Tea at Trianon: Giving Scandal

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, August 7, 2016

Giving Scandal

It is sad to see a Catholic newspaper go down the drain. To quote from Stream:

One can grant that, for all their vitriol against conservatives, Fisher and Shea have also criticized the far Left. One could even grant that Fisher and Shea are sincerely pro-life, and merely think — as Planned Parenthood itself has argued — the best way to “reduce” abortions is to empower the Democratic Party’s agenda of growing the State’s tax-funded support (and control) of the vulnerable and the poor, and thus — as Shea puts in — reduce the “pressure to abort.”

What cannot be denied, however, is that Shea and Fisher use vulgar and insulting language online, often directed toward pro-life conservative Catholics, which at some point must prove embarrassing to the National Catholic Register. As Fisher once publicly stated in her own style — almost as if daring those who publish her work to try and stop her disrespectful behavior:

People do reflect on their employers, though, so I think there’s something to be said for understanding that your public image isn’t entirely your own. For instance, since I started working for Aleteia, I stopped saying “f***” on Facebook. [Asterisks added]
(Read more.)