The Good Yankee: St Elizabeth Ann Seton

Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton was born into a prominent “Brahmin” family in America – that is to say, one of the long-standing, well-established and wealthy families of the United States of America which formed a new home-grown American aristocracy.

Saint Elizabeth came from the Bayley family of New York City, a family of prominent Episcopalian Protestants.

She was married to a wealthy ship-owner, William Magee Seton, at the age of 19 and had 5 children, 2 sons and 3 daughters. William suffered the loss of numerous ships and his fortunes went into a reverse and he was forced to go into bankruptcy. This affected his health and he and his family travelled to Italy in the hope that he might recuperate there.

William did not improve and sadly died whilst he, Elizabeth and the family were in Italy.

Elizabeth was left alone and was taken in, with the children, by a local Catholic family who looked after them and cared for them.

During that time she was much influenced by, and learned much about, the Catholic faith. So much was she affected by what she learned and experienced of the faith that Elizabeth became a Catholic herself, 2 years later on 14 March 1805.



This cost her the support of her family and friends who, having the strong prejudices against the Catholic Church so typical of many American Protestants of the time, in effect, shunned her for her courageous decision. She was left to her own devices and therefore had now to support herself despite the fact that her parents were very wealthy.

She therefore started a school in Baltimore, Maryland. Her school struggled along for a time but eventually failed due to the anti-Catholic bigotry and prejudice then prevailing in the country.

This failure was followed by several difficult years of penury and hardship. This did not defeat her spirit but rather strengthened all the more her heroic resolve to dedicate herself to God and mankind and she responded to the challenge of such difficulties by deciding to start a new religious community in Emmitsburg, Maryland, dedicated to the care of the children of the poor.

As part of her new commitment St Elizabeth founded the first free school in the United States to educate young girls to live by the great religious values and truths.

She named her new community the Sisters of Charity of St Joseph and it enures to this day with some 6 independent communities stemming from these humble beginnings.

This new life brought St Elizabeth Ann even more crosses to bear and she had, like many a religious foundress, much to suffer by way of misunderstanding from friends and enemies alike, from personal hostilities and from other such hardships and trials. To cap it all she lost 2 of her daughters as well as other relatives and even 2 sisters in her community.

Eventually, after many hardships bravely and nobly borne, she herself succumbed to tuberculosis and she died at the age of 46, mourned, loved and admired, a truly great lady and a great American.

Her remains are entombed in the Basilica that bears her name: the Basilica of the National Shrine of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton.



She was declared “venerable” on 18 December 1959 and beatified by Pope John XXIII on 17 March 1963. She was canonized by Pope Paul VI on 14 September, the Feast of the Triumph of the Holy Cross, 1975.

The Feast Day of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton is 4 January.

“We must pray literally without ceasing—without ceasing—in every occurrence and employment of our lives . . . that prayer of the heart which is independent of place or situation, or which is rather a habit of lifting up the heart to God as in a constant communication with Him.”
[Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton]

St Elizabeth Ann Seton, pray for us!

...

And now for the good Americans... let's start with the Saint Patrick Battalion

Not all Americans are dumb ass Yankees - far from it.

The problem is that so few Americans these days seem to know much more than the received version of history that so many bloggistes keep churning out.

One correspondent has reminded me of the great history of those Americans who strongly objected to the rape of Mexico by US forces.

The Saint Patrick's Battalion (Batallón de San Patricio) was a unit of several hundred Irish, Germans, Swiss, Scots and other Roman Catholics of European descent, whose consciences were gravely offended by the Yankee attempts to annex Spanish America and so left the US Army and fought as part of the Mexican Army against the United States in the Mexican-American War of 1846 to 1848.

Ordinarily, this would not be a course open to a Catholic since it would involve repudiating one’s oath of loyalty to one’s own country.

However, necessity argued for a defence of the states subjected to Yankee aggression and these men were among the few who were able to take steps to prevent it. Even the usual option of simply resigning was not enough since they were faced with a people who needed immediate aid against the oppressive invader.

The great majority of these men were, in any case, recent immigrants from northeastern US ports, escaping extremely poor economic conditions in Ireland, which at the time was being grossly ill-treated by deliberately wicked British economic and military policies resulting in the starving and oppressing of the Catholic Irish.

The flag of the San Patricios

The famine in Ireland was taking place at this time and so resulted in many Irishmen having to leave their native land to flee to America for food and shelter. They were often recruited directly into military service at the ports or, worse, were conscripted on their way south by General Zachary Taylor with fair promises of reward that were often dishonoured.

Many such conscripts were forbidden the free practice of the Catholic religion by the many anti-Catholic officers in the US Army. They also witnessed the conduct of US troops following battle victories with horror and disgust.

They also shared a great sympathy for the Mexicans who were also usually Catholics (although their leaders were usually anti-Catholic Freemasons like their US counter-parts, ironically).

Indeed, as with the Wild Geese of Ireland who served in European Catholic armies, there were many Irishmen who served in the Catholic armies of Latin America.

Captain John Riley, Irish-born and a former NCO in the British Army, had joined the Army in Michigan from but went over to the Mexicans at, appropriately, the town of Matamoros (which means “Moor-slayer”, a title of St James the Greater in Spain. He fought at the Battle of Monterrey in 1846 commanding an Artillery battery.

Scenes of battle for the San Patricios

As so often, these Irishmen distinguished themselves as brave and resourceful soldiers. Doubtless their erstwhile Yankee commanders said, as did King George II at Fontenoy exactly 100 years earlier, “what cursed laws deprived me of such soldiers!”.

The US army's conduct at the previous battle, which had included firing on civilians taking refuge in Catholic churches, resulted in more desertions from the US army.

San Patricios captured by the Americans were, of course, treated with all the usual savagery that one has long since come to expect from Protestants and anti-Catholics. A stooge, show trial was set up with no defence lawyers and no transcripts of the trials were made (err… small matter of the US Constitution being over-ridden yet again by these hypocritical Yankee manslaughterers).

Several were even shot who never even joined the Mexican army! But – hey! – they were anti-Yankee so what does it matter?

Guantanamo Bay, anyone?

Most of the captured San Patricios were hanged or shot.

Some 9,000 US soldiers deserted during the Mexican-American War but only the San Patricios were punished in this way.

Why?

Usual reason: they were Catholic.

Yankee dumb ass anti-Catholicism strikes yet again!

According to several sources, those who had left military service before the official declaration of war on Mexico (Riley among them) were sentenced to:

“receive 50 lashes on their bare backs, to be branded with the letter "D" for deserter, and to wear iron yokes around their necks for the duration of the war”

Mass hangings took place at San Angel and Chapultepec.

That odious bully, General Winfield Scott, ordered 30 San Patricios to be executed in full view of the two armies as they fought the Battle of Chapultepec, at the precise moment that the flag of the US replaced the flag of Mexico on the citadel.

