Tea at Trianon: The Battle Against Evil

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

Wednesday, April 1, 2015

The Battle Against Evil

From Aleteia:

The battle against evil begins in the family, says Fr. Gabriele Amorth, who as one of the foremost exorcists in Italy, knows well the inner workings of evil. Today, the reason why many individuals become evil is often because so many young people “live without knowing the sacredness of being children” and therefore do not know what it means to be a good father or mother.

According to Amorth, young couples often enter into marriage intending to become “one flesh” and “one spirit,” but end in separation “because they are torn apart by various attractions; they reunite and separate again, in couples, families, homes, in different countries and with different children.”

“This breakdown [in the family] leads to delinquency, wickedness, and evil,” he says.

Fr. Amorth was ordained a priest in 1954 for the Society of St. Paul. In 1986 he was appointed as an exorcist of the diocese of Rome. (Read more.)