Tea at Trianon: When the Sickle Swings: Stories of Catholics Who Survived Communist Oppression

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, December 1, 2024

When the Sickle Swings: Stories of Catholics Who Survived Communist Oppression

I recently read When the Sickle Swings by Kristen van Uden. From Sophia Institute Press:

For over half of the twentieth century, across nearly half the globe, the Catholic Faith was repressed, restricted, or outright illegal. Since 1917, the atheistic, false messianic doctrine of communism found its expression in state powers, whose promises of “equality for all” routinely descended into totalitarianism, slavery, and slaughter. The Catholic Church was a principal target of these regimes.

From secret Masses in the prisons of Cuba, to clandestine clergy in the catacombs of Bratislava, to showdowns with Soviet tanks on the streets of Brno, Catholics resisted communist persecution in every way they could. Like their ancestors before them, they risked it all for their Faith — imprisonment, torture, death — knowing that the preservation of the Faith, and their immortal souls, was the only worthwhile option — and their greatest victory.

In these pages, you will read about:

Heroic priests and bishops martyred by their governments
The resilience of political prisoners who refused to submit to “re-education”
Freedom fighters who died proclaiming “Viva Cristo Rey!”
The underground Church in Czechoslovakia, where bishops secretly ministered to the faithful and continued apostolic succession
How Catholics’ peaceful, prayerful protests were instrumental in the downfall of communist governments
The daily “white martyrdom” experienced by Catholics who refused to join the Communist Party
Why communism’s doctrine of worldly utopia is antithetical to the Faith
The role Our Lady plays in defeating communism

Just as the Church is universal, Catholic resistance to tyranny is universal. These inspiring, modern-era stories, while geographically and materially disparate, demonstrate the same devotion and fortitude common to saint heroes of every age. (Read more.)

At a time when we are constantly hearing from the Left that "Trump is Hitler" and that, in spite of zero evidence, a new totalitarian government is about to be unleashed upon us, it is good to read a book which tells what it is really like to live under a dictatorship. While Nazis are preferred to Communists as the bogey-men of the Progressive elite, Kristen van Uhden's 2023 book When the Sickle Swings is a series of accounts by survivors of Marxist nation states, some of which, like Cuba, still exist. The horrors of persecution, particularly of Catholics, belong to living memory. Kristen skillfully gathered evidence and testimonies from eye-witnesses of Communist oppression, all of whom have lost family and friends to murderous tyrants.

What is really disturbing is how those who have escaped to America see in the present-day Wokeness the growth of Marxism. In the words of one political prisoner of the Castro regime:

Here in the United States, there is much ignorance about Marxist ideology, of how it is disguised with a populist language of social justice that is never carried out. Gender ideology, which they carry out with unnatural sexual education given to children, along with the changes they want to carry out with the New World Order, is all part of the communist doctrine based on neo-Marxism. None of these will be able to triumph. (p.43)

Let us hope that we have escaped full-blown Marxism for the time being. Meanwhile, I recommend Kristen's book as a stocking stuffer guaranteed to provoke thoughtful political discussions.

Order When the Sickle Swings, HERE.