By way of example of what these odious Yankee screwballs were like, several sources evidence that this order was executed by the coarse, Yankee heretic and murderer, Colonel William Harney, who already had a very poor disciplinary record and was later court-martialled at least twice.

This brutish rogue ordered Francis O'Connor hanged though he had lost both legs. When informed, the thuggish Harney replied:

“Bring the damn son of a bitch out! My order was to hang 30 and by God I shall do it!”.

Mass hanging of captured San Patricios by the US army

See what lovely people those Mex-basher Yankees were?

Whatever happened to that much-vaunted piece of hypocrisy about ending all “cruel and unusual punishments”?

The celebration days for the San Patricios are 12 September (yes, really! Day after 9/11 and the same day as the victorious Battle of Vienna against the Turks), the anniversary of the executions, and of course St Patrick’s Day. They are remembered in Mexico by the naming of schools and streets and even churches and the battalion’s name is written in gold letters in the Mexican Chamber of Deputies.

Viva los San Patricios!

...

Crass remark of the day from.......Mr Anonymous!

It's simple and direct - so I just had to share it with you.

Stand by, folks! Here it comes:



"If we had annexed all of Mexico then we would have no illegal immigration problem."




Yep.

There it is.

And who was the hero who gave us this bit of wisdom?

Well, he or she is not lacking in courage, this Agamemnon of the Americas.

He or she is so willing to stand up and be counted as to sign off as "Anonymous".

Who says that unthinking racism is dead in America?

Go, Mr Anonymous!

...

Post scriptum: Karen go blah...

She's a sucker for punishment - she's back for more!

Our Karen - she of the "Gem of the Ocean" - has come back with some overpoweringly brilliant arguments in favour of her position and in defence of the rapacious Yankees who stripped half of Mexico bare.

Let me share them with you.

They are pretty much unassailable and are a rare demonstration of the extent and depth of the modern American education system.

Moreover, they clearly reflect a well-rounded and deeply-read understanding of Catholicism in all its aspects.

For refinement, insight, subtlety, deftness and wit they can hardly be beaten.

And, of course, above all, they cite so many powerful and persuasive sources and provide so many carefully thought out and reasoned arguments that they cannot be gainsaid.

And the lucidity, the logic! It is surely infallible!

Stand aside Cicero, Seneca, Homer, Dante, Chaucer and Shakespeare, not to mention Hawthorne, Twain and Henry James - here comes Karen, whose "Gems of the Ocean" we are all privileged to share.

Stand back in awe, wonder and amazement, folks and hear what wise profundity Karen has to offer us:


"Tell me, is it the Napoleon complex, or just the inadequate penis Freudian coming out in you that you hate Americans so much? I've seen your ilk since my first grand tour, and you're not even remotely up to the frothing Frenchmen who loath us for saving their asses from the Nazis."


Such mellifluous prose, such elegance, such - how shall I say? - ineluctable logic and inspired poesy!

And here's more:


"Whatever dude. Who has time to wade through your BS?"


There is much more in similar vein - intellectual genius supported by so many learned references and scholarly detail.

Enough said.

This sheer brilliance speaks for itself.

The future of America is secure with so much wit and wisdom at its disposal!

...

How the Yanks grabbed half of Mexico

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (Tratado de Guadalupe Hidalgo) was the peace treaty almost entirely dictated by the United States to the interim government of a Mexico militarily occupied by US forces following the end of the illegal and entirely aggressive Mexican-American War (1846–1848).

The Mexican–American War was an armed military conflict between the United States and Mexico from 1846 to 1848 in the wake of the 1845 U.S. annexation of Texas. Mexico did not recognize the secession and subsequent military victory by Texas in 1836, and considered Texas a rebel province.

The United States was animated by a popular belief in its own "Manifest Destiny" and the opportunity to gain territory for the expansion of slavery.

The most important consequence of the war for the United States was the Mexican Cession, in which the Mexican territories of Alta California and Santa Fé de Nuevo México were ceded to the United States under the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo with enormous loss of territory to Mexico and huge gains to a rapacious, grasping, greedy and aggressive American government.

And what was this “Manifest Destiny”?

That’s right, folks!

The very thing that my previous posts were describing and criticizing!

A highly fanciful allegory of the "Manifest Destiny" of the United States conquering the West and laying telegraph wiring. The reality was often enough merely naked aggression.

Manifest Destiny was the belief that the United States was destined to expand from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific Ocean. It was the belief that westward expansion was “obviously” right and was the “destiny” of the United States. It was the bastard offspring of that other similar doctrine, the so-called Monroe doctrine.

It was an astonishingly arrogant doctrine.

But it was what many Yankees believed in.

The Battle of Vera Cruz - an episode from the Mexican-American war

The term was first used primarily by Jacksonian Democrats (well, surprise, surprise!!) in the 1840s to promote the annexation of much of Oregon, Texas and much of what was then Mexico.

Even today some Americans still naively believe that it is their country’s job to tell other countries how to run themselves and blockade, or even invade, them if they don’t agree.

In short, exactly the attitude I was criticizing in my posts.

The Guadalupe treaty provided for the ensured safety of pre-existing property rights of Mexican citizens in the transferred territories, which the United States government later all too often dishonoured, just as it had failed to honour its treaty obligations to the native American Indians.

Texas had been annexed by infiltrating Americans into the country as false Catholics and then – when there were enough of them – declaring independence for Texas and asking the US to “protect” the infiltrated American false Catholics (who thereafter quickly reverted to their former heathenism or Protestantism).

After this, President Polk then provoked Mexico into further war so that he could annex the remaining northern parts of Mexico. Polk, a believer in “manifest destiny” and yet another Yankee Freemason and enemy of the Catholic Church, declared a war on 13 May 1845.

Mexico’s subsequent defeat left them with little choice but to accept the United States’ demands, or risk total annexation of Mexico.

The treaty was signed by Nicholas Trist on behalf of the United States on 2 February 1848 just as US troops under the command of General Winfield Scott were occupying Mexico City.

The troops of Gen Winfield Scott occupying Mexico City to force the Mexicans to surrender to unjustified Yankee demands for huge portions of their land and territory

This was the clearest possible example of Yankee bullying, greed, annexation and grand theft of other people’s territory.

And afterwards the US government reneged on parts of the treaty which was supposed to protect the inhabitants of the new territory.

Another fanciful allegory of the belief that civilisation moves westward and so it was the destiny of the USA to kick the Indians and the Spanish off their land illegally, violently and aggressively

Border disputes continued; the United States’s desire to expand its territory continued unabated leading to the equally controversial Gadsden Purchase in 1854.

Land grant claims still persist to this day.

But all too many Yankees simply do not know this - or a great deal else about their own country's history.

...

Some Yankee mothers do have 'em...

It was inevitable that some dumb-bunny would emerge to share their bigotry with us.

Step forward Karen H, aka "Gem of the Ocean".

