Tea at Trianon: Cardinal Turkson on Immigration

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, July 3, 2017

Cardinal Turkson on Immigration

From Breitbart:

The Cardinal is the chairman of the Vatican office of integral human development, which was born on January 1 as a merger of four former departments and is responsible for issues such as justice, peace, environment, health, humanitarian aid and migration. Earlier this week, Italian leaders suggested they may finally be ready to block the massive flows of migrants arriving by sea from North Africa, declaring that the current situation is “unsustainable.” Italian Prime Minister Paolo Gentiloni said Italy “cannot go on like this,” while accusing other EU nations of “looking the other way,” a criticism echoed by the Ghanaian cardinal.

Turkson said that the rest of Europe has not been “playing its part” in dealing with the migration crisis, which has forced Italy into a situation of emergency. At the same time, he suggested that closing Italian ports is not sufficient to completely remedy the problem, which must be addressed at the root. While “the decision of the Italians is internal to Europe,” Turkson said, “one cannot take care of these questions only in Europe.”

“The big problem is addressing this issue at its source from the angle of development, to ensure that people stop arriving into Europe,” said the cardinal. Turkson insisted that his hardline position is not contradictory to the Christian notion of acting as “good Samaritans” with people in difficulty, but addresses the reality of what countries can bear and what is ultimately causing the crisis.

Earlier this week, some 13,500 African migrants arrived on Italian shores in the space of just 48 hours, leading local media as well as politicians to speak of an authentic immigrant “invasion” exceeding the country’s capacity of assimilation. According to official figures, more than 73,000 migrants have arrived in Italy since the beginning of the year, which represents a rise of more than 14 percent over the same period in 2016, when then-record arrivals had reached 64,133. (Read more.)