Tea at Trianon: The Making of a Catholic President

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

Monday, May 31, 2010

The Making of a Catholic President

Kennedy vs. Nixon, 1960. R.J Stove reflects. Share

2 comments:

MadMonarchist said...: American Catholics can, perhaps, be excused for voting for the (effectively pro-infanticide) abortion candidate Obama. He is the first Black president and since the 50's and 60's the Church seems to have sent the message that even the slightest hint of racism is a greater sin than the murder of the innocent. As I recall one, maybe two or more, politicians in Louisiana I think were publically excommunicated for opposing de-segregation. Yet, has any Catholic politician who supports abortion been publically excommunicated? At most they might be denied communion here or there but at the same time are applauded and praised in other areas. I've had trouble coming to terms with all this myself.; May 31, 2010 at 2:27:00 AM EDT
R J said...: MadMonarchist's recollection of Louisiana's situation is correct. The leading segregationist Catholic who got excommunicated by the Archbishop of New Orleans - there were a few others - was Leander Perez, the self-styled "Perezbyterian". (I believe, though I am open to correction on this point, that Perez was received back into the Catholic Church during his last illness.)

As for pro-abort "Catholic" politicians, the exact same situation applies in Australia, where former Federal Opposition Leader and "Catholic" Malcolm Turnbull is still fronting up to receive communion quite shamelessly without the slightest episcopal reproof. He is not, of course, the only Australian politician of nominally Roman allegiance thus perjuring himself each week.; June 1, 2010 at 7:25:00 AM EDT