The Garter Martyr

 From The Amish Catholic:

A man of profound faith; a man who took his duty seriously, and executed it with all the fastidious attention of convicted principle; and, for the most part, a devoted husband. Though not entirely clean of adultery, Charles had but one mistress, and that only at the very end, while a prisoner. Alas. On the whole, his marriage was extremely sound by the standards of the Stuart dynasty, let alone the norms that prevailed among the continental rulers of the 17th century. One must rather admire the gallantry of a husband who cropped the ears of a man who dared to call his wife a whore in print.

Charles also exhibited impeccable taste in art. His aesthetic sensibilities led him to amass one of the finest compilations of paintings in Europe. Today, they form the core of the Royal Collection. He employed great artists like Van Dyck and Rubens to beautify the court, architects like Inigo Jones to ennoble the capital, and poets like Sir William Davenant and Ben Jonson to write lavish masques. The Queen and even Charles himself participated in these masques. Henrietta Maria thereby became the first woman to act on the English stage, clearing the way for later pioneers like Aphra Behn and Nell Gwynn to make their mark during the Restoration. All of these developments irritated the Puritans, as did Charles’s reissue of the Jacobean Book of Sports, encouraging the people of England to enjoy various games and festivities on Sundays and feast days.

The 1630’s were something of a golden age for English culture. The vast Laudian effort to restore “the beauty of holiness” in Church liturgy and fabrics must be set in this context. Charles was the king who loved beauty in all things. (Read more.)

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The Art of the Gulf

 From Amuse on X:

During his May 2025 trip to the Middle East, Trump weighed a symbolic but potent gesture: announcing that the US would henceforth refer to the Persian Gulf as the Arabian Gulf. This would have aligned with the naming conventions of America’s Gulf Arab allies, such as Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain, who have for decades referred to the waterway as Al-Khalīj al-ʿArabī. The gesture, while semantically superficial for most Americans, would have carried outsized weight in Arab capitals. It would have signaled alignment with Arab narratives of regional primacy and further isolated Iran at a moment of strategic recalibration.

Iran, however, was quick to object. Tehran considers the term “Persian Gulf” not merely a geographical label but a symbol of national identity and civilizational pride. Iranian officials have gone so far as to call alternative names “illegitimate and void,” and have launched international protests over perceived slights, as in the infamous 2010 cancellation of the Islamic Solidarity Games. By signaling willingness to side with Arab nomenclature, Trump put Iran on the defensive, creating precisely the sort of diplomatic dilemma he could later exploit. (Read more.)

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The Real Reason School Fails Your Brain

 From The Vigilant Fox:

I’m sure you remember memorizing—or trying to memorize—endless facts when you were in school. But memorization without understanding is completely worthless. Real memory happens when you connect the dots. If you don’t understand why you’re learning something, you won’t retain it. That’s why so many students forget everything after the exam. It’s pretty simple. And yet memorization continues to be the focus. It turns out, passive studying doesn’t work. Oops. Flashcards. Cram sessions. Lecture replays. None of it sticks unless you’re actively engaged in the content. (Read more.)

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Re-Dressing the Evidence: Henrietta Maria’s Wardrobe Accounts, 1627–1639

 From Edinburgh University Press:

Dress was a powerful means for displaying magnificence at the early modern court. In its intrinsic material value, meticulous craftsmanship and brilliant surface effects, the richly dressed body signalled social status, cultural discernment and gendered virtue, and could be marshalled to political ends.¹ Given the low survival rate of garments, historians have traditionally looked to artworks, especially portraits, for evidence about clothing styles. Analysis of documentary sources, including inventories, wardrobe accounts and New Year's gift rolls, have also provided a wealth of evidence about dress and its central role in court display and diplomacy. In the cases of Henry VIII (1491–1547), Elizabeth I (1533–1603) and Anna of Denmark (1574–1619), the accounts have been read alongside the clothing depicted in portraits, with close correlations.² But for Henrietta Maria (1609–1669), the French queen consort who married Charles I (1600–1649) in 1625 and created a sensation at court — sartorially, politically and confessionally — there has been limited engagement with the archival sources related to her dress after she arrived in England.³

 

Essentially, the discussion of Henrietta Maria's dress at the English court has focused on how it is pictured in Anthony van Dyck's (1599–1641) portraits.⁴ Emilie Gordenker has argued that Van Dyck depicts Henrietta Maria in ‘English style’ dress rather than more formal French fashions.⁵ She explains that this ‘typical English costume’ is characterized by a bodice-petticoat combination without a gown.⁶ The absence of a gown is certainly evident in most of Van Dyck's portraits of the Queen. Indeed, what Gordenker and others have stressed is the relative simplicity of the dress in Van Dyck's English portraits, especially the ones from the late 1630s. Such portraits invoke William Sanderson's (1586–1676) claim in his treatise on painting, Graphice (1658), that Van Dyck was ‘The first Painter that e’re put Ladies dress into a careless Romance’.⁷ It has not previously been noted that Sanderson was a well-placed source about dress at the Queen's court; his wife, Bridget (d. 1682), whom he married in 1626, was the Queen's long-serving and generously remunerated laundress.⁸ Notwithstanding scholarly acceptance that Van Dyck generalized elements of dress, the conclusion has been that this is ‘usually firmly based on real costume’.⁹ Yet there has been very little analysis of the documentary evidence of what Henrietta Maria's actual dress was.

 

Evidence — in the form of boxes of accounts — can be found in the National Archives at Kew relating to the Queen's dress from 1627 to 1639, those ‘halcyon days’ before the outbreak of the English Civil War.¹⁰ These accounts complicate the view that Henrietta Maria consistently wore specifically English dress, as they refer to a wide range of garments — including many gowns throughout the 1630s — as well as ensembles described as ‘French’ and ‘Italian’. While these wardrobe accounts have been cited by a small group of scholars, there has been no systematic study of the Queen's dress.¹¹ This article provides the foundation for such a study. Given that the accounts are complex, extensive and cover a lengthy period, the intention is to provide a taste of their richness and significance. After a summary of the accounts, the article examines networks of supply and production, including details of major suppliers and artificers; practical aspects of fitting, mending and delivering clothing; gift-giving; and garment types. The focus is on the textual evidence of the accounts rather than the relationship between the accounts and the pictorial record or surviving garments. (Read more.)