She has bought the whole, received, Yankee history of "How the West was won" - hook, line and sinker.

And she does not scruple to spew forth racism despite her supposedly being a Catholic.

I'd like to have shared her post with you...

...but it was so crass that I wanted to spare your blushes and her the ignominy.

I suppose one must make allowances for the apparent fact that, according to US government surveys, 58% of people leaving High School in the USA never again read a book.

Karen's blog describes her as a "Right minded woman on the left coast. Catholic. Conservative. All American. Who could ask for anything more?"

Well, Karen, one could ask for quite a lot more, actually.

Racism does not become a Catholic, let alone a Conservative Catholic. Neither does ignorance and neither does crass rudeness and bigotry.

Let's check out the ignorance.

Dear Karen indignantly thinks that I have never heard of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and, in high dudgeon, claims that this is how the West was won: the Mexicans ceded all of alta California.

Passing over the fact that my post nowhere denies the existence of the treaty, let us just remember a thing or two about this "great" treaty.

I set it all out in my next post.

Karen's next claim is even more laughable. She claims - again indignantly - that President Abraham Lincoln returned the Catholic missions to the Catholic Church after they had been - so she claims - plundered by the Mexicans.

Here are the facts.

Mexico, constantly infiltrated by pro-Yankee agitators and fifth columnists but also by its own home-grown Freemasons or Spanish ones imported from Europe, suffered numerous revolutions which, despite the Catholicism of the ordinary people, eventually succeeded in eradicating Catholic government from Mexico. The US government constantly supported the anti-Catholic forces with money and arms - hence their repeated success.

The wars and revolutions that Mexico endured cost the country dear. This, and the anti-clericalism of the government, led to the decline of the Spanish missions and they fell into ruin, anti-Catholic Yankees being well content to let the Papist missions fall into disuse.

This was in the 1840s.

By the 1860s most of the missions were in ruins or nearly so. There was thus but little to give back to the Catholic Church and Lincoln's supposed generosity in so doing was very small beer - a cheap gesture indeed.

Catholics must be very careful not to put the myths about their own country above truth, faith and charity.

But Karen seems to think it was all down to some innate defect in the Mexican race.

Not quite, Karen, I'm afraid.

...

Ramona: a love story of Spanish and Catholic California

Ramona, written by Helen Hunt Jackson in 1884, is the story of a part-Scottish and part-Native American orphan girl growing up under the influence of the Spanish-Mexican missionaries but suffering later from the rapacity, brutality, rapine and murder of the Yankee Americans as they sought to win the West by force and oppression.

Helen Hunt Jackson was the daughter of a Minister and Professor of Classics at Amherst College in Massachusetts. She married an Army Captain who later died at war and she later married a wealthy banker.

The novel was hugely popular, despite its portrayal of the evils of Yankee exploitation. The novel’s impact was great and, once the railroads came, many tourists came looking to see the evidences of the old Mexican ranchero life that still remained from the days of the Spanish Empire.

The story takes place after the American war of annexation of theft in Mexico and is set in Southern California.

Jackson's novel is set in Southern California, shortly after the Mexican-American War. It is about a part-Scottish and part-Indian orphan girl, Ramona is an orphan raised by the sister of his deceased foster mother, Señora Gonzaga Moreno. Señora Moreno detests the rapacious and uncouth Americans whom she is now bound to recognize as her new rulers who have seized most of her lands. But she prefers her own child to Ramona.

The peace and tranquillity of the Missions before the arrival of the rapacious Yankee

Ramona falls in love with a young Indian shepherd, Alessandro, who is also the son of the Chief of the tribe, Pablo Assis but Señora Moreno will not hear of it so Ramona and Alessandra elope. They live lives of hardship and are, with the new daughter, run off their lands several times by rapacious, greedy, brutal Yankee American freebooters.

Alessandro is driven out of his wits by the unpunished lawlessness of the brutal Yankees and after they are forced into the San Bernadino mountains, Alessandro goes into town and rides off on the horse of one of the Yankee exploiters. The Yankee follows him and shoots him out of hand, knowing that he will not be punished by his fellow Yankees.

This was a fine example of how the West was made “wild” not by the Indians or the Spanish but by the damnable greed and licentiousness of the Yankee land-grabbers.

Fortunately for Ramona, the son of Señora Moreno, Felipe, who long ago fell in love with Ramona, finds her and they are married and go to settle in Mexico.

Helen Hunt Jackson

The novel was written after the appearance of a report, A Century of Dishonor, on the exploitation of American Indians.

Some critics have suggested that the novel romanticized the life round the Spanish missions of the Franciscans, the freedom enjoyed by the native Indians, the dignity of the Spanish señoritas and caballeros, ladies and knights, and of the peons or peasants.

Catholic Mexican gentleman or caballero

However, her account was true. The Franciscans maintained a regime of liberty, peace and religion amongst the Indians with only a handful of Mexican soldiers and there were always many more mission stations than presidios or forts.


Subsequent Yankees have – with low cunning and foul, detestable hypocrisy – sought to pretend that they were bringing civilization to the Indians and were sweeping away the darkness of Romish superstition by defeating the Spanish. They even pretended that they were bringing the Yankee work ethic of “self reliance”.

Yankee cattle-thieves doing their dirty work which they called "rustling" - they had no time for the Christian nobility of the Mexican missionaries and people

This was a convenient lie designed to do no more than cloak the naked greed of the Yankee exploiters. The missionaries treated the native Indians as men like themselves and with dignity. The Yankee exploiters did the opposite.

In fact, the story of the Spanish missions in California is even more romantic, beautiful and holy than the novel itself tells.




It speaks volumes that black-hearted, bigoted and narrow-minded men of low morals and lower culture should seek to pour scorn and lies upon a story of great courage and beauty, whether it be the fiction of Ramona or the beautifully noble reality of the Hispanic missions in California.

But, then, the Devil is always eager to vilify the beautiful things of God.

Our Lady of California, pray for us!

...

A Roman Catholic Sioux leader: Chief Sitting Bull

Chief Sitting Bull (Tatanka Iyotake, 1831-1890) one of the most famous of the Unkpapa Sioux, a Lakota Medicine Man and Chief, was considered the last Sioux to surrender to a land-grabbing, aggressive and oppressive US Government.

He is famous for his tribe’s defeat of Colonel George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Greasy Grass (aka the Little Big Horn or Custer’s Last Stand).

In his later life he converted to the Catholic Church being instructed by Bishop Marty of Dakota, and, after his death, was buried in a Catholic graveyard.

Here are extracts from a memorial of the great Chief written by Ohiyesa, the Indian writer who wrote as Charles A. Eastman.

