“There went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that the whole world should be enrolled. And Joseph went up from Galilee to be enrolled with Mary his espoused wife, who was with child.” (Luke 2:1-5) +++ "Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's..." (Matt 22:21) +++ “Honour all men. Love the brethren. Fear God. Honour the Emperor [Caesar].” (1 Pet 2:17) +++ “Then Paul said: I stand at Caesar's judgment seat, where I ought to be judged….I appeal to Caesar.” (Acts 25:10-11)
James Nicolson winning his VC, 16 August 1940. Painted by Robert Taylor.
This was a famous war-time poem written remembering the many young pilots, often married with children, who died fighting. Not a few pilots were still in their teens and had done barely more than a few hours flying before they were sent into the skies - often to an untimely death.
For Johnny
by John Pudney
Do not despair For Johnny-head-in-air; He sleeps as sound As Johnny underground.
Fetch out no shroud For Johnny-in-the-cloud; And keep your tears For him in after years.
Better by far For Johnny-the-bright-star, To keep your head, And see his children fed.
Philipp, Freiherr (Baron) von Boeselager, believed to be the last surviving member of the inner circle of German Army officers who attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a briefcase bomb on 20 July 20 1944, died in May 2008.
He was 90.
Before he died he wrote a memoir, called Valkyrie, of the resistance within the German Army which culminated in the attempt on the life of the Nazi dictator, Adolf Hitler.
Boeselager was born into a Roman Catholic family in Burg Heimerzheim, near Bonn. After graduating from Aloysius College, a Jesuit secondary school in Bad Godesberg, he intended to study law and enter the foreign service, but not wishing to join the Nazi Party he instead enlisted in the army, as did his brother Georg, who also took part in the plot.
Boeselager was first approached in 1942 to shoot both Hitler and Heinrich Himmler at close range.
“It was no longer about saving the country, but about stopping the crimes” he said.
On 13 March 1943, with a Walther PP pistol in hand, Boeselager prepared to assassinate both men, who were scheduled to hold a strategy session with Field Marshal Günther von Kluge for whom he was then ADC, also a conspirator. When Himmler decided not to attend, von Kluge called off the mission.
In 1944, it was Boeselager’s brother Georg who gave him the signal to move forward. “One day, my brother called and said, ‘They want explosives,’ he said. “I knew exactly what for”.
Philipp von Boeselager as a Cavalry officer during the war when he joined the plot to kill Hitler
His book is redolent with his love and admiration for his brother, Georg, who, it soon becomes quite clear, was a most extraordinary military genius of immense moral courage, integrity and inner resources.
Georg von Boeselager, Philipp's brother
Philipp supplied the bomb that Stauffenberg used. He and Georg come from another ancient German Catholic family and were, like Stauffenberg, cavalry officers, both joining the 15th Paderborn Cavalry Regiment. Georg was an astonishingly able officer, later commanding a Cavalry Brigade at the age of 29 before being killed in battle on the Eastern front. Philipp was, himself, wounded no less than 5 times, all seriously.
The army controlled the front and backward for some 200-300 kilometres but the rear area was in the hands of the Reichskommissariat, the SD and SS. It was only when there was a need for the army to liaise with the rear area to co-ordinate defence against the partisan groups that they started to come into contact with the Nazi extermination policy against Jews, gypsies and others.
This was what turned them into conspirators against the regime and Hitler's life. Boeselager describes an "encounter with the demon" in the form of SS-Obergrueppenfuehrer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski who, asked to explain what was meant by "special treatment" of the gypsies in the area, candidly stated that they were all shot.
Boeselager and his boss, the Commander of Army Group Centre, Field Marshal Gunther von Kluge, were appalled and aghast and demanded that steps be taken to arrest the culprits. The diabolical Bach-Zelewski replied that the gypsies were eliminated as "enemies of the Reich" and that such was to be the fate of all such enemies, a thinly-veiled hint directed now at von Kluge.
Field Marshal Günther von Kluge, Commander of Army Group Centre and a co-conspirator in the anti-Hitler plot. Boeselager was his ADC.
Philipp also recounts going with von Kluge to the Fuehrerhauptquartier and seeing men of no military standing poncing about in gaudy uniforms, guzzling champagne and planning seedy night excursions with women.
He overheard Bormann refusing to send a telelgram on the 70th birthday of Archduke Joseph of Austria because Joseph had married a Catholic (of the Bavarian Royal family), Bormann clearly being too dense to realise that the Habsburgs are Catholics par excellence. Bormann even confronted Boeselager when he walked out at this comment but Boeselager stood his ground against this Nazi thug.
Had the assassination succeeded, Boeselager was supposed to lead 1,200 of his cavalrymen back to Berlin and take part in a general uprising against the Nazi regime, code-named Operation Valkyrie.
Most of the approximately 200 conspirators, including Colonel von Stauffenberg, were rounded up and executed, and many others were later accused and executed. Boeselager heard that the plot had failed and turned his cavalrymen round and got them back to the front. There was sufficient chaos at the front that he managed to get them back unnoticed and so managed to see out the war without being discovered.
Philipp von Boeselager in later life
After the war, he studied law and economics and served as an adviser in creating the Bundeswehr, the armed forces of West Germany. In 1948 he married Rosa Maria, Countess von Westphalen zu Fürstenberg. One of his daughters married a Stauffenberg.
Boeselager's book explodes many myths peddled by Lefties in the West.
As one progresses through the book one realises quickly that one is reading of men of the highest moral calibre and spiritual integrity faced with some of the most calamitously impossible moral dilemmas that men ever had to face and emerging from them morally unscathed in a way that the vast majority of men would have been unlikely to do.
Yet these are the outstandingly noble men that English Leftists like Sir John Wheeler-Bennett, Deputy Head of PWE, wrote in a minute that the SS and Gestapo were doing the Allies a "favour" in killing. He had been friends with some of the German anti-Hitler conspirators before the war but turned his coat against them when the war started. Words simply cannot readily describe the sickening hypocrisy of such a view.
Unlike the Allies, these German officers were fighting totalitarianism on 2 fronts, at home and against the Soviets. They were right to do so. Let Boeselager describe their views:
"When the fighting on the Eastern Front began, German officers felt that they represented civilisation in a battle against a barbarous nation. What is barbarism? First of all, it is complete disrespect for the rights of individuals, brutality in human relationships, savagery in the actions of everyday life, and finally indifference to all the achievements in culture and comfort, to everything that centuries of labour and the progress of the human spirit have produced that is beautiful. These communists whose agents shot down without hesitation soldiers who had retreated, these officers without consciences who, in order to exhaust German munitions, sent ragtag groups of women, old men and children gathered together in haste towards us to be mown down by our machine guns; these enemies who systematically killed the wounded, put out the eyes of prisoners, and didn't deign to bury their own dead - they all seemed barbarians to us. We had heard many stories of this kind, and we had seen many macabre proofs that they were true."
He also gives the lie to that persistent myth put about by some English liberals, bending over backward to believe Soviet propaganda, that these German officers only joined the plot at the last minute to save themselves or that they intended to keep all the territorial gains made by the Nazis and would not accept other terms.
Boeselager notes this view and comments on it saying that he wishes categorically to deny it. He then gives examples of how it is an entirely false view.
Philipp von Boeselager during the war
It is perfectly clear, to any unbiased and reasonable mind, that these men were prepared to risk death and torture to bring down the Nazi government of the Third Reich and that they had the courage of their very noble convictions.
It is an unpleasant characteristic of modern liberals that they expect the highest standards of others whilst accepting very sloppy ones for themselves. They rail against racism but then practice a most blatant form of racism against Germans who, under extreme and trying conditions, opposed the Third Reich.
Whilst evidencing not a jot of courage to stand up against the tide themselves, these liberal hypocrites claim the right to criticise some exceedingly heroic men for not "doing more" to oppose Hitler. I cannot help the feeling that there is a special place in Hell for such unworthy critics of men who risked all to save others.
Maiorem hac dilectionem nemo habet ut animam suam quis ponat pro amicis suis
"Greater love than this no man hath, that he lay down his life for his friends"
Dear anonymous Neanderthal who attempted to write to this blog,
If you wish to be published on anyone's blog then you will need to:
(a) use arguments rather than mere foaming at the snout;
(b) string more than 2 words together so as to make a coherent sentence rather than than the noise made by a demented hyena on heat stuck in a hole;
(c) recognise that the use of Anglo-Saxon expletives does not enhance an already worthless opinion.