 

From Atlas Obscura:

 Around midday on July 4, 1643, in the countryside just north of Birmingham, Queen Henrietta Maria was in her battle tent. Outside, shells exploded. Musket balls* zoomed past. Anxiously, the Queen of England waited. Taking Burton-Upon-Trent, a strategic town with a river crossing connecting northern and southern England, was her army’s first real challenge. Defeat was not an option. But the fighting had already raged for five hours—how much longer would it take to deliver a victory? Three hours later, the queen got her answer. Her royalist army had finally broken through the town’s defenses. Victory was secured.

Eighteen years earlier, the queen had arrived on English shores as a 15-year-old French bride. And now, at 34, she was a warrior queen. The queen would jokingly call herself “she-majesty generalissima.” Lines from a contemporary poem, its author unknown, portrayed her as not just defeating but unmanning Parliament’s forces, literally: “Tis here a woman leads; but one would swear, the armies did consist of women there.” Her skill garnered wide respect from diplomatic elites; the Venetian ambassador observed, “Without [the queen’s] encouragement and aid the king would never have put himself into a position to resist.” During the English Civil War, Queen Henrietta Maria was, it seems, all that stood between King Charles’s sure defeat at the hands of Parliament. (Read more.)

From Gov.uk:

Considering the lack of detailed history (until more recent works) regarding her involvement in the Civil War, Henrietta Maria was certainly a divisive figure to contemporaries. Even pre-Civil War, Henrietta Maria, being a French Catholic, was not a popular figure in England. However, her unpopularity reached new heights in 1642, as she was now seen as a meddling French Catholic, who had undue influence on the King.

Certainly, Parliamentary propaganda was quick to show her as such. It played particularly on the people's fear of a restoration of Catholicism. This was a constant source of mistrust and suspicion, with Henrietta Maria being accused – throughout the duration of the War- of being involved in a wider 'papist conspiracy'. This was not helped by the Irish rebels in 1641 calling themselves the 'Queen's Army' and claiming to be acting upon Royal orders. By 1644, a Parliamentary pamphlet ‘Great Eclipse of the Sun’ (held at the British Library), saw Parliament still claiming that

‘ …the King was eclipsed by the Queen, and she perswaded him that the Darknesse was Light and that it was better to be a Papist, then a Protestant…’.

Although Charles remained protestant, Henrietta Maria nonetheless sought catholic help in raising troops and money to defend her husband's cause. She turned to her native France for money and Ireland for troops. In a letter unveiled in the King's Cabinet Opened in 1644, Charles wrote to his wife that:

'I give thee power to promise in my name…that I will take away all penal laws against the Roman Catholics in England…I… trust in thee as if thou wert a Protestant…'

Though the extent of her influence over Charles is debateable, Henrietta Maria's own Catholicism was a genuine source of contention between the two sides, causing a greater division than there may have been otherwise. (Read more.)

 

My novel on Henrietta Maria, HERE.

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Intentional Deception

 From Newsmax:

CNN host Jake Tapper and Axios reporter Alex Thompson have been making the media rounds promoting their new book, which details former President Joe Biden’s mental decline and the numerous people in the media and the White House who aided in the cover up.

Kari Lake, who serves as President Donald Trump’s top adviser to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, told Newsmax on Wednesday that Tapper, along with the rest of the mainstream media, "was part of the intentional deception of the American people."

"The mainstream media was deceiving America on so many different aspects under the Biden administration and what they were doing when it comes to the border, when it comes to policies that were hurtful to Americans, when it comes to their disastrous foreign policy, and this was their way of now coming out and just washing their hands of it and saying, Oh, we didn't know anything about it. Give us a break," Lake said during an appearance on "Rob Schmitt Tonight." (Read more.)

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Adolf Hitler's Bizarre Hunt For The Holy Grail Explained

It was not the Spanish Inquisition that dealt with the Cathars; just the Inquisition. From Grunge:

Himmler came to see through Rahn's framing the Cathars as an essentially Aryan faith, and the Holy Grail, which is usually associated with Christianity, a symbol of Aryan power. Indeed, through the Cathars' unorthodox reading of Biblical texts, it appeared possible to co-opt Jesus Christ himself into some new Aryan religious landscape. Himmler sent for Rahn to meet with him and convinced the young intellectual to enlist in the SS Ahnenerbe for the sake of research funding while actively undertaking a search for the Grail, which would then serve as a centerpiece of the Aryan cult that was slowly emerging within the paramilitary organization.

In preparation for the writing of "Crusade Against the Grail," Otto Rahn had traveled to the site of the ruined Montségur, searching the tunnel systems beneath the old fortifications for any sign of the Cathars having secreted the Holy Grail away from Catholic looters. As well as the Grail, Rahn was now charged with finding evidence of Aryan civilization, heading to Iceland to search for traces of mythical Atlantis.

At the SS-controlled Wewelsburg Castle, Heimlich Himmler constructed a Grail Room, expecting the SS to become the new Knights of the Round Table, with Wewelsburg as their Camelot. And like the Arthurian knights of legend, Himmler believed that he was destined to find the Grail or have it found for him. (Read more.)

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An 18th-century Cottage in the Yorkshire Dales

 

 

 From House and Garden:

Kitty bought the three-bedroom cottage, which dates to the early 18th century and is typical of the local vernacular, in 2020. ‘It was damp and dilapidated, but I needed a larger studio and wanted to incorporate its garden into my own,’ she explains. In the summer of 2021, with the country reopening after Covid and the restarting of house parties and weekends away, Kitty realised the cottage could have another function. There were, however, budgetary restrictions: ‘We’re a long way from anywhere here, so you don’t throw something away because you don’t like it. Instead, you find a way to make it work.’ Baths and basins were replaced, but the layout was retained – ‘one bedroom and a bathroom are downstairs, but this suits some people’ – along with the kitchen and woodchip wallpaper. ‘Removing it would have been a pain, so we just painted over it,’ she explains.

