Tea at Trianon: In the Footsteps of St. Oliver Plunkett

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, September 2, 2018

In the Footsteps of St. Oliver Plunkett

From Aleteia:

Born in Loughcrew, County Meath, on All Saints’ Day, November 1, 1625, Oliver would some years later become the last Roman Catholic martyr to die a most gruesome death in England. His parents were well-to-do descendants of Hiberno-Normans and so Oliver received a privileged education and upbringing.

Like some saints born into similar circumstances centuries before him, Oliver found himself with a vocation to renounce the good things of this world and pursued his calling to the priesthood. After his ordination in 1654, Oliver left Rome, returning to an Ireland he had not seen for 23 years. It was a troubled time shortly following the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland (1649-1653), the aftermath of which resulted in the banning of the practice of Roman Catholicism.

Anti-Catholic laws became known as the penal laws, which, although relaxed many years later, were not officially repealed by the British government until 1920. The challenges that faced Oliver required him to disguise himself in a country now hostile to Catholicism. He wore a military outfit complete with swords and pistols and went by the name William Browne. (Read more.)