In between all the effing and blinding, you seem (I use the word advisedly) to be suggesting that man is an animal but that he has a soul and that the soul has no connection with the body. Presumably this is so that man can then do what he likes with his body without affecting his soul?
I am, of course, generously assuming that your rant means anything at all.
One thing is certain. Some human beings, having free will and using it badly, can end up being much worse than animals.
It's the flip side of being higher than the animals. Get used to it, neddy!
Rev Dr Alcuin Reid is an orthodox Catholic, Francis Davis is a "Neo-conservative" Catholic and La Pepinster is a classic "Modernist" Catholic.
Reid was far and away the most coherent in the discussion. The others were disappointing by dint either of inconsistency, and even incoherence, or else by entertaining the fantastic notion that the Body of Christ could somehow change its whole constitution and did so at the Second Vatican Council - a manifestly heterodox view itself roundly refuted and condemned by the Council itself.
If Christ is the same, yesterday, today and forever - as we pray at Easter at the Holy Vigil - then His Body cannot change fundamentally into something new as both Davis and Pepinster seem to think.
Strangely, I found Francis Davis the least convincing, indeed bordering on the incoherent. La Pepinster just gave the standard Modernist line but was at least consistent in so doing.
Francis Davis, Fellow of Blackfriars, Oxford. Lovely bloke but muddled on the SSPX question.
Francis Davis came out with these views:
1. SSPX had “profound concerns about whether or not the Jewish community were due respect and human dignity" and they had "at heart rejected the turn to social justice and preferential option for the poor". No evidence given for this. Even the dotty Williamson has never said any of this.
2. SSPX had "some unsavoury links to groups that the Church of England would not allow its clergy to join if they want to be ordained". No evidence given. Which groups exactly?
3. The "New Church" had come together for the first time at the Second Vatican Council and was coming to terms with "poverty in the face of the Cold War" and "exponentially growing Capitalism". New Church? Meaning what?
4. I understand that he claimed that the Legion of Christ preferred the traditional rite of mass (wrong!) and was put right by Dr Alcuin Reid - however that gaffe did not make the final cut, fortunately for Francis.
5. Rapprochement with SSPX was "profoundly misjudged" and the Pope’s advisers have not got their finger on the European or global pulse. In a "rich understanding of Eucharist", we "break that across the whole of the human and universal community" and the "shattering of the bodies in the Shoah is as much a sin as any forgiven in confession". It is not acceptable to introduce a strange Dualism [in SSPX] that Aquinas would not accept. The "timing was wrong" and "Don’t do this when there is major conflict in the Middle East and when there is a rise of anti-Semitism in London and New York".
This last is almost bizarre. What does it mean? It all raises more questions than it answers.
What is this "New Church"? How can there ever be a "New Church". Isn’t the Body of Christ the same yesterday, today and forever?
In the same breath we have a slating of the Pope by one who claims to be obedient to him, hostile opposition to the SSPX rapprochement whilst talking about a "rich understanding of Eucharist" which we "break across the whole community" (whatever that means) but not - apparently - with anyone from SSPX. They are to be excluded from the charity of the post-Vatican II "New Church".
Apparently we are to believe that some Catholics in the past did not think mass murder was a sin (really? which ones?) and SSPX are involved in a strange "Dualism" (what "Dualism"?). Then, he tells us that the timing was wrong because of the politics of the Middle East as if - somehow - the rapprochement with SSPX would upset it. How? He doesn't say.
Finally, we are to believe that anti-Semitism is on the rise in London and New York. Really? Evidence? And why those two cities and not elsewhere? And, if so, how is that affected by the lifting of the excommunications?
This is a form of Neo-conservative Catholicism that is heavily influence by American, Bush-supporting, Iraq-war defending, political Neo-conservativism and a particular political bias in Middle Eastern politics that American Neo-cons have added to the mix.
Frankly, the Modernism of Catherine Pepinster is more consistent and logical than poor old Francis Davis' muddled waffle - yet he is far and away a better Catholic and a nicer bloke. That is why, in some ways, the Neo-conservatives can cause more muddle in the Church even than the Modernists.
The truth is that both Neo-cons and Mods do not really believe in extending the hand of charity and reconciliation to those with whom they disagree and yet, incoherently, they claim to be all-inclusive and in favour of tolerance, reconciliation and peace.
It is ironic for Catherine Pepinster to talk of religious freedom and Vatican II whilst all the while denying it to SSPX.
Catherine Pepinster, Editor of The Tablet, and a typical, tedious, dull Modernist Catholic (yaaawn....), with zero imagination and zero loyalty to the historic Church. She's also a typically illiberal Liberal, intolerant tolerationist and thoroughly exclusive inclusivist. Otherwise, she's just fine...
There are few people as illiberal as so-called Liberals - they are often the most intolerant of people.
If this SSPX affair is a litmus test of people's real beliefs then it has certainly shown the illiberalism of Liberals, the intolerance of the tolerationists and the exclusivity of the inclusivists.
The Tablet, in its editorial, has even called for anathematising those who do not accept the Liberal line. Talk about turkeys voting for Christmas!
Actor, Richard Todd, born Richard Palethorpe-Todd of Anglo-Irish stock, somehow captures something of the spirit of the old Britain.
This is he as a major in the 7th Light Infantry Parachute Battalion in the film The Longest Day, reproducing the very battle he had actually been in himself.
Todd's father was an Irish physician and also notably an International Irish Rugby player who gained three caps. Richard spent a few of his childhood years in India, where his father, a British officer, served as an army physician.
Todd attended Shrewsbury School and went to Sandhurst to train as an army officer before starting his acting career.
Serving in the 7th Light Infantry Parachute Battalion, he was one of the first British officers to land in Normandy on D-Day and met up with Major John Howard on Pegasus Bridge. Todd would later play Howard in the The Longest Day (1962), the original idea being that he would play himself (later played by another actor with a smaller part).
Here is a classic clip from the film The Longest Day. Lord Lovat, known as "Shimi" Lovat from his Gaelic name MacShimidh meaning son of Simon (many generations of Lovats were named Simon), leads his Regiment of Lovat Scouts off the Normandy beaches to the skirl of the pipes, with his Piper, Millan, playing The Black Bear, the march to which all Scottish Regiments return to barracks.
With the traditional eccentricity of dress of the British officer of a certain class, Lovat hardly wears uniform at all, sporting an old sailor's roll-neck sweater instead. It's an old tradition among aristocratic British officers. The Duke of Wellington almost always wore civilian clothing in battle.
Todd plays Major Howard (next to him another actor plays Captain Richard Todd as he then was) who is holding the famous Pegasus Bridge until relieved by Lovat and his Scouts ("hold until relieved" were Howard's orders).
Perhaps Todd’s most famous part was in The Dam Busters, when he played Wing-Commander Guy Gibson VC DSO DFC, the famous commander of the “Dam Buster” Squadron.
Richard Todd and his first wife, actress Catherine Grant-Bogle, on their wedding day in 1949
Another classic British actor was Leo Genn.
He was born at Kyverdale Road, Stamford Hill, Hackney, London, England. His father, Woolfe (William) Genn, was a jewelry salesman and the maiden name of his mother, Rachel, was Asserson.
Leo Genn in The Wooden Horse
My guess is that, with names like that, and born in Stamford Hill, this classic English actor was probably Jewish, too. But like many actors of his generation he was also a man of many parts.
Genn attended the City of London School and studied law at Cambridge, qualifying as a barrister in 1928. He ceased practising as a lawyer soon after the Second World War. On 14th May 1933, Genn married the former Marguerite van Praag, a casting director at Ealing Studios. During the war he served with the Royal Artillery and reached the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. Perhaps his most famous role was as Flt Lt Howard in The Wooden Horse, the classic story of escape from Stalag Luft III, the POW camp for captured British airman.
Another classic British actor was John Gregson, famous for many roles. A classic representative film is the 1952 war-time air fighter classic, Angels One Five, in which he plays an RAFVR Pilot Officer fresh from a University Air Squadron joining an operational Squadron. The film also stars other classic British actors, like Jack Hawkins, as well as Michael Denison and Dulcie Gray, later a famous husband and wife team.
John Gregson who starred in many films including Genevieve a very British 1950s film about the London to Brighton vintage car race.
Of course, some of these films were propaganda but that is not the point. It is the fact that this is what the British film-makers, people and government aspired to.
What is so remarkable about those aspirations is that their clear message of self-restraint, courage, self-sacrifice, self-deprecating patriotism, humour under trying conditions, gentility and chivalry could not be more contrasting with the alley cat morals to which so many seem to aspire in modern Britain.