Then, with a blank slate and Robin staying, the idea arose of using the cottage as a canvas ‘to bring the Dales inside’. ‘There was no plan – it was quite experimental’, he says. ‘One of us would start somewhere, the other would add more – it just evolved.’ Between swims in the river, they used acrylic paints to decorate the walls with grouse moors and boxing hares, imaginatively remapping views so that village houses around the dining room table segue into the Ribblehead Viaduct over the chimneypiece. (Read more.)

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The Biggest Shake-up in American Healthcare History

 From The Vigilant Fox:

It was a moment you’ll remember for decades. Standing before reporters and his healthcare team, President Trump announced the most aggressive move on drug pricing America has ever seen. The plan? To cut prescription drug costs by up to 90%—a direct strike against the industry that’s drained American families dry for years.

“Starting today, the United States will no longer subsidize the health care of foreign countries, which is what we were doing,” Trump said. “We were subsidizing others’ health care, countries where they paid a small fraction of what for the same drug that what we pay many, many times more for.”

This wasn’t just about reining in corporate greed. Trump laid it out clearly: this was a global scam, and America was the one footing the bill.

“And [we] will no longer tolerate profiteering and price gouging from Big Pharma,” he added. “But again, it was really the countries that forced Big Pharma to do things that frankly, I’m not sure they really felt comfortable doing, but they’ve gotten away with it, these countries, European Union has been brutal, brutal.”

Trump promised that would change. “So for the first time in many years, we’ll slash the cost of prescription drugs and we will bring fairness to America.”

How much cheaper? “If you think of a drug that is sometimes ten times more expensive, it’s much more than the 59%… but between 59 and 80, and I guess even 90%.”

For struggling families, this wasn’t just reform. It was real relief. (Read more.)

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Apple Pie Myths

 From Murrey and Blue:

In 1381 England, the first documented apple pie recipe was crafted without a single spoonful of sugar. Instead, this medieval masterpiece combined fresh apples, figs, raisins, and pears in a golden pastry crust tinted with precious saffron.

Medieval bakers relied on nature’s sweetness from dried fruits and honey, creating a sophisticated blend of flavors that would astonish modern taste buds. The pie was encased in a special pastry called a “cofyn,” reflecting the skilled craftsmanship of 14th-century English kitchens.

This original recipe laid the foundation for centuries of apple pie traditions across Europe and eventually America, though today’s versions bear little resemblance to their medieval ancestor. The use of expensive saffron suggests this wasn’t everyday fare, but rather a dish for special occasions. (Read more.)

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Marozia and the House of Theophylact

The dark days of the papacy, which some people think gave rise to the myth about Pope Joan. From Medievalists:

It was during this time that a woman named Marozia entered the scene. Born between 890 and 892, she was the daughter of the Roman consul Theophylact, Count of Tusculum, and of Theodora, a senatrix and serenissima vestaratrix of Rome. This couple had risen to dominate Roman politics and made their share of enemies. One of them was Liudprand of Cremona, a diplomat and historian. He called Theodora a “shameless harlot…whose very mention is most foul, was holding the monarchy of the city of Rome, and not in an unmanly way.”

When Sergius III became Pope in 904 Theophylact and Theodora ensured that their teenage daughter was introduced to the Pontiff – soon Sergius and Marozia were lovers, until she became pregnant and bore him a son named John. For the Pope to have any children was a serious embarrassment, but it also gave the House of Theophylact political leverage. Afterwards, Marozia was then married off to Alberic I, Duke of Spoleto. (Read more.)

 

My posts on "Pope Joan" are HERE and HERE.

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Markets Soar as Trump Clinches Major Tariff Reduction Agreement with China

 From The Vigilant Fox:

Story #1 - Markets are SOARING after Trump clinched a major tariff reduction agreement with China.

President Trump stood before reporters and announced what he called a “total reset” in U.S.-China relations, marking a seismic shift in global trade.

The deal: both countries will reduce tariffs imposed after April 2 to just 10% for a 90-day cooling-off period while negotiations continue on deeper structural issues.

Trump made it clear: this isn’t about decoupling from China. It’s about leverage, fairness, and smart diplomacy.

The result? A dramatic rally on Wall Street.

The Dow surged over 1,050 points. The S&P 500 jumped 3%. Tech stocks exploded—Meta, Amazon, and Starbucks soared more than 7%, and Tesla climbed over 6%. Even Best Buy, which had warned of tariff-induced price hikes, popped 5%.

Once again, Trump proved he’s the master of negotiation. His bold, high-stakes tactics may look chaotic at first, but in the end, he keeps delivering undeniable results.

Watch as Maria Zeee breaks down the full story. (Read more.)

 

From Tierney's Real News:

Each network, and talking head, is spinning this their own way - and I admit I haven’t spent much time on it - but it sounds to me like China caved and came to the table and Trump gave them a way to save face.

GORDON CHANG: “Trump has given China an historic opportunity to step back from a collision with much of the world. Will a hostile Xi Jinping take advantage of what could be his last off-ramp? President Trump traded relief from our tariffs for China’s promise to open up its economy. The only way Xi Jinping can honor the promise is to give up most elements of communism because predatory trade practices are inherent in that system.”

Let’s see how this plays out.

HOWEVER, what NOBODY is reporting is what I just learned today about an old default in China that Trump is likely using behind the scenes as leverage.

I need to study it more but here's what I just learned about the huge debt that Communist China DEFAULTED on years ago and still owes the American people. I didn't know any of this - did you?

I’m guessing the Trump administration is leveraging this old default to renegotiate our trade agreement with China when no previous US administration has even tried.

Communist China currently owes American investors over one TRILLION dollars. The Chinese government doesn't like to talk about it and the US government apparently doesn't want to raise it, until now. But decades ago, Beijing defaulted on debt owed to Americans, as well as investors and governments around the world.

The story begins nearly 100 years ago, in 1913, when the old government of China began issuing bonds to foreign investors and governments for infrastructure work to modernize the country. As the country fell into civil war in 1927, paying these debts became increasingly difficult and the Chinese government eventually fell into default.

