Tea at Trianon: Ratcheting Up: Destruction of Churches in France

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

Saturday, July 15, 2023

Ratcheting Up: Destruction of Churches in France

From Church Militant:

Attacks on Catholic churches in France are intensifying, despite President Emmanuel Macron's pledge to protect them. The shooting death of a Muslim teen outside Paris by police on June 27 has ignited rioting across the country. Angry mobs have blockaded roads, set cars ablaze, ransacked hundreds of banks, looted stores and destroyed a major city's largest library. Tens of thousands of police, hundreds now injured, have been deployed to deal with the situation.

Churches have suffered escalating attacks, some torched and/or vandalized, and remain unprotected and vulnerable. Authorities and media outlets have been reluctant to identify the causes of the attacks and/or the perpetrators.

Investigative journalist Amy Mek tweeted this observation on July 1:

Attacks on Churches are the norm in France; two Churches a day are vandalized — they are being burned, demolished, and abandoned, and their adherents are being sacrificed on the altar of political correctness. Priests are under constant threat. At what point will France's open border politicians be held responsible?

On Sunday morning, July 9, the 12th-century St. Georges Church in Descartes, a town in central France, caught fire. The roof was completely destroyed, and the bell tower collapsed. The church had been the last place of Catholic worship in the town. French media said the roof was ignited "probably due to a storm." (Read more.)