Americans now refer to those of the war-time generation as "the greatest generation" for the self-sacrifice they showed, taking deprivation and the horror of war in their stride.
Too many British are now either too cynical or too dull to do the same and have virtually forgotten the great sacrifices made by those who went before us. Thanks to "New Labour" and its ridiculous vision of "Cool Britannia" modern Britons are more interested in money, sex, drugs and themselves than they are in anything remotely resembling the self-sacrifice of the war-time generation.
How lucky we are these days to have such paragons of virtue and integrity as...well let's think now...err...I know...
Jacqui Smith!
Yes, folks! That's the great Home Secretary whom we now discover has been thieving from us dumb tax-payers to the tune of over a hundred thousand a year for her alleged "home" in the constituency.
Is she resigning?
Her? Not a bit of it!
If you can stomach her nauseating drivel, try this for her pathetic explanation for why she felt it was acceptable for the Home Secretary to stiff the public purse:
What happened to those Tory MPs who did far less? They got hounded by the media until they were either forced out by their colleagues or, in the more serious cases, tried and imprisoned.
Will the same be happening to the dodgy Jacqui Smith?
Nope. They'll let her off, of course.
That's New Labour, mate! See how that works?
If she had an ounce of self-respect or integrity she would have long since RESIGNED!
Welcome to modern Britain.
We're sick to the back teeth of the new, fraudulent, dishonest, neo-Fascist Britain.
We want the old Britain back before the new one turns into a fully-fledged totalitarian state run by unimpressive, New Labour know-nothings!
I decided to wait until the furore had died down a bit before commenting on the Williamson affair and the lifting of the excommunications on the SSPX bishops.
I'm glad I did. What a lot of nonsense has been spewed forth by journals such as The Times of London and The Tablet.
Read these and marvel at the sheer asininity of the commentary:
The arrogance displayed in these 2 articles, particularly that of The Times is pretty laughable. Who is the leader writer at The Times to tell the Pope what excommunication in the Catholic Church means? What is his/her authority to determine issues of Roman canon law? What is his/her authority even to comment on them, given the chasm-like lack of knowledge he/she demonstrates? It is so silly as to be no more than risible.
It is as absurd as if the Pope were to excommunicate the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem - or, for that matter, the non-Catholic Editor of The Times.
Consider how much more asinine those 2 articles appear when compared with the following much more sober and balanced commentary by 2 Jewish writers.
I will let their comments stand on their own since they speak for themselves eloquently.
This from Rabbi Irwin Kula on the Washington Post/Newsweek website:
Rabbi Irwin Kula
Jewish Reaction to Pope Disproportionate newsweek.washingtonpost.com Jan. 30, 2009 Rabbi Irwin Kula The official Jewish response to Pope Benedict XVI's recent decision to reach out to the St Pius X Society and to revoke the excommunication (though not yet determining the status) of four bishops says a great deal about the psycho-social state of American Jewish leadership or at least the leadership that claims to speak for American Jews.
The admittedly unnerving if not hurtful Holocaust denying views of one of those bishops, British born Richard Williamson, an obscure, irrelevant, cranky old man, offered on Swedish television, evoked the wrath of no less than the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, the B'nai B'rith International, the International Jewish Commission on Interreligious Consultations and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. "The decision undermines the strong relationship between Catholics and Jews", they protested. "We are stunned that the Vatican has ignored our concerns", they proclaimed.
This will have "serious implications for Catholic-Jewish relations" and there will be a "political cost for the Vatican" they threatened. And from Israel, the Chief Rabbinate in Israel, one of the most corrupt religious establishments in Western democracies, entered the fray calling into doubt the Pope's impending visit to Israel. All this hubbub and anxious lashing out about an internal Church matter regarding the sort of crabby, crotchety, trivial, unknown sort of jerk - the ratty uncle who embarrasses you every time he is in public -- who we all recognize exists in our communities.
As an eighth generation rabbi and someone who lost much family in the Holocaust, it could just be me, but this official Jewish response seems outrageously over the top. Do millions of American Jews sufficiently care that the Pope revoked the excommunication of this unheard-of bishop such that major Jewish organizations should devote so much energy and attention to this and turn it into a cause célèbre worthy of front page attention? And is this the way we speak to each other after decades of successful interfaith work on improving our relationship?
How is it that the view of some cranky bishop who has no power evokes calls of a crisis in Catholic - Jewish relations despite the revolutionary changes in Church teachings regarding Jews since Vatican II? Where is the "proportionality", where is the giving the benefit of the doubt - a central religious and spiritual imperative - in response to something that is admittedly upsetting but in the scheme of things is less than trivial especially given this Pope's historic visit to Auschwitz in which he unambiguously recognized the evil perpetrated upon Jews in the Holocaust and in his way "repented" for any contribution distorted Church teachings made to create the ground for such evil to erupt.
Something is off-kilter here. Is it possible that the leadership of Jewish defense agencies, people with the best of motivation who have historically done critical work in fighting anti-Semitism, have become so possessed by their roles as monitors of anti-Semitism, so haunted by unresolved fears, guilt, and even shame regarding the Holocaust, and perhaps so unconsciously driven by how these issues literally keep their institutions afloat, that they have become incapable of distinguishing between a bishop's ridiculous, loopy, discredited views about the Holocaust and a Church from the Pope down which has clearly and repeatedly recognized the evil done to Jews in the Holocaust and called for that evil to never be forgotten?
Perhaps, this called for a little understanding of what it must be like to actually run a 1.2 billion person spiritual community (one with which I disagree on many issues) and to be trying to create some sense of unity from right to left, from extreme liberalism to extreme traditionalism - sort of like the liberal Barack Obama inviting Rick Warren, despite his hurtful views on homosexuality, to give the invocation at the inauguration. How about cutting a Pope, who we know along with the previous Pope is probably amongst the most historically sensitive Popes to the issues of anti-Semitism, Holocaust, and the relationship to Judaism and Jews, a little slack given how he is trying to heal his own community. And is it possible that the Pope's desire/hope/need to reintegrate the Church (he has also reached out to Liberal theologian Hans Kung) may be of more importance both to the Church and actually to religion on this planet than whether we Jews are upset about the lifting of excommunication of one irrelevant bishop.
Would we Jews like to be judged by the crankiest, most outlandish, hurtful, and stupid thing any rabbi in the world said about Catholics or Christians? We Jews are no longer organized to excommunicate and a rabbi can't be defrocked the way the Church does with its clergy but surely there are individual rabbis who say things so abhorrent about the "other" that though we still call the person rabbi we would not want to be taken to task for doing so.
And isn't it possible that bringing Richard Williamson back inside the Church may actually influence him to see how wrong he is on this issue given how clear the Church is regarding the Holocaust and its commitment to Catholic -Jewish relations? After all the Pope himself said, "I hope my gesture is followed by the hoped-for commitment on their part to take the further steps necessary to realize full communion with the Church, thus witnessing true fidelity, and true recognition of the magisterium and the authority of the pope and of the Second Vatican Council."
There is no way to read this other than to conclude that to be fully reinstated in the Catholic Church, all those who have passed the first test must now clear the big hurdle: either accept what the Catholic Church teaches or remain on the sidelines. And what the Church teaches, among other things, is the necessity of respecting Jews.
Moreover, shouldn't the Jewish defense agency leadership, which to its credit is probably the most effective at its work of any ethnic and religious group in this country, try to understand the inner categories of the other, especially after decades of inter-faith and inter-group work? In this case, that there is a difference between heresy - an accusation from which the Pope is trying to heal part of his community- and stupidity. And what is the cost of not seeing the difference between heresy and stupidity?
Finally, when the Pope as well as key Vatican officials said within a day that Williamson's views are "absolutely indefensible" and that in the Pope's own words, the Church feels "full and indispensable solidarity with Jews against any Holocaust denial" where was a little humility in response? Wouldn't it have been interesting, yet alone ethically compelling, for those who initially lashed out to have acknowledged that perhaps they did overreact and that they do know that the Church and specifically this Pope are very sensitive to these issues. But that we ask the Pope and church hierarchy to please understand that, whether fully justified or not, we are still very very raw and very vulnerable regarding the Holocaust and so we are sorry if we did over react and we are deeply grateful for the Pope's unambiguous reiteration of that which we do know is his view and is contemporary Catholic teachings.