In April 1938, the Republic of China (ROC) issued a large volume of long-term sovereign gold-denominated bonds, secured by Chinese tax revenues, to private investors and governments to finance the war against Japan. These "gold bonds" specified repayment in gold or its equivalent value, which was a common practice to assure investors of value stability during times of currency instability.

There were also U.S. dollar-denominated bonds issued by the ROC, but these were more prominent in the early 1940s, notably the "American Dollar Bonds" of 1942, which were intended to absorb excess Chinese currency and were to be repaid in U.S. dollars after victory over Japan.

The China we know today would not have been possible without these bond offerings - which are now in default. (Read more.)

 

From Newsmax:

Investor and "Shark Tank" star Kevin O'Leary applauded the work of the Trump administration on its negotiations with China on a trade deal, saying the finished product will "become the hallmark" for every other country's negotiations with the U.S.

O'Leary made the comments during a panel discussion on CNN on Monday night. His remarks came amid trade talks between the Trump administration and Chinese officials in Geneva.

President Donald Trump dropped tariffs on China from 145% to 30% while China dropped its reciprocal tariffs from 125% to 10%. The countries gave themselves another 90 days to get a trade deal done. (Read more.)

Also from Tierney's Real News:

Inflation has fallen to the lowest level in more than four years as April’s Consumer Price Index smashed expectations for the third straight month. Instead of raising prices, Trump’s tariffs have already LOWERED prices - as he predicted.

Overall, consumer prices increased 2.3% year-over-year, according to the Labor Department’s consumer price index. That’s the lowest annual increase in over 4 years.

You can see that during the third term of the Obama-Biden-Kamala presidency - hyperinflation kicked in (on purpose) - to destroy our country and enslave us with massive debt and interest payments. Trump has to lower prices and inflation again, while spurring growth and prosperity, to Save America! (Read more.)

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Joining Faith and Reason in Educating Catholic Children

 From Mater et Magistra:

The teaching of evolution in Catholic education requires a nuanced approach that respects both faith and reason. While some mistakenly view evolution and Catholicism as opposing forces, the Church has historically encouraged scientific inquiry, provided it does not contradict divine revelation. Catholic educators must approach this topic with clarity, ensuring that students understand both the scientific framework and the theological principles underpinning creation.

The importance of defining terms cannot be overstated. Evolution can mean different things: microevolution (small changes within a species), macroevolution (the emergence of new species over time), and philosophical evolutionism (a worldview that excludes God). Catholic educators must distinguish between scientific theories and materialist ideologies. (Read more.)

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Fatima and the Holocaust

Our Lady appeared wearing the yellow star. To quote Emmett O'Regan:

 This attention to detail was obviously of great importance to Sr. Lucia, who must have considered every last feature of the apparition to be of deep symbolic importance. And the fact that she insisted that the star was yellow and not gold in colour immediately conjures images of the yellow star that would be forcibly imposed upon the Jewish population of the Third Reich. Every Jew in Nazi-occupied Europe was forced to wear a yellow Star of David with the word Jude (or its equivalents in other countries, e.g. Juif, Jood, etc.), which was intended as a "badge of shame" in order to distinguish them from the rest of the population.

In the previous post, we have already noted how after Sr. Lucia's death on the 13th Feb, 2005, a connection was made between the star on the tunic of Our Lady of Fatima and the Star of Esther, in an article titled Hidden Revelations: The Star of Esther and the Secrets of Fatima by Marianna Bartold. It will be worth recapping the main thrust of this argument again here, as the central theme of the biblical story of Esther is her role in rescuing the Jewish people from the threat of total annihilation - which in many ways prefigures the looming threat of a Jewish Holocaust in the 20th century. In her article (linked to above), Bartold connects the star depicted on the tunic of Our Lady of Fatima to the biblical tale of Esther, the famed Jewish Queen who interceded to save her people from destruction on the 13th of the month of Adar - an event which is still remembered by Jews today during the festival of Purim. Bartold notes that the Hebrew month of Adar roughly corresponds to February in the Gregorian calendar, highlighting the significance of this connection in relation to the date of the death of Sr. Lucia on 13th Feb, 2005. Because of a use of a lunar calendar system, the Hebrew months shift back and forward slightly each year, as opposed to the Gregorian calendar which has dates that are firmly fixed. So the 13th February would certainly be the best (and perhaps only) date in the Gregorian calendar that could be used to symbolically point to the 13th Adar. (Read more.)

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Biden’s Motive to Flood US with illegal immigrants

 From America Wire:

Senator John Kennedy and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem teamed up to expose Biden-era immigration policy. Former President Joe Biden’s lack of any real border authority resulted in massive numbers of illegal aliens and asylum seekers gaining access to the United States. Millions of Americans voted for stricter enforcement in 2024, but many are still wondering why the former president would allow a flood of humanity to come into the country. (Read more.)

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The King’s and Queen’s Baths

 At Bath, and loved by the Stuarts. From Austenised:

During the Georgian and Regency times, people believed in the curative effect of hot springs. In Bath, water had been pumped from the city’s hot springs since the Roman times, and visiting Bath became especially popular during the Georgian era.

In addition to drinking the healing Bath water at the Pump Room, many people liked to bathe in the hot springs. Around the corner from the Pump Room, as part of the same building, stand the King’s and Queen’s Baths, which were amongst the most popular bathing places in Bath. The Austen family were known to frequent these Baths during their stay in Bath. 

The King’s Baths were built on the foundations of the Roman Baths as early as in the 12th Century. In the 16th Century, the Queen’s Baths were built on the south side of the building. The Baths were mixed with the exception of the Queen’s Baths, which admitted women only. (Read more.)

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The Angoulême Emerald Tiara

Duchesse d'Angoulême

The legitimate line of the French Monarchy was abolished in 1830, not 1848. From Tatler:

The French king and queen at the time, Louis XVI and his wife, Marie Antoinette, had attempted to escape Versailles during the uprising but were captured, imprisoned and eventually guillotined. When they had married in 1770 Louis and Marie-Antoinette were 15 and 14 years old respectively, and it was eight years later that their long-awaited first child, Princess Marie-Thérèse, was born. Despite having three more biological children, Marie-Thérèse was the only surviving family member of the Revolution and was imprisoned until she was nearly 17.

