Tea at Trianon: Cardinal Robert Prevost Chosen As First American Pope

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

Friday, May 9, 2025

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.)