Tea at Trianon: Grumpy Old Men

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 25, 2012

Grumpy Old Men

From Scott Richert. I wish atheists would bother to educate themselves about Catholicism before attacking the Church. To quote:

Either Dawkins is a liar, and he knows that what he wrote is a steaming pile of bull—this is anything but "big," Küng is "one of the world's most distinguished theologians" only in his own mind and in that of a few hundred radical nuns and defrocked priests, and the last time he could be considered a "very important Catholic thinker" was before the start of Vatican II, 50 years ago—or he's not nearly as bright as I thought he was. Or, perhaps, he's so blinded by hatred for the Catholic Church and the current Pope that he is able to convince himself that up is down and left is right.

Küng's "exclusive" interview with Miss Connolly got no play outside the Guardian and RichardDawkins.net, and it will have zero effect on the future of the Catholic Church, Dawkins' effusions notwithstanding. (Read entire article.)