Upon her release, she was surrounded by throne enthusiasts keen to use her to regain monarchic power, and was quickly married off to her first cousin Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême in 1799, who was living in the Baltics while Napoleon held power back in France. Napoleon’s defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, however, finally saw King Louis XVIII and the House of Bourbon reinstated – with the added bonus of allowing Marie-Thérèse full access to the state jewels. In 1819, crown jeweller Maison Bapst was commissioned by the duke to use 14 emeralds from the royal collection, along with over 1,000 additional emeralds and diamonds, to make the Angoulême Emerald Tiara for his wife. However, Marie-Thérèse faced upheaval once again with the outright abolishment of the monarchy in 1848, theoretically becoming `Queen of France’ for about 20 minutes (which was the time between her father-in-law and husband signing their abdication papers). She left France and her beloved tiara for the final time and sought exile once more. (Read more.)

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DOJ Launches Investigation Into Planned ‘Sharia City’

 From the Gateway Pundit:

The Justice Department on Friday opened an investigation into the planned Sharia City near Dallas, Senator Cornyn said. Last month Texas Governor Greg Abbott launched a campaign against a planned Islamic “mega-city” outside Dallas. The East Plano Islamic Center, via its affiliate Community Capitol Partners, is seeking to construct a 1,000-home settlement around 40 minutes from Dallas. The “Sharia City” would come complete with a mega mosque, Sharia adherent Muslim schools, community college, and sporting facilities. (Read more.)

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Organizing Your Linen Closet

 From Better Homes ad Gardens:

Linen closets come in a variety of shapes and sizes. You may have a standard one with a handful of shelves, a narrow bathroom closet, or a freestanding armoire that you’ve reassigned for this storage purpose. Whatever your situation currently looks like, if the space is overstuffed, it’s time to declutter.

When you let go of things you no longer need, it'll open up space to store items that have been otherwise crowding the bathroom. Medicine, for example, shouldn’t be kept in an area that gets steamy, so the linen closet could make a better location for it than the bathroom once you clear room on a shelf. Rolls of backstock toilet paper and paper towels can also reside in a tidy linen closet rather than crammed under the bathroom sink.

Whether you're looking to create more storage space or just tidy your overstuffed shelves, these are the items you should remove from your linen closet, according to a professional organizer. (Read more.)

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Pope Leo XIV's Portrait, Signature and Coat-of-Arms

From CNA:

The Vatican unveiled Pope Leo XIV’s official portrait and signature Saturday, revealing the American pontiff’s embrace of traditional papal elements just two days after his historic election.

The formal portrait shows the 69-year-old pope wearing the red mozzetta (short cape), embroidered stole, white rochet, and golden pectoral cross — traditional papal vesture that present a visual contrast to the simpler style preferred by his predecessor. Vatican Media published the portrait alongside the pope’s personal signature, which includes the notation “P.P.” — an abbreviation traditionally used in papal signatures that stands for “Pastor Pastorum” (“Shepherd of Shepherds”). Pope Francis had departed from this convention, signing simply as “Franciscus.”

This return to traditional elements accompanies Leo’s papal coat of arms. The heraldic design features a fleur-de-lis on a blue background, symbolizing the Virgin Mary, while the right side displays the Sacred Heart of Jesus resting on a book against a cream background. This is based on the traditional symbol of the Augustinian Order. The fleur-de-lis has particular significance in Catholic iconography as a symbol of purity and the Virgin Mary. (Read more.)

 

From Father Vierling on X:

 Pope Leo XIV's coat of arms consists of a shield divided into two sectors, each carrying a profound message. On the left side, against a blue background, there is a stylized white lily, a traditional symbol of purity and innocence. This flower, often associated with the Virgin Mary, immediately evokes the Marian dimension of the Pope’s spirituality. This is not a purely devotional call, but a precise indication of the centrality that the Blessed Virgin Mary occupies in the way of the Church: a model of listening, humility, and total surrender to God. On the right side of the shield, on a white background, is represented the Sacred Heart of Jesus, pierced by an arrow and lying on a closed book. This image, intense and full of meaning, refers to the mystery of Christ's redeeming sacrifice, a heart bruised by love for humanity, but also to the Word of God, represented by the closed book. This closed book suggests that divine truth is sometimes veiled and must be received and pursued with the light of faith. It's an invitation to trust and abandonment, to persevere in the pursuit of the Gospel’s deep meaning, even in moments of darkness. The motto chosen by Pope Leo XIV, "In Illo uno unum" is taken from a commentary by Saint Augustine on Psalm 127, summarizes the core of his message: “In Him who is One, we are one. ” These words reflect a Church, united in mind and heart by profession of the same one true Faith, despite the differences and tensions that inevitably permeate it in its human dimension. It is an expression of communion founded and encountered in Christ's love, which makes brotherhood and reconciliation possible even in the most complex contexts. It is not by accident that, in his greeting to the Church and the world, Pope Leo XIV spoke of precisely this: of a Church as a bridge, called to overcome divisions, to make space for meeting, listening and mercy. Ultimately, through his coat of arms and motto, the new Pontiff proposes a vision of a missionary and Marian Church, deeply rooted in the love of Jesus Christ and faithful to the Gospel. A Church willing to suffer and commit itself entirely to the service of God's people, aware that only in unity with the Lord can all diversity find harmony. (Read more.)

The fleur-de-lis can also be said to represent the French heritage His Holiness, whose family is also from Louisiana. I love the papal tiara but newer versions have it replaced with the bishop's mitre. Here is more on the Augustinian roots of His Holiness from Vatican News:

In a 2023 interview with Vatican News' Tiziana Campisi, then-Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost spoke about the significance of this motto: “As can be seen from my episcopal motto, unity and communion are truly part of the charism of the Order of Saint Augustine, and also of my way of acting and thinking,” he said. “I believe it is very important to promote communion in the Church, and we know well that communion, participation, and mission are the three key words of the Synod. So, as an Augustinian, for me promoting unity and communion is fundamental.”

