Tea at Trianon: World War I and the Papacy

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, August 4, 2014

World War I and the Papacy

From The Catholic Thing:

One person not surprised by the events of August 1914, was the Vicar of Christ, Pope Pius X. As early as 1912, the pontiff, distraught by European saber-rattling, told his secretary of state, Cardinal Merry del Val, “Le cose vanno male, viene il guerrone.” (“Things are going badly, the Great War is approaching.”)

In an audience with a Brazilian minister in May 1913, Pius said, “You are fortunate, sir, to be going back to your home in Brazil, you will not witness the world-wide war.”

In July 1914, Pius sent a letter to Emperor Franz Joseph pleading that he find a peaceful answer to the Serbian crisis. When the Austrian ambassador asked the pope to bless the arms of his country, he replied: “I do not bless arms but peace.” (Read more.)