Tea at Trianon: The Moral Law is Not a Burden

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, February 24, 2019

The Moral Law is Not a Burden

From The Catholic Thing:

It is eminently merciful to preach the whole truth and to require that the faithful abide by God’s moral law and the canon laws of the Church: “The moral law is the work of divine wisdom and leads man to the promised blessedness.”(CCC 1950) Consequently, the “knowledge of the divine and natural law is necessary” to do good and reach this goal. (CCC 1955): “The moral law is not a burden, but part of that liberating truth (cf. Jn 8:32) through which the Christian walks on the path of salvation and which may not be relativized.”

Mueller further reminds us that “[t]he Church is not a man-made association whose structure its members voted into being at their will. It is of divine origin.” It is “Christ himself [who] is the author of ministry in the Church. He set her up, gave her authority and mission, orientation and goal (CCC 874).” Bishops are ambassadors entrusted with a message not of their own making. They must not distort that message.

Mueller’s strongest point in the Manifesto is the reminder that the true mission of the Church is the salvation of souls. The reality of Hell and eternal damnation for souls who die in mortal sin is something that we rarely hear about from the pulpit. The impression many shepherds give today is that they worry a lot about trying to perfect the social order in this world, and very little about the loss of souls in the next. (Read more.)