Ohiyesa knew Sitting Bull personally, having met him several times, and was thus able to make an assessment of his character based upon personal knowledge and observation, rather than rumour, hearsay and embroidered legend. He wrote:

“It is not easy to characterize Sitting Bull, of all Sioux chiefs most generally known to the American people. There are few to whom his name is not familiar, and still fewer who have learned to connect it with anything more than the conventional notion of a bloodthirsty savage. The man was an enigma at best. He was not impulsive, nor was he phlegmatic. He was most serious when he seemed to be jocose. He was gifted with the power of sarcasm, and few have used it more artfully than he.

His father was one of the best-known members of the Unkpapa band of Sioux. The manner of this man's death was characteristic. One day, when the Unkpapas were attacked by a large war party of Crows, he fell upon the enemy's war leader with his knife. In a hand-to-hand combat of this sort, we count the victor as entitled to a war bonnet of trailing plumes. It means certain death to one or both. In this case, both men dealt a mortal stroke, and Jumping Buffalo, the father of Sitting Bull, fell from his saddle and died in a few minutes. The other died later from the effects of the wound.

…It is a mistake to suppose that Sitting Bull, or any other Indian warrior, was of a murderous disposition. It is true that savage warfare had grown more and more harsh and cruel since the coming of white traders among them, bringing guns, knives, and whisky. Yet it was still regarded largely as a sort of game, undertaken in order to develop the manly qualities of their youth. It was the degree of risk which brought honor, rather than the number slain, and a brave must mourn thirty days, with blackened face and loosened hair, for the enemy whose life he had taken. While the spoils of war were allowed, this did not extend to territorial aggrandizement, nor was there any wish to overthrow another nation and enslave its people. It was a point of honor in the old days to treat a captive with kindness. The common impression that the Indian is naturally cruel and revengeful is entirely opposed to his philosophy and training. The revengeful tendency of the Indian was aroused by the white man. It is not the natural Indian who is mean and tricky; not Massasoit but King Philip; not Attackullakulla but Weatherford; not Wabashaw but Little Crow; not Jumping Buffalo but Sitting Bull! These men lifted their hands against the white man, while their fathers held theirs out to him with gifts.




Remember that there were councils which gave their decisions in accordance with the highest ideal of human justice before there were any cities on this continent; before there were bridges to span the Mississippi; before this network of railroads was dreamed of! There were primitive communities upon the very spot where Chicago or New York City now stands, where men were as children, innocent of all the crimes now committed there daily and nightly. True morality is more easily maintained in connection with the simple life. You must accept the truth that you demoralize any race whom you have subjugated.

…Sitting Bull's history has been written many times by newspaper men and army officers, but I find no account of him which is entirely correct. I met him personally in 1884, and since his death I have gone thoroughly into the details of his life with his relatives and contemporaries.

…When Sitting Bull was a boy, there was no thought of trouble with the whites. He was acquainted with many of the early traders, Picotte, Choteau, Primeau, Larpenteur, and others, and liked them, as did most of his people in those days. All the early records show this friendly attitude of the Sioux, and the great fur companies for a century and a half depended upon them for the bulk of their trade. It was not until the middle of the last century that they woke up all of a sudden to the danger threatening their very existence. Yet at that time many of the old chiefs had been already depraved by the whisky and other vices of the whites, and in the vicinity of the forts and trading posts at Sioux City, Saint Paul, and Cheyenne, there was general demoralization. The drunkards and hangers-on were ready to sell almost anything they had for the favor of the trader. The better and stronger element held aloof. They would not have anything of the white man except his hatchet, gun, and knife. They utterly refused to cede their lands; and as for the rest, they were willing to let him alone as long as he did not interfere with their life and customs, which was not long.

It was not, however, the Unkpapa band of Sioux, Sitting Bull's band, which first took up arms against the whites; and this was not because they had come less in contact with them, for they dwelt on the Missouri River, the natural highway of trade. As early as 1854, the Ogallalas and Brules had trouble with the soldiers near Fort Laramie; and again in 1857 Inkpaduta massacred several families of settlers at Spirit Lake, Iowa. Finally, in 1869, the Minnesota Sioux, goaded by many wrongs, arose and murdered many of the settlers, afterward fleeing into the country of the Unkpapas and appealing to them for help, urging that all Indians should make common cause against the invader. This brought Sitting Bull face to face with a question which was not yet fully matured in his own mind; but having satisfied himself of the justice of their cause, he joined forces with the renegades during the summer of 1863, and from this time on he was an acknowledged leader.




…Sitting Bull joined in the attack on Fort Phil Kearny and in the subsequent hostilities; but he accepted in good faith the treaty of 1868, and soon after it was signed he visited Washington with Red Cloud and Spotted Tail, on which occasion the three distinguished chiefs attracted much attention and were entertained at dinner by President Grant and other notables. He considered that the life of the white man as he saw it was no life for his people, but hoped by close adherence to the terms of this treaty to preserve the Big Horn and Black Hills country for a permanent hunting ground. When gold was discovered and the irrepressible gold seekers made their historic dash across the plains into this forbidden paradise, then his faith in the white man's honor was gone forever, and he took his final and most persistent stand in defense of his nation and home. His bitter and at the same time well-grounded and philosophical dislike of the conquering race is well expressed in a speech made before the purely Indian council before referred to, upon the Powder River. I will give it in brief as it has been several times repeated to me by men who were present.

‘Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love! Every seed is awakened, and all animal life. It is through this mysterious power that we too have our being, and we therefore yield to our neighbors, even to our animal neighbors, the same right as ourselves to inhabit this vast land.

Yet hear me, friends! we have now to deal with another people, small and feeble when our forefathers first met with them, but now great and overbearing….

This nation is like a spring freshet; it overruns its banks and destroys all who are in its path. We cannot dwell side by side. Only seven years ago we made a treaty by which we were assured that the buffalo country should be left to us forever. Now they threaten to take that from us also. My brothers, shall we submit? or shall we say to them:

“First kill me, before you can take possession of my fatherland!”’



As Sitting Bull spoke, so he felt, and he had the courage to stand by his words. Crazy Horse led his forces in the field; as for him, he applied his energies to state affairs, and by his strong and aggressive personality contributed much to holding the hostiles together.

It may be said without fear of contradiction that Sitting Bull never killed any women or children. He was a fair fighter, and while not prominent in battle after his young manhood, he was the brains of the Sioux resistance. He has been called a 'medicine man' and a ''dreamer'. Strictly speaking, he was neither of these, and the white historians are prone to confuse the two…

When Custer and Reno attacked the camp at both ends, the chief was caught napping. The village was in danger of surprise, and the women and children must be placed in safety. Like other men of his age, Sitting Bull got his family together for flight, and then joined the warriors on the Reno side of the attack. Thus he was not in the famous charge against Custer; nevertheless, his voice was heard exhorting the warriors throughout that day.

During the autumn of 1876, after the fall of Custer, Sitting Bull was hunted all through the Yellowstone region by the military. The following characteristic letter, doubtless written at his dictation by a half-breed interpreter, was sent to Colonel Otis immediately after a daring attack upon his wagon train.