Saint Augustine’s reflection on Psalm 127 highlights the theological foundation of this idea. “Christ - head and body - is one single man. And what is the body of Christ? His Church,” Augustine writes. He then adds, “Although we Christians are many, in the one Christ we are one. We are many and we are one - because we are united to Him, and if our Head is in heaven, the members will follow.” (Read more.)

Other Pope Leos:

 Pope St. Leo I, "the Great" who stood up to Attila the Hun

 

 

Pope Leo III crowning Charlemagne at St. Peter's in Rome on Christmas Day, 800

Pope Leo X, first Medici pope, saw beginning of the Lutheran schism

 Pope Leo XIII who stood up to Socialism with Rerum Novarum, plus composed the St. Michael prayer

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How Gates, Soros, and Ford Use "Equity" to Hijack Federal Grants

 From Amuse on X:

Let us begin with a familiar model: private equity. When George Soros breaks a currency or Bill Gates acquires a company, they begin not with domination, but with leverage. A modest injection of capital, paired with structure, timing, and most importantly debt, can produce wildly asymmetrical returns. That same logic is now applied not to companies or commodities, but to ideology. The left-wing philanthropic giants fund non-governmental organizations (NGOs) whose only product is political conformity. They seed them with grants, polish their proposals, and send them, briefcase in hand, to Washington. The return on investment is swift and staggering.

The scale is almost unfathomable. Private foundations make more than $100 billion in grants available to NGOs each year. Those NGOs, freshly seeded and polished, in turn raise nearly $900 billion from the federal government in additional grants. The leverage is nine to one. For every dollar a foundation donates, the federal government grants nine. This is not charity, it is a financing strategy. And it explains precisely why the philanthropic elite are in a panic: the Department of Government Efficiency, under Elon Musk’s leadership, is cutting the cords on this federal dependency at an alarming rate. Their influence pipeline is collapsing.

The trick is in the structure. According to IRS rules, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations may not engage in partisan political activity. This rule, theoretically, keeps charities out of elections. In practice, however, it is honored mostly in the breach. These organizations, funded by Soros, Gates, and Ford, do not endorse candidates. They do something more effective: they cultivate ideology. They infiltrate school curricula with critical race theory, press for open borders under the guise of humanitarian aid, and lobby for DEI mandates in every federal grant application. Their partisanship lies not in the explicit support of a party, but in the propagation of a worldview so thoroughly aligned with the Democratic left that the difference becomes academic. (Read more.)

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Liturgy Wars

This was published before the election of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV.  Worth reading slowly and prayerfully. From Archbishop Cordileone at First Things:

Calls from every post-conciliar pope, from Paul VI to Francis, to correct liturgical abuses and sloppiness have had practically no effect in the lived experience of Catholics in the pews. Something more needs to be done. A comfortable familiarity with the Traditional Latin Mass has great potential for serving this purpose. It also provides a path forward that avoids the hermeneutic of rupture, something else that Pope Benedict pointed out: “There is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal. In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture. What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.” He then goes on to apply this logic to help us understand the true meaning of organic development: “It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.”

Such a continuity in the development of the liturgy clearly stands out from reading the conciliar and post-conciliar documents on the liturgy in light of the received tradition. For example, Sacrosanctum Concilium says nothing about changing the orientation of the altar. In fact, the current edition of the Roman Missal directs the priest to turn and face the people at three points during the Liturgy of the Eucharist, clearly presuming that he and the assembly are facing in the same direction: “ad orientem,” facing (liturgical) east, east being the source of light and a symbol of Christ’s Resurrection from the dead, which dispels the darkness of sin and death, as well as of his return in glory. The east is also symbolic of paradise since, at creation, God put the Garden in the east (Gen. 2:8).

Because the need is so urgent, I invited select cardinals and brother bishops along with prominent theologians and lay leaders to contribute to the Fons et Culmen Liturgy Summit, which will take place July 1–4 at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, California. Cardinal Sarah, a shining light among prelates who understand the importance of recovering the sacred in our liturgical practices, will be there. So will Seán Cardinal O’Malley, whom I invited to speak about how important the order and beauty of Mass can be to the souls and psyches of the poor, whose environments are so often marked by chaos and ugliness. Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith has long been a leader in urging Pope Benedict’s vision and will offer valuable insights on his understanding of actuosa participatio (active participation). 

I am convinced that the future of liturgical renewal requires listening and responding to the felt needs of all the people of God, including those who have been inspired to love Jesus by the beauty and order of the Traditional Latin Mass. Its organic development from ancient times reflects our deep roots in the worship and practices of our Jewish ancestors in the faith. The high altar under the canopy descends directly from the design of the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem Temple, which was reminiscent of the Jewish bridal chamber: The Mass is the consummation of the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. Also, after finishing the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar, the priest ascends to the high altar with a prayer acknowledging this continuity of the two Covenants: “Take away from us our iniquities, we beseech Thee, O Lord, that we may be worthy to enter with pure minds into the Holy of Holies.” 

What is classically Catholic is not nostalgic or backward but timeless. This is how it attains the status of classical: It has withstood the test of time, and speaks to all ages and cultures, including our own.  (Read more.)

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Marie-Antoinette Was NOT a "Feminist"

Marie-Antoinette as the Virgin goddess of the Hunt

 The PBS Marie Antoinette is the typical British propaganda about French royals being sex-crazed and decadent. But the ridiculous notion about it being a "feminist" interpretation is anachronistic, showing a complete misunderstanding of the historical role of women. From What to Watch:

Perhaps not surprisingly, since she takes the title role in the historical drama, Marie Antoinette, Emilia Schüle has a different opinion from most on the much-maligned last Queen of France.

"Marie Antoinette is framed in this one very particular way, but there was so much more to it," says the German actor. "Having played her, I think she’s a very inspiring, even feminist, human being who was fighting for her personal freedom and for her family." As the 18th-century period drama returns for Marie Antoinette season 2, Marie and her husband, King Louis XVI (Louis Cunningham) are in the Palace of Versailles and at the height of their power and popularity. (Read more.)

There actually were "feminists" around in Marie-Antoinette's lifetime, such as Mary Wollstonecraft, who did not see Marie-Antoinette as one of her number at all. Mary Wollstonecraft, called the "Mother of Feminism," saw the Revolution as the dawn of a glorious new era, as she describes in an excerpt from her book An Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution; and the Effect it Has Produced in Europe. When the book was published in 1795, thousands of people had already been killed; the genocide in the Vendée, including the torture, rape and murder of women and children, was at its height.

