virgin Mary.

That night, as the entire convent was asleep, Catherine was woken by a brilliant light and the voice of an angel, who summoned her to follow him to the chapel. At a touch, the chapel's locked door swung open, and the chapel's candles were lit as though in preparation for a midnight Mass. Catherine knelt at the altar rail, and saw the Blessed Mother take seat in front of her at the priest celebrant's chair. The angel led her to Mary, and she knelt beside her. Mary said to Catherine,

"God wishes to charge you with a mission. You will be contradicted, but do not fear; you will have the grace to do what is necessary. Tell your spiritual director all that passes within you. Times are evil in France and in the world. Come to the foot of the altar. Graces will be shed on all, great and little, especially upon those who seek for them. You will have the protection of God and Saint Vincent. I always will have my eyes upon you. There will be much persecution. The cross will be treated with contempt. It will be hurled to the ground and blood will flow."

During Advent of that year, the Virgin returned to Catherine, appearing to her while standing on a globe, holding a globus cruciger (a golden orb with a cross on top which looks like the "Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch", often carried by Christian kings) as though offering it up to heaven. She gave Catherine a command:

"Have a medal struck as I have shown you. All who wear it will receive great graces."

Blessed Mary then took on the form of the medal she wanted to have struck: she appeared in an oval frame, still standing atop the globe but with arms outstretched and beams of light pouring from them. Around the oval were the words O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee. The vision rotated to reveal the reverse side, a cross atop a large M, surrounded by the twelve stars belonging to Mary's heavenly crown (Apoc. 12), and underneath, the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Catherine was instructed to tell all this to her priest confessor, Father Jean Marie Aladel, being told by Mary, "he is my servant." Father Aladel didn't originally believe Catherine, but after two years, he took a report to the local archbishop and received approval to have two thousand medals struck according to Catherine's description. Immediately following its distribution, thousands of miracles were attributed directly to the wearing of the medal, hence it is today called the Miraculous Medal. Catherine herself, in her modesty, told no one that she had received the original vision until 46 years later, as she sensed her last days on earth. She died the same year, in 1876.

In 1933, during her beaitifcation, her body was exhumed and found incorrupt, and now rests over the site of one of her apparitions in Paris. Even though she died at 75, her body appears young for her age, and many pilgrims comment on the beauty of her blue eyes.








SAINT BERNADETTE SOUBIROUS

St. Bernadette Soubirous was a French shepherd girl, born in Lourdes in 1844. She is known mostly for the eighteen visions of the Virgin Mary that she experienced beginning when she was eighteen years old. At twenty-two, she joined a convent of the Sisters of Charity of Nevers, and remained there until she died at thirty-five, after a lifetime of severe illness. But she always considered her illnesses and pains to be a gift from God, to suffering up suffering as an atonement for sin and to unite with Him up on the cross. The Virgin Mary said to Bernadette, "I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next."

During her canonization cause, Bernadette's body was exhumed on 2 September 1909. The authorities found that the crucifix and rosary she was buried with had oxidized, but her body remained incorrupt. In 1925, her body was placed in a glass reliquary for display. She was canonized as a saint in 1933 on 8 December, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

I intend to do another entry about Our Lady of Lourdes in the future, so I won't write St. Bernadette's full story yet.










"To obey is to love! To suffer in silence for Christ is joy! To love sincerely is to give everything, even grief!" - Saint Bernadette

It's time for another dose of wanton popery!

Okay, it might be a while before I'm able to post a good essay entry, but here are some news bits from around the world.

Pope Benedict XVI, like all good priests and bishops, teaches regular catechism classes. I especially liked the one he gave on 31 January. This is a summary: All Have Different Tasks in the Field of the Lord.

And here is the Pope's full transcript.

He's currently teaching a series on major figures of early Christianity, on 31 January teaching about St. Paul's three great colleagues: Barnabas, Silas, and Apollos. Two excerpts for you:

"Even among saints differences, discord and controversies arise," commented the Holy Father. "And I find this a consolation because we see that saints have not 'come down from heaven.' They are people like us, with problems, even complicated problems. Sanctity does not consist in never having made mistakes or sinned,. Sanctity grows in the capacity for conversion and penance, of willingness to start again and, above all, in the capacity for reconciliation and forgiveness."

...

The Holy Father concluded: "These words are still valid for everyone today, for Popes, for cardinals, bishops, priests and lay people. We are all humble ministers of Jesus. We serve the Gospel to the extent that we can, according to our gifts, and we pray to God that He may make His Gospel and His Church grow today."


This is a news article from Zenit about an Italian newspaper report based on fake confessions. Essentially, reporters from the la'Expresso newspaper entered into confessional booths in 24 different churches in Rome, Milan, Naples, and other major Italian cities and made fake confessions to compare all the priests' given advice and see if they are consistent with official Church teaching.

First of all, I need to say right out that to take advantage of the sacrament of Penance is an abomination and abhorrent. However, God often takes evil and uses it for good. The UK Guardian reports: Priests leave Pope's doctrines outside confessional.

The reason I say its used for good is because it reveals that there's massive apostasy even within those churches in Rome itself. The advice given in these confessionals is often not genuine Catholic teaching and without this report, I suppose there'd be no way that the Holy Father in Rome would know about it.


From the Catholic News Agency: No vote, no Communion.

A Catholic bishop in Nigeria has declared that if parishioners in his diocese do not register for voting in the civil elections by 7 February, they will be excommunicated and denied Holy Communion.

I'm not sure what to think of this one. The bishop's argument is essentially that good Christians must be good citizens and actively participate in their civic duties by voting in the democratic process. Now, if this were an American bishop, I'd say he's insane and has more likely excommunicated himself than his parishioners. But, there might be something about Nigerian politics that we're not aware of. For example, it might very well be a matter of life and death that Catholics in Nigeria unite to form a strong voting bloc against the Muslim parties which wish to impose sharia law over the entire country. But, I don't know. All I know is that this bishop has more spine than 90% of American bishops.


Texas Governor Perry recently signed an order which will require, after September 2008, that girls receive a vaccination against human papillomavirus (HPV) before the sixth grade.

Keep in mind the implications here. HPV is a sexually transmitted disease. This law implies that elementary school girls must, by law, take a vaccine for an STD. Is this just? Is this necessary? It seems more to me to promote the idea that elementary school girls are sexually active. Instead of giving a vaccine, it seems the better idea is to stop the problem at its source.


On the local level, yesterday I went to attend a Solemn Choral Evensong at Atonement parish. In the middle of the liturgy, the clergy and servers made a procession up to the choir loft to bless the newly completed Casavant pipe organ with incense and holy water, and back down again. It was amazing, and after the Evensong, the organist played a long postlude which was magnificent and resulted in a standing ovation and applause, even Father himself; the first time I've ever seen people at Atonement clap in church. It really was amazing.

Tomorrow (Sunday), I'll be attending an organ recital at 4pm where a professional organist and organ teacher, James David Christie, will be playing the first American performance ever of Messe de'Escalquens by Jean Langlais. It should be most spectacular.

There might be a delay in blogging for the next few days while I work on college applications and a few other things, but keep checking.