And this from the Jerusalem Post:
David Klinghoffer
The wages of whining The Jerusalem Post Jan. 29, 2009 David Klinghoffer
A point I try to impress on my children is one that the Jewish community would do well to consider. If you spend a day continually whining about trivia, by the end of the day, even if you've got something legitimate to complain about, mommy and daddy aren't going to be in a frame of mind to listen to you very seriously. This lesson can be difficult for a little kid to grasp.
The Anti-Defamation League has a hard time with it, too, otherwise the group wouldn't profess to be "stunned" that the Vatican had "ignored our concerns" and reversed the excommunication of four previously outlawed rebel bishops, leaders of the reactionary Society of St. Pius X. The Pius X organization opposes the reforms of Vatican II, including its olive branch to the Jews and Judaism. One of the bishops is a flagrant anti-Semite, Holocaust denier and conspiracy theorist. Bishop Richard Williamson remains in hot water with the Catholic Church for having accepted ordination in 1988 in the first place, against the wishes of Pope John Paul II. Williamson still cannot minister officially as a bishop. Yet the title and at least some of the influence that goes with it are now his, unsullied by the sinister status associated with excommunication. The combination of malignant views and lofty office are why this case matters.
A priest friend in Rome whom I trust assures me there are sound technical reasons for Pope Benedict's act of mercy to Williamson and the other SSPX bishops: "Being a nut, even a pernicious one, is simply not a justification for maintaining an excommunication, which, from the Church's point of view, is the ultimate punishment. The guy could have been an unrepentant murderer and the excommunication - for the specific offense of illicit ordination - would have still been lifted. It is a technical thing, not a sign of personal approval or rehabilitation."
But as Jews know well from our own religious tradition, well acquainted with legal arcana, such technicalities usually carry the day only when unopposed by urgent real-world considerations. Before Williamson's forgiveness was announced but after it was known to be a likely prospect, the ADL sought to dissuade Benedict from extending public mercy to a man who argues that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are a gift that "God put into men's hands." Yet the Pope went ahead anyway, leaving ADL national director Abraham Foxman "stunned." When the news came out, my wife and I watched Williamson's video on YouTube in which he allows that maybe 200,000 or 300,000 Jews died in Nazi concentration camps, but not one in a gas chamber.
I was disturbed but not stunned.
No one should minimize the good that the ADL and other Jewish anti-defamation groups have accomplished in publicizing Muslim anti-Semitism. But they have also done great damage to Jewish-Christian relations by making a habit of attacking Catholics and Protestants, sometimes in hysterical terms, on matters about which Jews have no business complaining.
Thus for example the ADL and its allies remain publicly unapologetic, as far as I know, for their role in hyping the supposed anti-Semitic menace posed by Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ. Before the film was released, the ADL harped on supposed parallels between Gibson's movie and medieval Passion plays. The latter led to pogroms, so the obvious implication was that the former could also.
Others went further. In an article in The New Republic - Jewish-owned and edited - a Jewish scholar, Paula Fredriksen, stated not as speculation but as a certainty that when the film appeared in countries like Poland, Spain, France and Russia, savagery would erupt: "When violence breaks out, Mel Gibson will have a much higher authority than professors and bishops to answer to."
Of course no such thing came to pass.
Meanwhile, Jewish groups continue to pillory the Christian churches for their alleged guilt in fomenting the Holocaust. That's despite the fact that Hitler himself clearly dismissed as ineffective any fancied strategy to try to whip up Germans with appeals to punish the Christ-killers. In Mein Kampf, an influential best-seller, he relied on the language of Darwinian biology to declare a race war against the Jews.
Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the liberal Union for Reform Judaism, America's largest Jewish denomination, has called conservative Christians "zealots" and "bigots." Harshly attacking opposition to gay marriage, Yoffie remarked: "We cannot forget that when Hitler came to power in 1933, one of the first things he did was ban gay organizations." And so on and on. By now, as far as anti-defamation activism is concerned, our community has squandered much of its credibility. Therefore when a real issue of concern arises, as in the Williamson affair, we have little on which to draw. Under circumstances like these, some Christians will listen politely but then turn away, citing technicalities.
The writer is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle and the author of Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History and other books.
~~~~"~~~~
The Pope will undoubtedly treat the hysterical reaction of some Catholics - even bishops - with the same degree of mild regret and paternal solicitude as is his habitual manner.
The rest of us might just remember that the very same Catholics who are now berating the Pope and even calling for his resignation include many who spewed forth vitriol and venomous hatred against traditionalists for the alleged reason that...wait for it...yes, you've guessed it..."they were disloyal to the Pope"!.
Yes, really!
Come back ye Pharisees and whited sepulchres! Your time is not yet up, apparently.
Some people still think that Catholics have always blamed present-day Jews for crucifying Christ.
That is nonsense and never has been our theology. All sinners are to blame for he Crucifixion and bad Catholics are more to blame than bad Jews.
And we do not hesitate to blame those amongst our own bishops whose disloyalty to the Church often crucifies Christ far more obviously and openly than any other religious group or leader does.
The Roman Emperor and Caesar Augustus Constantine I the Great saw a vision of the Chi-Rho symbol of Christ and the words, in Greek, Εν τουτο νικα (pronounced: "en touto nika") - usually rendered in Latin since then as IN HOC SIGNO VINCES ("in this sign conquer"), before his great victory at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge on the edge of the City of Rome. Not long after he liberated Christianity throughout the Empire, later himself becoming a Christian. Although Christianity was not made the religion of the Roman Empire until a later emperor, Theodosius, nevertheless winning this battle, seemingly by divine inspiration, caused Constantine to defend, and later to convert to, Christianity. So this victory is said to mark the beginning of the nearly two thousand years of the Christian and Catholic Roman Empire.
imago domini jesu christi
The Holy Face of Our Lord Jesus Christ has been partly re-constructed from the image on the Shroud of Turin. The shroud was loudly dismissed by a scoffing, but often rather ignorant, secular mass media but the latest view is that its image is inexplicable by modern science and most likely miraculous. St Therese of the Child Jesus was devoted to the Holy Face and many saints have had visions of our Lord's face.
Dominus Jesus Christus Rex
This icon of Christos Pantokratoros, Christ the Sovereign-King, reminds us that Christ's rule must be recognised in this world as also the next. His rule and his descent from the tribe of Judah, the royal tribe of Israel, was prophesied in Scripture: "The sceptre shall not be taken from Juda, nor a ruler from his thigh, till he come that is to be sent, and he shall be the expectation of the nations". (Gen 49:10 - Vespers Antiphon for Advent). For our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is not only King of the Jews, spiritually, but also in the flesh, through both his mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Princess of Juda, but also through St Joseph, Crown Prince of Juda, and direct descendant of King David, King of the Jews.
ecce homo - behold the man! behold the king of kings!
"And the soldiers plaiting a crown of thorns, put it upon his head; and they put on him a purple garment. And they came to him, and said: Hail, king of the Jews; and they gave him blows. Pilate therefore went forth again, and saith to them: Behold, I bring him forth unto you, that you may know that I find no cause in him. Jesus therefore came forth, bearing the crown of thorns and the purple garment. And he saith to them: Behold the Man!" (John 19:2-5)
whom kings adore
"When Jesus therefore was born in Bethlehem of Juda, in the days of King Herod, behold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, saying, where is he that is born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east, and are come to adore him". (Matt 2:1-2)
before abraham was, i am
The tetragrammaton, written in Hebrew as YHVH, meaning "I am Who am", signified the ineffable name of God which, having been told to Moses directly by God, was so deeply sacred that Jews were forbidden to say it lest it sound like a claim to be divine. Thus, in prayer, they called God Adonai (your Majesty) or Elohim (God, in the royal plural). When our Lord said "Before Abraham was, I AM" He was thus saying to the Jews very directly that He was God. Catholics used to have a great reverence for the Holy Name of Jesus so that they bowed whenever it was said but, alas, now, many have become careless.