Yet Mary Wollstonecraft dismisses the mass murders and extreme violence to be merely the result of "the desperate and engaged factions." Otherwise, she lauds the "grand theatre of political changes" which were leading France "from a state of barbarism to that of polished society...hastening the overthrow of the tremendous empire of superstition and hypocrisy, erected upon the ruins of gothic brutality and ignorance." (I have no doubt that by "empire of superstition and hypocrisy" she was referring to the Catholic Church.) She rejoices that the French were at last to "grasp the sentiments of freedom" while being delivered from the "servility and voluptuousness" of the ancien régime.

Mary Wollstonecraft, unfortunately, was not herself unfamiliar with "voluptuousness and servility," as she later became as famous for her stormy love affairs as for her writings. Why certain women turn to feminism has always interested me; Mary's case is especially sad. Mary was the brilliant and sensitive daughter of an abusive and improvident father; she had to protect her mother and sisters from beatings and heaven knows what else. She later became involved with men who used her then abandoned her, contributing to her struggle with depression and suicidal tendencies.

Mary criticized Edmund Burke's lament for the death of Marie-Antoinette and the end of chivalry; she hated chivalry and thought that women should be able to take care of themselves. Poor Mary, however, could barely support herself and the child she had by one of her lovers. Finally, she found a man who loved her, William Godwin, and they married; their happiness was short-lived. She died as so many other woman died in those days, from complications in childbirth. Nevertheless, before her death she found great satisfaction in her motherly roles that she may not have found in other areas of her life. The child she brought into the world amid such great suffering became the gifted writer Mary Shelley, author of Frankenstein and wife of Percy Bysshe Shelley. All of which, of course, is a story in itself....

As for Marie-Antoinette, to the horror of feminists everywhere, she was taught to be obedient to the men in her life, beginning with her husband's grandfather Louis XV and secondly to her husband Louis XVI. She disobeyed only when she thought the law of God was being compromised, as when as a fifteen-year-old dauphine she refused to speak to the king's mistress Madame du Barry. Later, she refused to accept as a confessor any priest who had denied the papal supremacy. At her trial she declared that she was merely the wife of Louis XVI, and had been bound to conform to his will. It was the way she had been brought up, as were all women and girls just about everywhere. This does not mean she was not high-spirited and mischievous, but everything she did was done with her husband's permission. The idea of herself making decisions on her own would have been seen by her, as by most women of her day, as being unwomanly. Marie-Antoinette was not a great intellect like Mary Wollstonecraft or Catherine II or Madame de Staël. She read Rousseau but other than him she enjoyed novels, plays, histories and prayer books. While she believed in the reform of family life, with women taking care of their own children instead of farming them out to wet nurses, and had a great many charities to aid mothers and their children, she was in no way what anyone then or now would regard as a feminist.

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Give Bondi and Patel Time to Work

 From Amuse on X:

Bondi and Patel have not failed the moment, they are precisely meeting it. But the work of tearing down the administrative state is neither glamorous nor immediate. It is, like surgery, meticulous and often hidden from view.

Let us begin with what cannot be denied: results. Bondi has been Attorney General for just 90 days, and under her Department of Justice more than 17,000 prosecutions have been initiated. Patel, only 75 days into his tenure as Director of the FBI, presides over an agency that has made over 18,000 arrests in that same period. These are not small numbers. They reflect a machine still operating, but now being steered, slowly, deliberately, in a different direction.

These figures should already complicate the charge that "nothing is happening." But to appreciate the scale of the work ahead, we must look beyond raw numbers. The deeper mission of this administration is not merely to punish wrongdoers, but to unearth and dismantle the vast, embedded network of institutional rot, often euphemized as the deep state, that has metastasized throughout the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Consider the Civil Rights Division at DOJ, long a stronghold of progressive legal activism. Within 90 days, Bondi and her Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon has overseen the departure, either through resignation or separation incentives, of more than half of its lawyers. That alone signals a tectonic shift. But this is not just a personnel change; it is a philosophical redirection. Bondi is asking a question rarely posed in Washington: who among these 10,000 DOJ lawyers is loyal not to the bureaucracy, but to the Constitution? Finding the answer is neither fast nor glamorous. Reading just one resume per lawyer would take five months of full-time effort. And of course, each departure demands a replacement, one who is both ideologically sound and professionally competent. That search cannot be outsourced to headhunters.

Kash Patel, likewise, has inherited an institution riddled with politicization. The FBI under Comey and Wray became synonymous with selective enforcement, leaking, and bureaucratic insubordination. Patel’s response has been swift, though not theatrical. Twenty senior officials have been removed, retired, or reassigned. More profoundly, over 1,500 agents have been constructively terminated, moved from their preferred offices in D.C. to regional field posts, with many choosing to resign. In a bureaucracy of nearly 38,000, this kind of targeted attrition represents meaningful reform. And yet, it is the quiet work of trench warfare, not the pyrotechnics some seem to expect.

Why does it feel slow? Because the swamp cannot be drained in a day. Government, by design, resists rapid change. Civil service protections, union contracts, activist judges, and congressional oversight all conspire to preserve inertia. Add to this the need to build trust within the ranks, to install leaders who will not merely obey orders but champion a renewed mission, and one begins to see the enormity of the task. Firing is easy; replacing with the right people is not. (Read more.)

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America Ascendant

 From Amuse on X:

In 2019, the New York Times launched the 1619 Project with a simple proposition: that the true founding of America occurred not with the Declaration of Independence, but with the arrival of the first African slaves. What followed was a coordinated attempt to reframe the country as irredeemably racist, its history irreparably stained. Under the Biden administration, this view metastasized. Patriotic symbols were treated as threats. The FBI circulated training documents labeling common American flags as markers of "domestic extremism." Catholics were surveilled, not for terrorism, but for attending Latin Mass. And over 800 January 6 defendants were held for years, many for crimes more symbolic than violent. Meanwhile, across the country, statues of Lincoln, Washington, and Jefferson were torn down by mobs or removed by local governments in the dead of night. Schools named after America's founders were renamed for lesser figures more palatable to progressive tastes. Military bases, long-standing monuments to American history, were stripped of their names and given bland, ideologically approved replacements. The point was not justice. It was deterrence. It was ideological conformity enforced by state power.

