Tea at Trianon: The Return of the Antichrist

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 22, 2023

The Return of the Antichrist

From Crisis:

Where then will the spirit of the Antichrist be found? He will be found in the one who refuses to believe the Incarnate God has come down into our world; not as an idea or supposition—no mere abstract construct of the mind, thank you—but as an event, a happening, one which we are free to encounter at any time in the life of the Church He founded two millennia ago.

The Apostle Paul is very clear and specific on the matter, calling him in his Second Letter to the Thessalonians, “the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God” (2:3-4). Not only does he disdain to recognize the real appearance of God in the human being Jesus, but he substitutes himself for God, laying claim to the majesty and power which properly belong to God alone.

A very great novel written over a century ago by a priest named Robert Hugh Benson casts a piercing light upon the subject. Called Lord of the World, it imagines a world not so very different from the one taking shape before our very own eyes, into which the Antichrist suddenly appears, bent on possessing everything and everyone. And far from repelling people by the ruthless exercise of his will to power, he is instead welcomed—worshipped even!—by everyone. (Read more.)

The spirit of Antichrist is already here. From Elizabeth Johnston:

A recent university “Sex Week” event featured, among its many workshops on sexuality and sexual identity, a workshop on bondage for which rope would be provided. Although taxpayer funds were not used to put on the event, it nonetheless took place at a taxpayer-funded school, Ohio State University, and was par for the course with what we have come to expect from such events on college campuses. That is, it was packed with workshops and events centered around so-called “sex positive” philosophy and promoting everything from discussions on how to procure “ethical” pornography to abortion. (Read more.)