The Queen of Heaven
"And Mary said: Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word." (Luke 1:38). "And Mary said: My soul doth magnify the Lord. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. Because he hath regarded the humility of his handmaid; for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. Because he that is mighty, hath done great things to me; and holy is his name. And his mercy is from generation unto generations, to them that fear him." (Luke 1:46-50). "But Mary kept all these words, pondering them in her heart." (Luke 2:19)
εγω ειμι κυριος ο θεος σου οστις εξηγαγον σε εκ γης Αιγυπτου εξ οικου δουλειας ουκ εσονται σοι θεοι ετεροι πλην εμου
Ego sum Dominus Deus tuus qui eduxi te de terra Aegypti de domo servitutis non habebis deos alienos coram me
[Ex 20:2-3]
The trinity of royal and sacred languages: Hebrew, Greek and Latin, used over the Cross, and in the Scriptures and liturgies of the Christian Church, correspond to Father, Son and Holy Ghost, respectively. No Christian could call themselves educated, in times past, without knowing at least one or two of these Classical languages. The Latin language created a unique international community of scholars. Latin remains the primary language of the Church but nowadays even the clergy hardly know it, let alone Greek or Hebrew. Some foolish clergy even rejoice in their lamentable ignorance.
sacred music: chant
Chant goes back to the Jewish Temple worship. It was continued in the Christian Church and codified by Pope St Gregory the Great and was, thereafter, often called Gregorian chant. The oldest liturgy in the Christian Church could be seen in the Easter Triduum services of the Roman rite up to 1955. The ancient Offices of Tenebrae (Matins and Lauds of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday) are virtually unchanged since the earliest times.
CATHOLIC ORIGINS OF MODERN SCIENCE
Modern science has its origins firmly and centrally in the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church. Johannes Buridanus, (1295-1363), or Jean Buridan (pictured above), was a great French priest and scientist, teaching at the University of Paris, who sowed the seeds of modern science by reviving the concept of impetus, an understanding of motion first proposed by John Philoponus (c.490-c.570), the priest-scientist of the ancient University of Alexandria known by Arabs as Yaḥyā al-Naḥwī (or “John the Grammarian”). Philoponus had broken with the Aristotelian–Neoplatonic tradition, questioning Aristotelian dynamics in favour of the concept of impetus. This concept preceded the concept of inertia, which Sir Isaac Newton effectively stole, unacknowledged, from Buridan. Buridan, in turn, had borrowed the idea (but with acknowledgement, unlike Newton) from Friar Francis of Marchia (c.1285-c.1344), an earlier Franciscan scholar at the University of Paris, who had used it as an analogy of the effect of grace received in Holy Communion. The origins of modern science thus derive from an analogy of the Blessed Sacrament. John Philoponus had also argued against the eternity of the world, a theory which formed the basis of pagan attacks on the Christian doctrine of Creation, very similar to those mounted by unoriginal thinkers of today like Professor Richard Dawkins. Philoponus’ critique of Aristotle was a major influence on Italian scholar, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Italian scientist, Galileo Galilei, who cited Philoponus frequently. Pictured above is a likeness of Jean Buridan, arguably the father of modern science.
Roman Emperor
Defender of civilisation
Roman Pontiff
Teacher of civilisation
Roman rite
Spirit of civilisation
holy church & holy empire
Sancta Romana Ecclesia (SRE) - the Holy Roman Church, of which all the Cardinal-Princes of the Church were, and are still today, designated. The Cardinals were, originally, the curia (or court) of the Roman Pontifex Maximus or Pope that formed his chief advisers. The right of the Senate, clergy and commons (Senatus Populusque Romanus - SPQR) of the city of Rome to elect the Pope eventually devolved to the Cardinals. They held the highest rank in the Church after the Pope.
Sacrum Romanum Imperium (SRI) - the Holy Roman Empire, of which all the Prince-Electors of the Empire were, until the end of the Empire in 1806, designated. The Prince-Electors were, originally, the curia (or court) of the Roman Caesar Augustus or Emperor that formed his chief advisers. The right of the Senate, clergy and commons (Senatus Populusque Romanus - SPQR) of the city of Rome to elect the Emperor eventually devolved to the Prince-Electors. They held the highest rank in the Empire after the Emperor.
Both Pope and Emperor had the right of veto in the election of the other. The Pope also had the right to excommunicate an heretical Emperor and relieve his subjects of their fealty and the Emperor had the right to depose a Pope who excommunicated himself by publicly teaching heresy. No public enemy of the Church could thus, in theory, hold either office.
The imperial veto was only abolished in 1912 after it had been successfully used, by the Austrian Kaiser (Caesar or Emperor) Francis Joseph through the Cardinal Archbishop of Cracow, to elect a saint, Pope St Pius X. The new pope feared that in an increasingly anti-Catholic world the power might be misused in the future, so he abolished it.
The imperial veto had earlier been used by Austrian Kaiser (Caesar and Emperor) Francis Joseph to help elect Blessed Pope Pius IX, also.
"But they said: Lord, behold here are two swords. And he said to them, it is enough." (Luke 22:38)
crown of charlemagne
The imperial prayers
"O God, who prepared the Roman Empire for the preaching of the Gospel of the eternal King, extend to Thy servant, our Emperor, the armoury of heaven, so that the peace of the churches may remain undisturbed by the storms of war. Through Christ our Lord. Amen."
[From the Mass Pro Imperatore for the Holy Roman Emperor, used also at the Coronation of an emperor, when the Emperor-elect was anointed by the Cardinal-bishop of Ostia, given the sword and orb by the Pope, ordained by him a Sub-deacon and then crowned Caesar semper Augustus, Romanorum Imperator with the sacred crown of Charlemagne, after which, as Deacon, he served the papal mass.]
"Let us pray also for our most Christian Emperor that the Lord God may reduce to his obedience all barbarous nations for our perpetual peace. O almighty and eternal God, in whose hands are all the power and right of kingdoms, graciously look down on the Roman Empire that those nations who confide in their own haughtiness and strength, may be reduced by the power of Thy right hand. Through the same Lord..."
[Good Friday Intercessions for the Roman Emperor, said after those for pope and clergy in the Roman rite until 1955]
"Regard also our most devout Emperor[Name] and since Thou knowest, O God, the desires of his heart, grant by the ineffable grace of Thy goodness and mercy, that he may enjoy with all his people the tranquillity of perpetual peace and heavenly victory."
[The imperial prayers came at the end of the Exsultet at the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday until they were abolished in 1955 by the impious hand of Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, the great architect of the modern, ungainly, liturgy]
arms of imperial austria
pax romana et christiana
"Peace is not merely the absence of war... Peace is the work of justice and the effect of charity. Earthly peace is the image and fruit of the peace of Christ, the messianic 'Prince of Peace'." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2304-5)
Caesar Augustus
Caesar Augustus was the ancient title of the Roman Emperor, adopted by the Roman Catholic Christian emperors after Emperor Constantine I the Great, and derived from Julius Caesar and from his nephew, Octavian, called Augustus, the first Emperor. Constantine I the Great preserved the title, as did the Byzantine Roman emperors, and it was later adopted by the Russian kings called Tsar, meaning Caesar. When Pope St Leo III, at the call of the Roman Senate, clergy and commons, transferred the imperial crown from the usurping and heretical Empress Irene in Byzantium (who had slain her own son, Emperor Constantine VI) to Charlemagne, King of the Franks, on Christmas Day 800 AD in Rome, he crowned him Caesar Augustus. In the German of the Teutonic tribes this was rendered Kaiser (Caesar) and later, Der Heilige Römische Kaiser or "Holy Roman Emperor". The last Roman Emperor, Kaiser Franz II (pictured above in traditional Coronation vestments and the Crown of Charlemagne), was overthrown by Corsican revolutionary and imprisoner of popes, Napoleon Bonaparte, who ushered in the modern era of moral, political and cultural corruption from which the world has been suffering ever since.
The Holy Roman Emperor
Kaiser (Caesar and Emperor) Francis I was the Duke of Lorraine, formerly an imperial territory, when he married the Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresia. She then had him made Holy Roman Emperor (after due election by the Prince-Electors). He is seen here in the sacred coronation vestments and the sacred Crown of the Emperor Charlemagne. He wears the imperial cope and the imperial stole as well as an imperial alb, all privileges of an emperor. In his hand he carries the imperial sceptre and wears the imperial sword. At his coronation, the Emperor is made a deacon, reads the Gospel and serves the Pontifical mass. The above representation is of the central painting in the Giants' Hall of the Innsbruck Hofburg, or Court Palace, which was magnificently re-decorated by Queen-Empress Maria Theresia during the reign of her husband, King-Emperor (Kaiser) Francis I, and further re-decorated after his death. Their reign was a highly successful one, materially, politically and spiritually.
