Tea at Trianon: Archbishop Burke vs Guiliani

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Archbishop Burke vs Guiliani

Scott Richert explores the controversy. Excellent.

If Rudy Giuliani wins the Republican nomination, we will hear dozens of reasons why Catholics should vote for him. Some will declare a vote for Giuliani a positive good, deciding that his support for the war in Iraq (and, more broadly, the “War on Terror") is more important than his position on abortion. Others will make the (dubious) argument that he’s still more likely to appoint pro-life judges than any potential Democratic candidate. Still others will tell us that, of course, Giuliani is hardly better than a Democrat, but the alliance of pro-lifers with the Republican Party ”necessarily places voters in the situation of in effect having to buy a whole political package”--even when that package now includes abortion “rights.” And finally, and most pathetically, we’ll be told that pro-abortion “conservatives” are our most faithful allies in the fight against “Cultural Marxism"--as if Rudy and his ilk aren’t Cultural Marxists themselves.

Brantigny said...: Voting for the whole package Candidate is like buying a car with stuff you dont need or want. "You just pay the money it will be alright".; October 4, 2007 at 3:13:00 PM EDT