‘I want to know what you are doing, traveling on this road. You scare all the buffalo away. I want to hunt in this place. I want you to turn back from here. If you don't, I will fight you again. I want you to leave what you have got here and turn back from here.

I am your friend

Sitting Bull.’

Otis, however, kept on and joined Colonel Miles, who followed Sitting Bull with about four hundred soldiers. He overtook him at last on Cedar Creek, near the Yellowstone, and the two met midway between the lines for a parley. The army report says: 'Sitting Bull wanted peace in his own way'. The truth was that he wanted nothing more than had been guaranteed to them by the treaty of 1868 -- the exclusive possession of their last hunting ground. This the government was not now prepared to grant, as it had been decided to place all the Indians under military control upon the various reservations.

Since it was impossible to reconcile two such conflicting demands, the hostiles were driven about from pillar to post for several more years, and finally took refuge across the line in Canada, where Sitting Bull had placed his last hope of justice and freedom for his race. Here he was joined from time to time by parties of malcontents from the reservation, driven largely by starvation and ill-treatment to seek another home. Here, too, they were followed by United States commissioners, headed by General Terry, who endeavored to persuade him to return, promising abundance of food and fair treatment, despite the fact that the exiles were well aware of the miserable condition of the "good Indians" upon the reservations. He first refused to meet them at all, and only did so when advised to that effect by Major Walsh of the Canadian mounted police. This was his characteristic remark: 'If you have one honest man in Washington, send him here and I will talk to him.'



Sitting Bull was not moved by fair words; but when he found that if they had liberty on that side, they had little else, that the Canadian government would give them protection but no food; that the buffalo had been all but exterminated and his starving people were already beginning to desert him, he was compelled at last, in 1881, to report at Fort Buford, North Dakota, with his band of hungry, homeless, and discouraged refugees. It was, after all, to hunger and not to the strong arm of the military that he surrendered in the end.

In spite of the invitation that had been extended to him in the name of the 'Great Father' at Washington, he was immediately thrown into a military prison, and afterward handed over to Colonel Cody ('Buffalo Bill') as an advertisement for his 'Wild West Show.'

Chief Sitting Bull as a captive of 'Buffalo Bill' Cody of the 'Wild West Show'

After traveling about for several years with the famous showman, thus increasing his knowledge of the weaknesses as well as the strength of the white man, the deposed and humiliated chief settled down quietly with his people upon the Standing Rock agency in North Dakota, where his immediate band occupied the Grand River district and set to raising cattle and horses. They made good progress; much better, in fact, than that of the 'coffee-coolers' or 'loafer' Indians, received the missionaries kindly and were soon a church-going people.

When the Commissions of 1888 and 1889 came to treat with the Sioux for a further cession of land and a reduction of their reservations, nearly all were opposed to consent on any terms. Nevertheless, by hook or by crook, enough signatures were finally obtained to carry the measure through, although it is said that many were those of women and the so-called 'squaw-men', who had no rights in the land. At the same time, rations were cut down, and there was general hardship and dissatisfaction. Crazy Horse was long since dead; Spotted Tail had fallen at the hands of one of his own tribe; Red Cloud had become a feeble old man, and the disaffected among the Sioux began once more to look to Sitting Bull for leadership.

At this crisis a strange thing happened. A half-breed Indian in Nevada promulgated the news that the Messiah had appeared to him upon a peak in the Rockies, dressed in rabbit skins, and bringing a message to the red race. The message was to the effect that since his first coming had been in vain, since the white people had doubted and reviled him, had nailed him to the cross, and trampled upon his doctrines, he had come again in pity to save the Indian. He declared that he would cause the earth to shake and to overthrow the cities of the whites and destroy them, that the buffalo would return, and the land belong to the red race forever! These events were to come to pass within two years; and meanwhile they were to prepare for his coming by the ceremonies and dances which he commanded.

This curious story spread like wildfire and met with eager acceptance among the suffering and discontented people. The teachings of Christian missionaries had prepared them to believe in a Messiah, and the prescribed ceremonial was much more in accord with their traditions than the conventional worship of the churches. Chiefs of many tribes sent delegations to the Indian prophet; Short Bull, Kicking Bear, and others went from among the Sioux, and on their return all inaugurated the dances at once. There was an attempt at first to keep the matter secret, but it soon became generally known and seriously disconcerted the Indian agents and others, who were quick to suspect a hostile conspiracy under all this religious enthusiasm. As a matter of fact, there was no thought of an uprising; the dancing was innocent enough, and pathetic enough their despairing hope in a pitiful Saviour who should overwhelm their oppressors and bring back their golden age.

When the Indians refused to give up the ‘Ghost Dance’ at the bidding of the authorities, the growing suspicion and alarm focused upon Sitting Bull, who in spirit had never been any too submissive, and it was determined to order his arrest. At the special request of Major McLaughlin, agent at Standing Rock, forty of his Indian police were sent out to Sitting Bull's home on Grand River to secure his person (followed at some little distance by a body of United States troops for reinforcement, in case of trouble). These police are enlisted from among the tribesmen at each agency, and have proved uniformly brave and faithful. They entered the cabin at daybreak, aroused the chief from a sound slumber, helped him to dress, and led him unresisting from the house; but when he came out in the gray dawn of that December morning in 1890, to find his cabin surrounded by armed men and himself led away to he knew not what fate, he cried out loudly:

‘They have taken me: what say you to it?’

Men poured out of the neighboring houses, and in a few minutes the police were themselves surrounded with an excited and rapidly increasing throng. They harangued the crowd in vain; Sitting Bull's blood was up, and he again appealed to his men. His adopted brother, the Assiniboine captive whose life he had saved so many years before, was the first to fire. His shot killed Lieutenant Bull Head, who held Sitting Bull by the arm. Then there was a short but sharp conflict, in which Sitting Bull and six of his defenders and six of the Indian police were slain, with many more wounded. The chief's young son, Crow Foot, and his devoted "brother" died with him. When all was over, and the terrified people had fled precipitately across the river, the soldiers appeared upon the brow of the long hill and fired their Hotchkiss guns into the deserted camp.

Thus ended the life of a natural strategist of no mean courage and ability. The great chief was buried without honors outside the cemetery at the post, and for some years the grave was marked by a mere board at its head. Recently some women have built a cairn of rocks there in token of respect and remembrance.”

Eventually his remains were moved to a Catholic graveyard.

Here are some of the sayings of Chief Sitting Bull:

"If the Great Spirit had desired me to be a white man he would have made me so in the first place. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans, and in my heart he put other and different desires. It is not necessary for eagles to be crows."

"I am here by the will of the Great Spirit, and by his will I am chief. I know Great Spirit is looking down upon me from above, and will hear what I say..."

"The earth has received the embrace of the sun and we shall see the results of that love. He put in your heart certain wishes and plans; in my heart, he put other different desires.

"In my early days, I was eager to learn and to do things, and therefore I learned quickly. Each man is good in the sight of the Great Spirit."