S.R.I. Sacri Romani Imperii
In the same way that Cardinals are designated S.R.E - Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae - "of the Holy Roman Church" - so the Prince-Electors of the Holy Roman Empire were designated S.R.I. - Sacri Romani Imperii - "of the Holy Roman Empire" - the "two swords" of the Church, the spiritual and the temporal, being thereby represented. At the apex of the spiritual was the Pope, the Pontifex Maximus of ancient Rome, and at the apex of the temporal was the Emperor, the Caesar Augustus (in German, Kaiser) of ancient Rome, here pictured above in the person of Emperor and Caesar (Kaiser) Joseph I. He is pictured wearing the sacred Crown of Charlemagne and the sacred coronation vestments and accoutrements. Emperor (Kaiser) Joseph (26 July 1678-17 April 1711) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1705 until his death in 1711. He was the eldest son of Emperor Leopold I, by his third wife, Eleonor Magdalene, Countess-Palatine of Neuburg. Joseph was crowned King of Hungary at the age of nine in 1687, and King in Germany at the age of eleven in 1690. He succeeded to the imperial throne and that of Bohemia when his father died. Although not a devout monarch, he nonetheless ruled reasonably and kept the Empire together and viable.
THE KNIGHTS OF RELIGION (1)
To defend Europe, the Holy Land and Jerusalem and the Holy Places, the Military-Religious Orders of Knighthood came into existence and were later given legal and special recognition by the Church. The most famous of these Orders were the Knights Templar, the Knights Hospitaller of St John, and the Knights Teutonic of St Mary of the Germans, the first two founded by Frenchmen and the latter by a German. They were the most formidable foes of the Islamic Jihadists who sought to conquer Jerusalem and thereafter Europe. They were military armies of knights, sergeants and men-at-arms, but also religious orders whose full members took the vows of religion - poverty, chastity and obedience. Their armies served on the frontiers of Christendom (particularly the Holy Land) but they kept many estates in Europe, run by their quartermaster knights and sergeants, to raise the necessary funds for the defence of Christendom. Because they were so trusted and well-disciplined, they were sought out by the rich and noble to protect their assets and, charging a fee for these services, these Orders became wealthy and were able to defend the boundaries of Christendom robustly. This extended even to providing naval patrols of the Mediterranean Sea against Jihadist pirates and Barbary (Berber) raiding corsairs who plundered the coasts of Europe, burning, pillaging and taking slaves, raping women and taking them as concubines back to Africa. These orders of knights were thus the greatest exemplars of Christian chivalry.
THE KNIGHTS OF RELIGION (2)
The knights of religion thus became the first and foremost defenders of Christian civilisation against its enemies. The Templars were suppressed due to the greed and ambition of King Phillipe IV "le Bel" of France, who was like a French precursor of England's King Henry VIII. The Hospitaller and Teutonic Knights were suppressed in Protestant countries at the Protestant Reformation and the Teutonic Knights continued in German lands until the end of the First World War which caused the virtual abolition of the Catholic kingdoms. Today only the Knights Hospitaller of St John are extant. After the Islamic victory in Palestine, when the last Hospitaller castle fell at the Siege of Acre in 1291, they went to Rhodes and thereafter to Malta which they famously, and successfully, defended against the massive Ottoman Muslim Great Siege of Malta in 1565. Ever since they have been called the Knights of Malta. Today the Knights of Malta have reverted to their first vocation, that of hospitaller, caring for the sick poor, re-living their ancient title, inscribed on the portals of their conventual churches, Servi Domini Nostri Pauperum Infirmorum - "the servants of our Lords, the sick poor", treating the sick poor as they would our Lord Himself - whilst continuing to defend religion. They have priories and associations all over the world, dispense around $1 billion of aid each year and their Headquarters is in Rome. They are recognised as a sovereign state, have ambassadors and their own passports, and the Grand Master is both a religious superior and a ruling prince. Pictured is Grand Master Jean Parisot de la Valette leading the knights at the Great Siege of 1565. Valetta, the capital of Malta today, was named after him. He wears the sopravestita or surcoat of the Order, bearing a white cross on a red field (the Templars had a red cross on a white field, now the national flags of England and of Savoy).
THE KNIGHTS OF RELIGION (3)
The Knights of Malta continue to occupy not only their headquarters in the Palazzo di Malta, Via Condotti, Rome, but also still occupy the Villa Malta, the palace of the Order's Grand Priory of Rome, on the Aventine Hill, one of the original Seven Hills of Rome. This palace is famous for its squint, the keyhole of the main gate, through which tourists can view the dome of St Peter's Basilica but which, through optical illusion, appears much greater than normal. The Aventine Palace also looks directly over the Sublician Bridge, the famous bridge defended, in ancient Roman times, by Publius Horatius Cocles against the invading Etruscan army of Lars Porsena of Clusium, immortalised by English author and public figure, Lord Macaulay (1800-1859), in his poem Horatius at the Bridge, first published in his Lays of Ancient Rome in 1842. It contains this well-known and most famous verse: "Then out spake brave Horatius, The Captain of the Gate: 'To every man, upon this earth, Death cometh soon or late. And how can man die better, Than facing fearful odds, For the ashes of his fathers, And the temples of his gods?' ". It is fitting that the site of the bridge for this famous scene should now lie directly below the palace of the Knights of Malta who, in times past, were called upon to defend Roman Christendom and Church.
the habsburgs
"Habsburg", the greatest of imperial names, is a municipality in the district of Brugg in the canton of Aargau in Switzerland. The name comes from Habichtsburg meaning "Hawk's Castle". Around 1020, Radbot of Habsburg built Habsburg castle, which was the original family seat of the Habsburgs, the dynasty that later became so prominent as Holy Roman Emperors. After the death of the sons of Emperor Frederick II there was an interregnum but then, in 1273, Count Rudolf of Habsburg was plucked from relative obscurity to be Roman Emperor, the Caesar of Christendom. His rule was very successful and he united the Empire. His memory caused later Prince-Electors to elect his family time and time again so that they occupied the Imperial throne until its end in 1806 and thereafter they became Emperors of Austria.
Tu felix Austria
Alii bella gerent, tu, felix Austria, nubes - "others make war but thou, O happy Austria, make love!" (It was said of the Holy Roman, later Austrian, Empire that it grew by dynastic alliances and royal marriages rather than by war, especially under the largely peace-loving Habsburg emperors.)
St Maurice, black patron saint of the Holy Roman Empire
St Maurice, Knight Commander of the Roman Theban Legion, was martyred with his whole legion of 6,600 for refusing to attack Christians and became, later, the black patron saint of knighthood, chivalry and the Holy Roman Empire. For centuries the Holy Roman Emperors were anointed at his altar in St Peter's Basilica. The site of his martyrdom, Agaunum, is now St Maurice-en-Valais, Switzerland, in the Aargau, the same area wherein lies the original castle of the Habsburgs. He is pictured with Bishop St Elmo. The modern ski resort of St Moritz is also named after this same St Maurice.
innsbruck hofkirche
The Innsbruck Hofkirche (Court Church) is probably the apotheosis of imperial court design and archtecture. Built in a Gothic church located in the Altstadt (Old Town) district of the imperial city of Innsbruck, Austria, it is a magnificent example of its kind. The church was built in 1553 by Emperor and Caesar (Kaiser) Ferdinand I (1503–1564) as a memorial to his grandfather Emperor and Caesar (Kaiser) Maximilian I (1459–1519), whose cenotaph (centre of picture) portrays a truly magnificent and remarkable collection of German Renaissance sculpture. The sacrophagus, although it does not contain the remains of Kaiser (Caesar and Emperor) Maximilian I, is nevertheless surrounded, in a guard of honour, by magnificent bronze statues of his most prominent relations and some of the great figures of history like King Clovis, first Christian king of the Franks, King Theodoric of the Goths, King Godfrey of Bouillon, King Arthur of Britain (amusingly styled "of England") and others. The church also boasts the tomb of Andreas Hofer, the folk hero of the Tryol who defended both Church and Empire against the invading Bonaparte and his hordes of anti-Catholic, Freemasonic and secularising invaders.
the loyal tyrol
The freedom- and peace-loving Tyroleans like to sing, dance and enjoy life. They were long faithful to the Holy Roman Emperor and he to them. In a foundational document, the Magna Carta of the Tyrol, and called the Tirolerfreiheitsbrief, or the "Imperial Tyrolean Freedom Brief", Kaiser (Emperor and Caesar Augustus) Maximilian I confirmed their right not to be taxed or drafted into military service without the consent of their Parliament, the Landtag in Innsbruck. They thus had "no taxation without representation" for some 600 years before the American revolutionaries thought they had invented the idea. Led in 1809 by the heroic innkeeper Andreas Hofer and others, including Josef Speckbacher and Capuchin friar, Father Joachim Haspinger, they defeated the invading troops of the anti-Catholic, Pope-imprisoning Bonaparte, three times. But Hofer was betrayed by a traitor, taken to Mantua for a show trial and then shot by personal order of the Corsican usurper. The Song of Andreas Hofer is now the proud anthem of the Tyrol.
