Tea at Trianon: Albanian Martyrs

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

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Albanian Martyrs

From Christine Niles:

Communists seized control of the Albanian government in 1944, ushering in an era of intense persecution for the Catholic Church over the next several decades, shutting down Catholic schools, arresting bishops and priests, and killing the faithful.

Archbishop Prennushi, head of the Durrës archdiocese, was arrested, imprisoned and tortured in the 1940s, eventually dying from his torture. His companions were similarly killed.

In 2002, at the opening of the cause for the Albanian martyrs' canonization, Auxiliary Bishop Zef Simoni of Shkodër said:

The Catholic clergy distinguished itself for its patriotism and culture. The dictatorship suggested ... that they separate from the Holy See in Rome and found a nationalist Church. They all courageously refused. The proposal was also put to Bp. Frano Gjini, apostolic delegate, who replied firmly: "I will never separate my flock from the Holy See."

Bishop Gjini was shot in 1948. Even with their shepherd gone, the priests refused to go into schism, and many wound up arrested and imprisoned for their fidelity to Rome. (Read more.)