"Now that we are poor, we are free. No white man controls our footsteps. If we must die, we die defending our rights."

"What white man can say I ever stole his land or a penny of his money? Yet they say that I am a thief. What white woman, however lonely, was ever captive or insulted by me? Yet they say I am a bad Indian."

"What white man has ever seen me drunk? Who has ever come to me hungry and left me unfed? Who has seen me beat my wives or abuse my children? What law have I broken?"

"Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am Sioux? Because I was born where my father lived? Because I would die for my people and my country? God made me an Indian."

Chief Sitting Bull, Sioux.

Requiem aeternam, dona ei Domine. Requiescat in pace.

...

The Red Ensign: saluting the war-time bravery of the Merchant Navy

The Battle of the Atlantic was one of the most hard-fought campaigns of the Second World War.

America had not yet joined the war but Churchill had managed to persuade them to supply Britain's war effort on a loans basis to be re-paid after the war.

However, the supplies, once purchased, still had to be shipped to Britain by sea and this is what the convoys did. This was the vital lifeline after the Fall of France when Britain was isolated and alone against the might of Nazi Germany.

Whatever one may think of Winston Churchill, his stirring words continue to have a resonance today and are among some of the greatest of political speeches ever made in the English language. Who could ever forgot these famous words of 4 June 1940:

"We must never forget the solid assurances of sea power and those which belong to air power if they can be locally exercised. I have myself full confidence that if all do their duty and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our island home, ride out the storms of war and outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary, for years, if necessary, alone.

At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty's Government, every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation. The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and their need, will defend to the death their native soils, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength, even though a large tract of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen, or may fall, into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule.

We shall not flag nor fail. We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France and on the seas and oceans; we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air. We shall defend our island whatever the cost may be; we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, in the fields, in the streets and in the hills. We shall never surrender and even if, which I do not for one moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, will carry on the struggle until in God's good time the New World with all its power and might, sets forth to the rescue and liberation of the Old."

And he meant it, too!

So began the Atlantic convoys.

However, Nazi U-Boat technology and production was high and fairly soon they were able to hunt in "wolf-packs" to track down the convoys and torpedo them - often in the middle of the night in mid-Atlantic, miles from land and with the threat of imminent storms and dreadful seas. The courage required to face this threat was monumental.

Whilst the convoys were escorted by fighting ships of the Royal Navy, nevertheless it was they, the defenceless and unarmed convoys themselves, manned by sailors of the British Merchant Navy, that were most at risk of death by burning or a watery grave. For it was they whose ships contained the supplies for a blockaded Britain and who were thus the real prey for the U-Boat wolf-packs.

For this reason the men of the Royal Navy began to have the highest respect for the courage and tenacity of the merchant seamen who might at any minute find themselves blown to bits by a torpedo or cast into a freezing, swollen Atlantic swell, clinging to a piece of wreckage or perhaps a life-raft.


By 1942, most long-range bomber aircraft were being used for the ill-fated and morally questionable bombing campaign against German civilians (many of whom hated Hitler as much as the Allies). This, according to Professor Pat Blackett, the chief naval scientific adviser, exposed the convoys to ever greater risk. Blackett claimed this lengthened the war by as much as 6 months and possibly a whole year.

Casualties were very considerable and in the early stages many convoys suffered heavy losses. They continued to sustain heavy losses throughout the war but things began to improve as technology for detection of U-Boats improved.


By the spring of 1943, there were so many U-boats on patrol in the North Atlantic that it was difficult for the convoys to evade detection, resulting in a succession of high-loss convoy battles. In March the escorts were heavily defeated in the battles of convoys HX-228, SC-121, SC-122 and HX-229. 120 ships were sunk worldwide, 82 ships of 476,000 tons in the Atlantic, but only 12 U-boats were destroyed.

The supply situation in Britain was such that there was talk of being unable to continue the war effort, with supplies of fuel being particularly low. It appeared that Admiral Dönitz and his U-Boats were winning the war. And yet the next two months would see a complete reversal of fortunes.

In April, losses of U-boats increased whilst their kills of ships fell dramatically. 39 ships of 235,000 tons were sunk in the Atlantic, and 15 U-boats were destroyed.


By May, wolf packs no longer had the advantage and that month was to become known as Black May for the U-Boat Arm.

Faced with these reversals, Dönitz called off operations in the North Atlantic. In all, 43 U-boats were destroyed in May, 34 in the Atlantic. This was 25% of UbW’s total operational strength. The Allies lost 58 ships sunk in May, 34 ships of 134,000 tons were sunk in the Atlantic.

The tide had finally turned and Britain's supplies were now at last looking safer. Still, the risk for the Merchant seamen was very great and many a child of that era was taught, quite accurately, to be grateful for the food on their plates since many men had died bringing it to them. Hence the incredible thriftiness of that generation of men and women. Every scrap was used or preserved in gratitude and honour of the brave men who had risked all to bring it to British shores.



Many stories of collossal bravery are told of the sailors of that period, both officers and men.

Those who have seen the film The Cruel Sea will have had a taste of it. Every man was a brave one (with the possible exception of the First Lieutenant who finds an excuse to get a shore job early).


However, my particular favourite is the Coxswain who, albeit having at first to put up with the odious First Lieutenant, nevertheless maintains his placidity and discipline.

He is delighted that the Chief Engineer wants to marry his sister but they go ashore to find she has been killed in a bombing raid.

Later, when the ship is torpedoed and goes down, he has occasion to rebuke a seaman who has, contrary to regulations, gone overboard without his life-vest. The Coxswain then gives up his place in the life-raft and says he will swim to the other life-raft. "It's not far off", says he, not really knowing how far off it is and doubtless realising that he is risking his own life for another. In the darkness of the night he never makes it, is lost and never seen again.

Who can fathom the bravery of men like this?

And yet there were many of them - hundreds even. Men of the highest courage and nobility in whose shadow the rest of us can but live.

I was an officer myself in the Army but I take my hat off to the men of the Merchant Navy and not least to the ordinary seaman and NCOs who exhibited discipline, selflessness and courage of this sort.

"Greater love than this no man hath, that he lay down his life for his friends" [John 15:13]



The SS City of Benares was part of convoy OB-213, carrying 90 child evacuee passengers from wartime Britain to Canada. She departed Liverpool on 13 September 1940, bound for the Canadian ports of Quebec and Montreal.

At 00.01 hours on 18 September, U-48 torpedoed her, causing her to sink within 30 minutes, 253 miles west-southwest of Rockall.

15 minutes after the torpedo hit, the vessel had been abandoned, though there were difficulties with lowering the lifeboats on the weather side of the ship. HMS Hurricane arrived on the scene 24 hours later, and picked up 105 survivors and landed them at Greenock in Scotland. During the attack on the SS City of Benares, the SS Marina was also torpedoed. Hurricane mistakenly counted one of the lifeboats from the SS Marina for one of the lifeboats from SS City of Benares.