the peace emperor
His Majesty, the Blessed Emperor Charles of Austria, heir to the Habsburg Holy Roman Empire, pictured as a young officer of cavalry; he later tried to stop the Great War, a fratricidal disaster orchestrated by the enemies of Christendom - but they let him not and instead persecuted him for his pious and chivalrous love of justice, charity and peace so that he died in exile aged just 34...
the peace pontiff
His Holiness, Pope St Pius X, also tried to stop the Great War which set brother against brother and Christian against Christian; his motto was omnia instaurare in Christo - to restore all things in Christ - but he, too, was prevented and persecuted and died a man of sorrows on the eve of the suicidal conflict he had so nobly tried to stop...
christian chivalry and honour
Chivalry, meaning the whole company of knights (from chevalier, French for a mounted knight), later came to mean the knightly Code of Honour. "Chivalry is only a name for that general spirit or state of mind which disposes men to heroic actions, and keeps them conversant with all that is beautiful and sublime in the intellectual and moral world" (The Broadstone of Honour, Kenelm Digby). "And there by ordnance of the Queen it was judged upon Sir Gawaine for ever after he should be with all ladies, and fight their quarrels, and that he should never refuse mercy to him that asketh mercy. Thus was Gawaine sworn upon the four Evangelists" (Morte d'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory). The chief virtues of Chivalry are Courtesy, Mercy, Religion, Generosity, Hospitality, Courage and Defence of the weak and helpless.
St Bridget of Sweden
St Bridget of Sweden received great revelations concerning chivalry, founded the Order of the Most Holy Saviour and the Royal Convent of Vadstena, Sweden, esteemed and encouraged the military-religious orders and urged and rebuked bishops and popes - especially the latter for not returning to Rome from his "Babylonish captivity" at Avignon in France. Our Lord appeared to her, extolling chivalry, and saying: "A knight who keeps the laws of his order is exceedingly dear to me. For if it is hard for a monk to wear his heavy habit, it is harder still for a knight to wear his heavy armour".
of courtesy
"Of Courtesy, it is much less, Than Courage of Heart or Holiness, Yet in my Walks it seems to me, That the Grace of God is in Courtesy... Our Lady out of Nazareth rode, It was Her month of heavy load; Yet was her face both great and kind, For Courtesy was in Her Mind." (On Courtesy, Hilaire Belloc).
inventio crucis per helena
Roman Empress Saint Helena (Flavia Iulia Helena Augusta), wife of Emperor Constantius Chlorus, and the mother of Emperor Constantine, in 325, on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, discovered the True Cross near Calvary and ordered the building of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. She also found the nails of the Crucifixion. Her palace in Rome was later converted into Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. It was also said that she was a daughter of King Coel of Camulodunum (“Old King Cole”) and it is clear that Constantine learned of Christianity in Britain.
Blessed Pope Pius IX
Once the enemies of the Church had secured the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, their next target was the Papal States. Under the false guise of Italian Nationalism (which later became Fascism), the secularists of the Risorgimento replaced the benign rule of the popes with that of the corrupt and decadent King Victor Emmanuel of Savoy and his even worse ministers. Once the walls of Rome were breached, Blessed Pope Pius IX ordered his loyal troops, who included many from the great Catholic families of Europe, to surrender lest there be blood spilt in the streets of the Holy City. After that he and his successors remained prisoners of the Italian revolutionaries until 1929. The next target for the revolutionaries was the Austrian Empire and they achieved their aim by 1918, careless that it had cost the lives of tens of millions of young men, senselessly slaughtered in the trenches of the Great War.
Pontifical Zouaves of Pius IX
The Pontifical Zouaves formed part of the infantry troops that defended the Papal States and Rome in 1870 when the Italian revolutionaries attacked with the aim of annexing them and imprisoning the Pope. The Pope frequently visited his loyal Zouaves and was warmly received by all the officers and men of this gallant band of Catholic heroes.
pope innocent iii on the empire
"...We acknowledge as we are bound, that the right and authority to elect a king (later to be elevated to the Imperial throne) belongs to those princes to whom it is known to belong by right and ancient custom; especially as this right and authority came to them from the Apostolic See, which transferred the Empire from the Greeks to the Germans in the person of Charles the Great. But the princes should recognize, and assuredly do recognize, that the right and authority to examine the person so elected king (to be elevated to the Empire) belongs to us who anoint, consecrate and crown him." (Venerabilem, 1202, Pope Innocent III)
POPE PIUS VI ON MONARCHY
"In fact, after having abolished the monarchy, the best of all governments, it [the French Revolution] had transferred all the public power to the people — the people... ever easy to deceive and to lead into every excess…" (Pourquoi Notre Voix, 17 July 1793, Pope Pius VI). This unfortunate and heroic pope was persecuted to an early death by Bonaparte, whose general, Berthier, took Papal Rome on 10 February 1798, and, proclaiming a Roman Republic, demanded of Pope Pius VI the renunciation of his temporal authority. Upon his refusal he was made prisoner, and on 20 February was taken to Siena, and thence to the Certosa, near Florence. Thereafter he was taken to Parma, Piacenza, Turin and, then, via Grenoble to the citadel of Valence, the chief town of Drôme. There he died, on 29 August 1799, six weeks after his arrival, worn out by his ill-treatment, after an otherwise long papacy. The French revolutionaries persistently blocked his proper burial and obsequies which did not take place until 19 February 1802 in Rome.
aquinas on kingship
“If therefore, kingship, which is the best form of government, seems to be worthy of avoidance mainly because of the danger of tyranny, and if tyranny tends to arise not less but more often under the government of several, the straightforward conclusion remains that it is more advantageous to live under one king than under the rule of several persons.” (De Regimine Principum, chapter VI, St Thomas Aquinas)
BELLARMINE ON MONARCHY
“If monarchy is the best and most excellent government, as above we have shown, and it is certain that the Church of God, instituted by the most sapient prince Christ, ought to be best governed, who can deny that the government of it ought to be a monarchy?” (De Romano Pontifice, St Robert Bellarmine)
dante on monarchy
"[The] Imperial authority derives immediately from the summit of all being, which is God...But before the Church existed, or while it lacked power to act, the Empire had active force in full measure. Hence the Church is the source neither of acting power nor of authority in the Empire, where power to act and authority are identical...since it is impossible that an effect should exist prior to its cause...Christ attests it, as we said before, in His birth and death. The Church attests it in Paul’s declaration to Festus in the Acts of the Apostles: 'I stand at Caesar’s judgment seat, where I ought to be judged'; and in the admonition of God’s angel to Paul a little later: 'Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar'; and again still later in Paul’s words to the Jews dwelling in Italy: 'And when the Jews spake against it, I was constrained to appeal unto Caesar; not that I had aught to accuse my nation of', but 'that I might deliver my soul from death'. If Caesar had not already possessed the right to judge temporal matters, Christ would not have implied that he did, the angel would not have uttered such words, nor would he who said, 'I desire to depart and be with Christ', have appealed to an unqualified judge". (De Monarchia, Book III, Ch.XIII, Dante Alighieri)
return of the king
"From the ashes a fire shall be woken, a light from the shadows shall spring, renewed shall be blade that was broken, the crownless again shall be king!" (The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien, Roman Catholic author)
the royal stuarts - aymez loyauté - love loyalty
Prince Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie"), with Cameron of Lochiel, on his right, and Lord Forbes of Pitsligo (or possibly MacDonald of Clanranald), his most faithful followers among the Jacobite Clan chiefs. Aymez Loyauté ("love loyalty") was the motto of the Royal Stuarts, the legitimate kings of Britain and Ireland but illegally excluded from their rightful throne because, since King James II and VII, they were Roman Catholics and wished to repeal the disgracefully savage laws that meant a man could be hanged, drawn and quartered for repudiating the Anglican and Presbyterian State churches. King James issued a "Declaration of Indulgence" giving religious freedom to his subjects. However, the bigoted anti-Catholic Whigs plotted and instigated treason and invited a foreign power to invade Britain and Ireland, establishing a Dutch Protestant as king. "Dutch Billy" was a pawn of the rich Capitalist Whig oligarchs in Parliament who had disloyally betrayed their true king.
