Tea at Trianon: Hate Crimes in Scotland

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

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Hate Crimes in Scotland

From The Catholic Herald:

A Labour Member of the Scottish Parliament has called on Holyrood to recognise the growing problem of anti-Catholicism in Scotland. It follows a government report which suggests that Catholics are the victims of 57 per cent of all religiously aggravated offences reported in the country. Elaine Smith MSP raised the subject in the Scottish Parliament last week, following an incident in which a church near Glasgow was vandalised and the Blessed Sacrament desecrated. Smith noted that not only are Catholics now the victims of more hate crime than all other religious groups in Scotland combined, but that this is also an increasing trend (a 14 per cent increase in one year). Smith continued, calling on the SNP Government to “go out to the Catholic population and listen to their concerns”, adding that while Islamophobia and anti-Semitism have prominent places in public debate the same cannot be said of anti-Catholicism. (Read more.)