As a result, Lifeboat 12 was left alone at sea.

Its passengers had three weeks supply of food, but enough water only for one week. In the lifeboat were approximately 30 Indian crewmen, a Polish merchant, several sailors, Mary Cornish the concert pianist, Father Rory O'Sullivan (a Roman Catholic priest who had volunteered to be an escort for the evacuee children), and 6 evacuee boys. They spent 8 days afloat in the Atlantic Ocean before being sighted from the air and rescued by HMS Anthony.

In total, 248 of the 406 people on board, including the master, the commodore, three staff members, 121 crew members and 134 passengers were lost. 77 of the 90 child evacuee passengers were also killed in the sinking and only 7 children survived in total.

Fr O’Sullivan survived to live on until his 98th year in 2007, refusing to the last to go into any kind of nursing home.

Tales of heroic valour were later told of those on the boat. One young Ordinand kept 2 children above the water, hoping to save them as he slowly froze. Eventually he died of exposure as, alas, did the 2 children, though he had done his best to save them.

The thought of this brave young man risking all in the apparently - and indeed actually - hopeless task of saving 2 children is a story of the most inspiring and noble kind. Giants of courage then walked the earth. Shall we see their like again?

One can but recall the words of Scripture telling us that at the end of time:

"And the sea gave up the dead that were in it" [Apoc 20:11]

How many, then, brave men and women shall we see rising from their seabed graves to the glory of heaven ahead and above us lesser mortals!

Eternal Father, strong to save,
Whose arm hath bound the restless wave,
Who biddest the mighty ocean deep
Its own appointed limits keep;
Oh, hear us when we cry to Thee,
For those in peril on the sea!

...

4 July: Freemasonic Dependence Day?

The 4th July is the day when Americans celebrate Independence Day - independence from Great Britain.

There is much that is good in America that is worth celebrating but not everything is rosy in the tale of American history.

This American Revolution was engineered by a collection of Freemasonic Deists, Unitarians and revolutionaries who were largely very anti-Catholic in their outlook. Even the one nominal Catholic amongst the revolutionaries, Carroll of Carrollton, was a prototype Irish Liberal Catholic. They sought to become independent of their lawful Sovereign by means of a revolution which no traditional morality had, or could, ever endorse. In so doing, they became dependent upon an entirely new philosophy largely predicated upon the false ideas of the anti-Catholic English philosopher and Freemason, John Locke.

The Declaration of Independence of the rebellious and anti-Catholic American Colonials

Indeed, one of the so-called "intolerable acts" of King George III cited in the Declaration of Independence was the Quebec Act which granted and guaranteed religious freedom to Catholics in Quebec. This was "intolerable" to the American revolutionaries!

The Quebec Act establishing Roman Catholicism in French Canada, called "intolerable" by the Freemasonic anti-Catholic American revolutionaries

From these beginnings, began the United States of America. Of the Founding Fathers, most kept slaves and endorsed the slave trade, shortly to be solemnly condemned, once again, by the Roman Catholic Church, this time by Pope Gregory XVI in his Apostolic Constitution, In Supremo Apostolatus, of 3 December 1839.

Thomas Jefferson had children by his own slaves and then enslaved these very children of his own.

Freemasonic Brother Thomas Jefferson, drafter of the Declaration, begetter and enslaver of children by his own slaves and later US President

On 2 December 1823, US President James Monroe created the Monroe Doctrine which said that the European powers were no longer permitted by the US to take any further economic or political interest in any part of the Americas, north or south. This meant that, in effect, the United States gave itself the sole right to colonise – albeit economically – Latin America and exploit it for their own use. This policy had the outward appearance of “neutrality” between European disputes and “anti-imperialism” whilst actually being a far more manipulative and exploitative form of dollar-imperialism in which the backyard of the USA was to be considered to exist for the economic benefit of the USA.

President James Monroe first stated the doctrine during his seventh annual State of the Union Address to Congress, a defining moment in the foreign policy of the United States.

Freemasonic Brother James Monroe, US President and inventor of the "Monroe Doctrine" which established US Dollar-Imperialism and the rapacious exploitation of foreign revolutions for the selfish gain of rich Americans at the expense of poor foreigners

This later resulted in the USA supporting Secular Fundamentalist, anti-Catholic, revolutionary movements all over Latin America, not least the brutally murderous Marxist regime of Plutarco Calles, the butcher of the Catholic Cristeros in Mexico.

Later came General, later President, Andrew Jackson, the founder of the US Democrat Party. He had spearheaded the US annexation of Spanish territory and wars of aggression against the Mexican Empire. He later ordered the compulsory movement to the West of the Cherokees, Seminole and Creek Indians, many of whom died en route. This was an illegal act. Most of these Indians were US citizens (having been guaranteed such status in the treaties between the US and Mexico). They had appealed to the US Supreme Court against their removal and had been upheld by pre-eminent US Chief Justice, John Marshall.

Jackson said: "John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it!". This was genocide, US-style.

Cartoon of Freemasonic Brother, US President Andrew Jackson, he who illegally and unconstitutionally forced the Cherokee, Seminole and Creek Indians west of the Mississippi in an act of virtual genocide

Famously, long after slavery and the slave trade had been condemned throughout the civilised world, it continued in the USA.

Lincoln is held out as the "Great Emancipator" of the slaves. But was he? Was that really his motivation in the War between the States?

One of Lincoln's most representative public statements on the question of racial relations was given in a speech at Springfield, Illinois, on 26 June 1857. In this address, he said:

"There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races ... A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas..."

US President Abraham Lincoln, who believed in racial segregation and the deportation of slaves back to Africa

Racial separation, Lincoln went on to say, "must be effected by colonization" of the country's blacks to a foreign land. "The enterprise is a difficult one," he acknowledged, but, said Lincoln:

"...where there is a will there is a way, and what colonization needs most is a hearty will. Will springs from the two elements of moral sense and self-interest. Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and, at the same time, favourable to, or, at least, not against, our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be."

So much for the emancipator of the slaves!

The history of American oppression of the Native American Indians is even more telling. This was a war of sheer, unmitigated greed and aggression started by the American Colonists as a naked land grab of Spanish and Indian territory. It was dressed up with all the racist hypocrisy of a nation that saw itself as the coming power, pharisaically claiming to be blessed by Providence and entitled to crush all before its inevitable progress.

Ironically the British government had treated the Indians with a large degree of fairness and many Indians were loyalists during the War of Independence.

Once America became a separate nation, it sought to annex nearby land from the Mexican Empire and from the Indians, treating the latter as virtually sub-human and, all too frequently, to be simply turned out of their land and even shot on sight. This was a foretaste of the racist hegemonism that was to come with many progressive, "liberal" whites claiming a natural superiority of race which meant that "inevitably" the Indians must die out and be replaced by superior whites. It was yet another example of how the liberal, progressive mind-set is essentially an oppressive one.

