Tea at Trianon: Was Uncle Ted a Russian Spy?

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, November 22, 2020

Was Uncle Ted a Russian Spy?

From Elizabeth Yore at Crisis:

Sexual predators, like spies, are masters of deception and deceit. Both operate in secrecy, perpetuate a cover story, manipulate their victims through lies, and maintain a facade of respectability. Often, sexual predators become prime and easy targets for espionage since they are so vulnerable to blackmail. Prominent sexual predators can become prominent spies. Spies trade in secret information and influence peddling—the more prominent the asset, the more valuable the information.
A well-worn espionage tactic is the dead drop, when spies leave secret information in a location where it can be recovered by another party without meeting face-to-face.

Footnotes are literary dead drops, buried at the bottom of a page in small print, often used to hide a deeper clarification—a smoking gun. Unless read and scrutinized, an important fact or thread could be missed.

Lawyers are cautioned to always read footnotes. Therein may lie the secret, the hidden key to understanding a case, or perhaps a subtle bombshell purposefully hidden so as not to explode. This whole controversy about Communion for the divorced-and-“remarried” stems from footnote 351 in the Pope’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia. Pay attention to Francis’s footnotes. (Read more.)

From First Things:

It’s easy for us to blame the decline of faith in the West on a secularist mentality and a hostile cultural environment. But that’s only part of the picture. How much of what we call secularism is a result of the Church’s failure to clearly manifest Christ to the world? Every time we meet a disaffected or fallen-away Catholic, we can wonder: Were they lured away by secularism, or were they turned away by the sins of Catholics? And this goes back generations. After all, long before there were Boston Globe headlines, there were whispers in high school hallways and stammered reports to disbelieving parents. How many of those people silently fell away from the Church long before anyone took their experiences seriously? How many of them fell away before they finally left? Why is it that public shaming and the threat of litigation were what it took for officials at every level to act?

Even though we are frequently as bewildered as the laity by each new revelation, there are ways that younger clergy can respond. One way is to recognize that while we did not “create” the mess, we are not free of culpability. Structures of sin—even within the Church, sadly—can pull us in subtly. Because we are not implicated in the horrible decision-making of the past, we have the opportunity to look forward with confidence. But that confidence is misplaced if it relies on our own ability to avoid the same mistakes. What’s clear from the past two decades is that in too many instances, too many men relied on their own wisdom and made terrible decisions. Not only do we have to preach Jesus Christ, we have to live the moral life demanded by the gospel. (Read more.)