Royal Stuart Arms
skye boat song
"Burned are our homes, exile and death, Scatter the loyal men, Yet, e'er the sword cool in the sheath, Charlie will come again."
henry ix and i, cardinal-king
Prince Henry Benedict Stuart, Duke of York and brother of Bonnie Prince Charlie, later became Cardinal-bishop of Ostia and Velletri and of Frascati, Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals, Vice-Chancellor of the Holy Roman Church and, de jure, King Henry IX of England, I of Scotland and Ireland and King of France. He was very nearly elected Pope in the Conclave of 1800 so that he would then have been both Pope and King of England. He died 13 July 1807, just after the fall of the Holy Roman Empire, so that 2007 was the bicentenary of his death.
the old chevalier
Prince James Francis Edward Stuart, the son of King James II and VII, was de jureKing James III of England and VIII of Scotland, the father of Bonnie Prince Charlie and Prince Henry, Cardinal Duke of York. All 3 are now buried in St Peter's Basilica, Rome, commemorated by a famous Canova monument on the left side of the Basilica. James was a faithful Catholic and monarch. Offered the throne of Britain and Ireland by the British Whigs if he converted to Protestantism, he replied that nothing would induce him to abandon his religion. He was thus compelled to fight for his lawful right to the throne but was prevented by treacherous enemies. The result was that the people of Britain and Ireland were delivered into the hands of the brutal Capitalist Whigs and the British, and especially Irish, people became deeply pauperised and shamefully oppressed. The Protestant writer William Cobbett who lived at the time, wrote of even children being starved to death, hanged for stealing sixpence and transported to the colonies for petty crimes, never to see their families again. Roman Catholics in particular were subjected to one of the most savage and oppressive Penal Codes ever to have disgraced European history. This tyranny was the real legacy of the anti-Catholic Whigs.
Vatican monument to the Royal Stuarts
The Monument to the Royal Stuarts is a memorial in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City State. It commemorates the last three members of the Royal House of Stuart: King James III & VIII, his elder son Prince Charles Edward Stuart, and his younger son, Cardinal Prince Henry Benedict Stuart. The marble monument is by Antonio Canova, the most celebrated Italian sculptor of his day. It is a bas relief profile of the three exiled princes, with this inscription: IACOBO•III•IACOBI•II•MAGNAE•BRIT•REGIS•FILIO•KAROLO•EDVARDO•ET•HENRICO•DECANO•PATRUM•CARDINALIVM•IACOBI•III•FILIIS•REGIAE•STIRPIS•STVARDIAE•POSTREMIS•ANNO•M•DCCC•XIX (To James III, son of King James II of Great Britain, to Charles Edward and to Henry, Dean of the Cardinal Fathers, sons of James III, the last of the Royal House of Stuart. 1819.) The monument was originally commissioned by Monsignor Angelo Cesarini, executor of the estate of Cardinal Henry Stuart. Among the subscribers, curiously, was King George IV, who (once the Jacobite challenge had ended) was an admirer of the Stuarts. The monument stands towards the back of the basilica in the left aisle opposite the main door.. It is frequently adorned with white flowers by Jacobites.
Vatican monument for Queen Maria Clementina
Opposite the monument to the Royal Stuarts in St Peter's Basilica is a monument to Queen Maria Klementyna Sobieska, wife of King James III & VIII and mother of Prince Charles Edward Stuart and Cardinal Prince Henry Benedict Stuart. Its inscription reads: MARIA CLEMENTINA M. BRITANN. FRANC. ET HIBERN. REGINA ("Maria Clementina, Queen of Great Britain, France and Ireland"). The reference to France is a continuance of the Plantagenet claim to the French throne, not abandoned until the French Revolution. She was born on 18 July 1702 in Ohlau, Silesia, in the Holy Roman Empire. Her parents were Prince James Louis Sobieski (1667–1737), the eldest son of King John III, and Countess Palatine Hedwig Elisabeth of Neuburg (1673–1722). Imprisoned by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI who was placating King George I of England (the Hanoverian supplanter) so as to prevent her marrying King James, she was rescued by dashing Irish Jacobite, the Chevalier Senator Sir Charles Wogan Bt, in most romantic style. Following her marriage to King James on 3 September 1719 in the Chapel of the episcopal palace of Montefiascone in the Cathedral of Santa Margherita, James and Maria Clementina were invited to reside in Rome at the special request of Pope Clement XI, who acknowledged them as the King and Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland.
distributive justice
Gilbert Keith Chesterton was the apostle of Distributism by which, learning from the Guild system of the Middle Ages and the teaching of the popes, he re-fashioned a model that avoided the extremes of Capitalism and Communism. It was based upon the principle of Subsidiarity that had been the guiding political philosophy of both Church and Empire in times past but which is today much misunderstood and misrepresented. Here is how the Church defines it: "Still, that most weighty principle, which cannot be set aside or changed, remains fixed and unshaken in social philosophy: Just as it is gravely wrong to take from individuals what they can accomplish by their own initiative and industry and give it to the community, so also it is an injustice and at the same time a grave evil and disturbance of right order to assign to a greater and higher association what lesser and subordinate organizations can do. For every social activity ought of its very nature to furnish help to the members of the body social, and never destroy and absorb them." (Quadragesimo Anno, encyclical letter of Pope Pius IX)
an irish bishop on kings
"The character of kings is sacred; their persons are inviolable; they are the anointed of the Lord, if not with sacred oil, at least by virtue of their office. Their power is broad - based upon the will of God, and not on the shifting sands of the people's will... They will be spoken of with becoming reverence, instead of being in public estimation fitting butts for all foul tongues. It becomes a sacrilege to violate their persons, and every indignity offered to them in word or act, becomes an indignity offered to God Himself. It is this view of kingly rule that alone can keep alive in a scoffing and licentious age the spirit of ancient loyalty that spirit begotten of faith, combining in itself obedience, reverence, and love for the majesty of kings which was at once a bond of social union, an incentive to noble daring, and a salt to purify the heart from its grosser tendencies, preserving it from all that is mean, selfish and contemptible." (Dr John Healy, early 20th Century Roman Catholic Archbishop of Tuam, Ireland)
roman and christian
"Christianity as well as civilisation became conterminous with the Roman Empire. To be a Roman was to be a Christian and this idea soon passed into the converse. To be a Christian was to be a Roman."
(The Holy Roman Empire, James, Viscount Bryce, barrister, politician, historian, Regius Professor of Civil Law and Fellow of Trinity and Oriel Colleges, Oxford)
christian rome
"She was not merely an image of the mighty world, she was the mighty world itself in miniature. The pastor of her local church is also the universal bishop; the seven suffragan bishops who consecrate him are overseers of petty Sees in Ostia, Antium, and the like, towns lying close round Rome: the cardinal priests and deacons who join these seven in electing him derive their title to be princes of the Church, the supreme spiritual council of the Christian world, from the incumbency of a parochial cure within the precincts of the city. Similarly, her ruler, the Emperor, is ruler of mankind; he is deemed to be chosen by the acclamations of her people: he must be duly crowned in one of her basilicas. She is, like Jerusalem of old, the mother of us all." (The Holy Roman Empire, James, Viscount Bryce)
After Rome: Communism and the bogus "Third Reich"
After the appalling bloodshed of the Great War and the fall of the Austrian Empire in 1918, and with it the idea of the Roman Empire, the gaping void was filled first with tears and sorrow and then with Marxist Socialism in Russia and National Socialism in Germany. Both Communists and Nazis persecuted Roman Catholicism. The Nazis even pretended to be successors of the first and Roman Empire, and of the German Protestant Empire but their claim to be a "Third Reich" was bogus and they were condemned by the Church and by all civilised men. Men hypocritically speak of the violence of former centuries but no century has ever been anything like as bloody as the 20th century.
Western culture is, above all else, Roman - and Christian Roman at that. This is so because it has been shaped and defined by Roman Catholicism, ruled by a Roman Emperor, guided by a Roman Pontiff and blessed by Roman rites in a Roman language. Even its enemies have been forced to recognise this. Our laws, our science, our culture, our art, our music, our literature, our parliaments, our scholarship, our primary institutions all derive from this Roman and Christian heritage. The oldest rite of worship in the Christian Church is the classical, Roman rite, deriving, as it does, from the ancient Jewish Temple worship, perfected under Roman rule. It is theologically unsurpassed. It is a timeless love song to the Creator of all things. In a curious "trahison des clercs", many today, even amongst the clergy, have forgotten this and so have become disconnected from their spiritual and cultural roots. It is perhaps time to recall and re-capture our traditions and to re-connect with them in a modern setting.
James Nicolson winning his VC, 16 August 1940. Painted by Robert Taylor.
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