Then Trump returned.

His re-election, certified on January 6, 2025, and his inauguration on January 20, marked not merely the return of a man, but the restoration of a nation. Within 100 days, Trump had secured the border, reversing years of open-border chaos. Migration flows dropped to levels unseen since the early 1990s. His decisive action became a global model. From England to Romania, political movements took note. Nigel Farage’s Reform UK surged. The AfD in Germany crept into double digits. Marine Le Pen's party is now the frontrunner in France. Elites sneered, but voters saw results.

At home, Trump wielded his mandate like a scalpel. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk, began a forensic audit of the administrative state. Within weeks, billions in funding were clawed back from useless programs and slush funds hidden in alphabet agencies. USAID, long a globalist piggy bank, is being dismantled. The FBI, purged of its partisan leadership, is now focused on actual crime. DEI offices, once metastasizing across government and corporate America like ideological tumors, were defunded. Wokeness, once a cultural juggernaut, is now a punchline. (Read more.)

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Pope Leo XIII and the St. Michael Prayer

From Unveiling the Apocalypse:

I would like to recommend an excellent book by Kevin Symonds, titled Pope Leo XIII and the Prayer to St. Michael.  This recently published book, which examines the history behind the composition of the Prayer to St. Michael, presents a wealth of scholarly evidence which attests to the authenticity of the vision of Pope Leo XIII.  The author has obviously undertaken a painstaking amount of research for this book, and has translated several key documents which were previously unavailable in English.  A fresh batch of information is brought to light here, including additional material emanating from the eyewitness testimony provided by Fr. Pechenino, and a homily on Pope Leo's vision attributed to Cardinal Pedro Segura y Saenz. Among these new findings we find the surprising fact that the earliest accounts of this vision records that Satan had actually requested a period of 50-60 years in which to destroy the Church, rather than 75-100 years. 

While these documents which Symonds has unearthed are undoubtedly the earliest of their kind, and therefore possess the strongest claim to the full truth on this matter, we cannot fail to notice that this contradicts the common perception that Pope Leo's prophetic vision comprised the entirety of the 20th century, rather than just the first half of it.  On the surface, this discovery appears to indicate that the period of Satan's greater power ended around the middle of the 20th century, at the close of the Second World War. Once again, such a scenario appears to contradict the actual sequence of historical events, and it is plainly evident that the true grip of Satan's greater power only seemed to really take hold in the latter half of the 20th century, after the events of the Second World War, when the Sexual Revolution which took place in the 1960's coincided with a massive decline in the Church - paving the way for current apostasy we are still enduring today. (Read more.)

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We Need More GIs, Not More Generals

 From Amuse on X:

In 1945, at the apogee of American military might, the United States fielded over 12 million active-duty service members. The war effort spanned continents and oceans, engaging enemies on two fronts with ferocious intensity. Amid this global conflagration, the military maintained a ratio of one general or admiral for every 6,000 troops. Fast-forward to 2025, and a sobering inversion appears: with just 1.35 million active-duty personnel, the Pentagon now houses one flag officer for every 1,400 troops. This is not progress. It is bureaucratic bloat masquerading as modernization. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, in a landmark reform announcement, has resolved to reverse this trend. With the full backing of President Trump, Hegseth has proposed a phased reduction of general and flag officers across all branches of the military, a minimum of 20% initially, with an additional 10% following a strategic review. These are not arbitrary cuts but carefully calculated adjustments to align military leadership with operational necessity. The slogan is simple: less brass, more GIs. The rationale is anything but simplistic. (Read more.)

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Cardinal Robert Prevost Chosen As First American Pope

 From The Daily Wire:

Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost was elected the new pope of the Catholic Church on Thursday afternoon. Prevost will take the name Pope Leo XIV.  Prevost, 69, was born in Chicago and is the first American pope and the Church’s 267th pope. He will lead the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics. He appeared visibly emotional as he appeared on the balcony of St. Peter’s Basilica and addressed the crowd in St. Peter’s Square.

“Peace be with you all!” Pope Leo XIV began his address. (Read more.)

 

From the National Catholic Register:

He officially entered the Order of St. Augustine in 1978, making his solemn vows in 1981. He was ordained to the priesthood in June 1982 after studying theology at the Catholic Theological Union of Chicago. 

After being ordained, he earned a doctorate in canon law from Rome’s Pontifical College of St. Thomas Aquinas (also known as the Angelicum) in 1987. 

Prevost returned to Chicago for a short time in 1987, serving as pastor for vocations and director of missions for the Augustinian Province of Chicago. He was then sent to Peru, where he served the Augustinians in various capacities including as a regional ecclesiastical judge and teacher of canon law in the diocesan seminary for Trujillo, Peru, for 10 years.

After being elected the head of the Augustinian Province of Chicago, Prevost returned to the U.S. in 1999. He was elected prior general of the Augustinians in 2001 and then reelected in 2007, serving as head of the order until 2013.

Pope Francis appointed Prevost as apostolic administrator of Chiclayo, Peru, in 2014, and he was ordained titular bishop of Sufar that same year.

While serving the Church in Peru, Francis made Prevost a member of the Dicastery for the Clergy in 2019 and then a member of the Dicastery for Bishops in 2020. In 2023, Francis made Prevost prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops. In that capacity, Prevost played a key role in the selection process for diocesan bishops around the world and in the investigation of allegations against bishops.

In 2023, Prevost spoke to Vatican News about what he considered to be the “portrait of a bishop.”

“We are often preoccupied with teaching doctrine, the way of living our faith, but we risk forgetting that our first task is to teach what it means to know Jesus Christ and to bear witness to our closeness to the Lord,” he told Vatican News.

“This comes first: to communicate the beauty of the faith, the beauty and joy of knowing Jesus,” he added. “It means that we ourselves are living it and sharing this experience.” (Read more.)

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