This was not Colonialism but something very, very different. It was the beginning of a return to heathen ideas of might over right and even of genocide.

So arrogant did some Americans become that they under-estimated the courage, integrity and strength of the Indian tribes, many of whom were, in fact, Christians and Catholics, having been converted by Spanish and French missionaries in Mexico, California and Canada.

One result was the Battle of the Greasy Grass (aka Little Big Horn or Custer's Last Stand) where Colonel George Armstrong Custer's 7th US Cavalry was wiped out by the Sioux, Cheyenne and Arapaho confederation under Crazy Horse and Chief Sitting Bull in 1876.

Colonel George Armstrong Custer of the 7th US Cavalry was fairly typical of the kind of free-booting American who thought that it was America's destiny to defeat or eliminate the native American Indians and grab their land. He was stopped in his career of adventurism at Little Big Horn in 1876

Revenge was later obtained by the 7th Cavalry when they massacred Indians at the infamous Battle of Wounded Knee in 1890.

After the Civil War in which the North seized immense power from the States, political corruption reach hitherto unheard-of heights (even in America) with the scandals of Tammany Hall, the corrupt Democrat Party machine in New York City run by "Boss" Tweed.

Cartoon and photograph of Freemasonic Brother William "Boss" Tweed, the chief beneficiary of the Tammany Hall swindle which denuded the City and citizens of New York of more money than had probably ever before been corruptly obtained anywhere

Democrat President, Woodrow Wilson, after World War I forced a settlement upon Europe that prepared the way for Hitler and World War II.

Freemasonic Brother and US President Woodrow Wilson whose harsh and imprudent demands at Versailles, after World War I, prepared the way for World War II

Democrat President, Franklin Roosevelt, married to Communist fellow-traveller, Eleanor Roosevelt, naively allowed himself to be fooled by Stalin and so unwittingly helped deliver yet more parts of the globe into Communist hands.

Freemasonic Brother Franklin D. Roosevelt, US President whose naivete toward Stalin guaranteed the long term enslavement under Communism of most of Eastern Europe

Democrat President, Harry S. Truman, taking over during the War, ordered the dropping of the Atom Bomb upon defenceless women and children, not least upon Catholic women and children when the B-29 Bockscar dropped its "dirty", highly-radioactive bomb almost on top of the Catholic Cathedral of Japan in Urakami.

Freemasonic Brother Harry S. Truman who, as US President, ordered the mass murder by atomic bomb of innocent women and children, especially the Catholics of Nagasaki, whilst claiming publicly that they were "military bases"

The first Catholic President of the USA, Democrat John F Kennedy, was most notorious for his almost pathological womanising. Kennedy personally ordered US agents in Vietnam to withdraw support from Catholic President Ngo Dinh Diem, giving support to the Buddhist revolutionaries and conniving at the later assassination of President Diem.

US President John F. Kennedy who connived at the murder of his former ally, Catholic President Ngo Dinh Diem of Vietnam. Was Kennedy also a Freemasonic Brother? No-one knows but it would not be a surprise.

Classically, America (together with revolutionary France) led the way in the Social or Structural Revolution of the 1960s when hippiedom, student revolution, drugs and random sex were extolled as "liberating" by the youth leaders of the new revolution. Soon after came a massive new wave of drug-fuelled serious crime which has accelerated, ever since, at an alarming rate.

Drug-extolling, anarchists, revolutionaries and self-worshipping hippies, Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, exemplars of the 1960s student revolution: the apotheosis of Americanism and the American Revolution? They certainly thought they were.

Drugs became such a widespread phenomenon that one is tempted to call the day that celebrates the rise of the new American revolution by a new name: Drug Dependence Day.

"Americanism", in fact, came to be the name of a new heresy, condemned by Pope Leo XIII in 1899. This new heresy claimed to set up a new kind of Church in America which was to be different and better than the Church as it had hitherto been. In an ironic and bizarre kind of way this has, indeed, happened since the new, post-Vatican II Church of America has - notoriously - been a leading example of disloyalty to the Pope and Catholic teaching as an endless stream of priests, nuns and religious abandoned first their vows and vocations and then, in some cases, even common decency and morality as evidence of the clerical child-abuse scandal began to grow and grow.

Pope Leo XIII,
Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church, condemner of oppression, murder, exploitation, injustice and Freemasonry and the Pope who strongly encouraged Thomism and the recitation of the Holy Rosary.

Here is what Pope Leo had to say of the error of "Americanism":

"…The underlying principle of these new opinions is that, in order to more easily attract those who differ from her, the Church should shape her teachings more in accord with the spirit of the age and relax some of her ancient severity and make some concessions to new opinions. Many think that these concessions should be made not only in regard to ways of living, but even in regard to doctrines which belong to the deposit of the faith. They contend that it would be opportune, in order to gain those who differ from us, to omit certain points of her teaching which are of lesser importance, and to tone down the meaning which the Church has always attached to them. It does not need many words, beloved son, to prove the falsity of these ideas if the nature and origin of the doctrine which the Church proposes are recalled to mind…

These dangers, viz., the confounding of license with liberty, the passion for discussing and pouring contempt upon any possible subject, the assumed right to hold whatever opinions one pleases upon any subject and to set them forth in print to the world, have so wrapped minds in darkness that there is now a greater need of the Church's teaching office than ever before, lest people become unmindful both of conscience and of duty...

First, all external guidance is set aside for those souls who are striving after Christian perfection as being superfluous or indeed, not useful in any sense — the contention being that the Holy Spirit pours richer and more abundant graces than formerly upon the souls of the faithful, so that without human intervention He teaches and guides them by some hidden instinct of His own…

And shall any one who recalls the history of the apostles, the faith of the nascent church, the trials and deaths of the martyrs — and, above all, those olden times, so fruitful in saints — dare to measure our age with these, or affirm that they received less of the divine outpouring from the Spirit of Holiness?

…This over-esteem of natural virtue finds a method of expression in assuming to divide all virtues in active and passive, and it is alleged that whereas passive virtues found better place in past times, our age is to be characterized by the active. That such a division and distinction cannot be maintained is patent — for there is not, nor can there be, merely passive virtue...

From the foregoing it is manifest, beloved son, that we are not able to give approval to those views which, in their collective sense, are called by some "Americanism."

...if this is to be so understood that the doctrines which have been adverted to above are not only indicated, but exalted, there can be no manner of doubt that our venerable brethren, the bishops of America, would be the first to repudiate and condemn it as being most injurious to themselves and to their country. For it would give rise to the suspicion that there are among you some who conceive and would have the Church in America to be different from what it is in the rest of the world...

But the true church is one, as by unity of doctrine, so by unity of government, and she is Catholic also...

Given at Rome, from St. Peter's, the 22nd day of January, 1899, and the thirty-first of our pontificate."




St Michael the Archangel, be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the Devil...

...