Tea at Trianon: The Sacred Church and the Secular Church

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

Wednesday, February 10, 2021

The Sacred Church and the Secular Church

From Crisis:

In our day, many false teachers have slipped in among us, “persons who distort the message about the grace of our God in order to excuse their immoral ways, and who reject Jesus Christ” (Jude 4). St. Jude forcefully condemns all deliberate attempts to twist moral teaching which malevolently seek to justify “sexual immorality and perversion.” The result is that “they suffer the punishment of eternal fire as a plain warning to all” (Jude 7; cf. Rev 21:8).

By teacher, let us understand both those entrusted with preserving and promulgating the Gospel (both ordained and laymen) and soi-disant Catholics who lead our society. These self-styled Catholics are supposed to ground their political judgments in the natural moral law, rather than in mere personal advantage or lust for power. To list the false prelates, priests, professors, pundits, and politicians—to enumerate all those whom we “must order to stop”—would require scores of pages. Consider the relevance of Malachi: “But now you priests have turned away from the right path. Your teaching has led many to do wrong” (2:8). (Read more.)