Tea at Trianon: Mothers of Sorrow

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, April 2, 2023

Mothers of Sorrow

We send our children out into the world, hoping they will be safe. Now a Catholic university in Ohio seems to be the definition of well-being and security. The Franciscan University has a happy, carefree spirit that comes not only from youthful energy but from the zeal for the Faith. A few years before the incident in question I stayed with friends in their house on MacDowell Street near the campus. I would never have guessed that a horrendous crime would soon occur in what looked to me like a safe neighborhood. But in the early morning hours of May 31, 1999 two students from the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Brian Muha and Aaron Land, were savagely beaten and kidnapped at gunpoint during a home invasion. The assailants were two eighteen-year-old boys, known to their friends as Boo and Terrell, who coveted Brian's Chevy Blazer, parked outside the house on MacDowell Street. The kidnappers did not even know the names of their victims and had no previous acquaintance; other than stealing the car the motive of the crime appeared to be nothing more than the amusement of the perpetrators. After driving them across the Pennsylvania border and tormenting them in the most vile and inhuman ways, Terrell and Boo marched Brian and Aaron up a hill near Route 22 and shot them each in the head. The bodies were found beneath a wild white rose bush on June 4, 1999.

Meanwhile Boo and Terrell had been arrested, partly due to the fact that they were bragging about what they had done to the "white students." Other than having white skin, Brian and Aaron were hounded to death because they were students at a Catholic university which, perhaps unknown to Boo and Terrell, was and is an ethnically diverse institution, dedicated to educating young people from all over the world regardless of color and social class. It brings to mind other murders of Catholics in the last two thousand years in which sexual humiliation or degradation occurred in order to mock, and attempt to taint, the purity which those who hate us seem to know we value. I am reminded of the virgin martyrs of pagan Rome, of some of the Jesuit Martyrs of North America, to martyrs of modern times like the Servant of God Elisabeth of France, whose modesty was outraged moments before being guillotined. And then there are the millions who died in gulags and concentration camps of the twentieth century, where being stripped naked was par for the course. More recently we have heard stories of the treatment of Christian women in the hands of ISIS. We Christians are repeatedly forced to recognize the evil that exists in the same world with the children we are sending into it. Only the Passion of Our Savior gives any consolation and shows us that evil can be turned into good.

Both Brian and Aaron were the sons of devout Catholic single mothers, Rachel Ganim Muha and Kathleen O'Hara., who have each tried in their own way to bring good out of the bottomless pit of horror and tragedy that surrounded the murders of their children and the trials of the killers. A recent book about the case is from the point of view of Mrs. Muha called Legacy of Mercy. Legacy of Mercy by Gretchen Crowe is a life-changing book. To say it is inspiring is an understatement. A day-by-day account of the case is given, including the testimonies of friends and families of the victims. It is powerful how the Franciscan University community came together to support the stricken families with loving care and prayers. After the trial in Ohio found the perpetrators guilty of murder they had to be tried again in Pennsylvania where the actual murders had occurred, putting the victim's families through hell all over again. Throughout all the turmoil, Brian's mother Mrs. Muha was determined that her son's legacy would not be his murder, but a foundation in his name that would glorify God by corporal and spiritual works of mercy, especially for underprivileged children. The second part of the book is about the work of the Brian Muha Foundation and how forgiveness for the sake of Christ can bring redemption, and even positive social change, out of pure darkness.

Here is a quote from a statement made by Mrs. Muha at the trial of one of her son's killers, which is also in the book:

I want you to know, Terrell, that when Brian looked at you that early morning, he saw the hate in your eyes, he saw the viciousness in your face, but I know he didn't see the color of your skin. He didn't care about skin color, as you and your so-called "friends" seem to. He didn't hate people because of their skin color -- he didn't hate anyone. Hate is madness of the heart -- it makes people mean -- and Brian's heart was, and is even more so now, beautiful. There is a woman in Steubenville named Loretta Johnson, a black woman who came to me after Brian and Aaron were found and told me about Brian helping her out at her home -- she is very poor and her home needed repairs. Many of the Franciscan University students do the same. You needed a real friend in your life, Terrell, and Brian and Aaron would have been that for you. (Read more.)

In 2009 Aaron's mother Kathleen O'Hara's book A Grief Like No Other: Surviving the Violent Death of Someone You Love was published. As a professional counselor, Mrs. O'Hara's work is a tool for other counselors as well as for their clients, people who may or may not be Catholic but who have PTSD or who are trying to help someone with PTSD. I found the exploration of the various stages of grief and the stress disorders experienced by those who have endured violence and great physical suffering to be helpful in understanding traumatic occurrences in my own family. It can be helpful to understand why people act the way they do as a result even of second hand trauma. And the book makes it clear that there are some experiences which alter us forever, from which there is no total healing in this world. It reminds me of Madame Royale in which the heroine struggles to go on in the face of the aftereffects of the violent murder of her entire family. It is the suffering of living, in which hope comes only from faith in the Risen Christ.