Coronation of Louis XIV

From Tiny-Librarian via East of the Sun, West of the Moon: "On June 7th, 1654, Louis XIV was crowned King of France. He had been King for eleven years already, but having turned 15 (He would be 16 three months after his coronation) he was declared to be 'of age' to rule on his own without a regent." Share

The Donald and The La Raza Judge

From PJB:

On May 27, Curiel, at the request of The Washington Post, made public plaintiff accusations against Trump University — that the whole thing was a scam. The Post, which Bob Woodward tells us has 20 reporters digging for dirt in Trump’s past, had a field day. And who is Curiel? An appointee of President Obama, he has for years been associated with the La Raza Lawyers Association of San Diego, which supports pro-illegal immigrant organizations. Set aside the folly of letting Clinton surrogates like the Post distract him from the message he should be delivering, what did Trump do to be smeared by a bipartisan media mob as a “racist”? He attacked the independence of the judiciary, we are told. But Presidents Jefferson and Jackson attacked the Supreme Court, and FDR, fed up with New Deal programs being struck down, tried to “pack the court” by raising the number of justices to 15 if necessary. Abraham Lincoln leveled “that eminent tribunal” in his first inaugural, and once considered arresting Chief Justice Roger Taney. (Read more.)

From Human Events:

Behind the respectable front of the National Council of La Raza lies the real agenda of the La Raza movement, the agenda that led to those thousands of illegal immigrants in the streets of American cities, waving Mexican flags, brazenly defying our laws, and demanding concessions. Key among the secondary organizations is the radical racist group Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan, or Chicano Student Movement of Aztlan (MEChA), one of the most anti-American groups in the country, which has permeated U.S. campuses since the 1960s, and continues its push to carve a racist nation out of the American West.

One of America’s greatest strengths has always been taking in immigrants from cultures around the world, and assimilating them into our country as Americans. By being citizens of the U.S. we are Americans first, and only, in our national loyalties. This is totally opposed by MEChA for the hordes of illegal immigrants pouring across our borders, to whom they say:

“Chicano is our identity; it defines who we are as people. It rejects the notion that we…should assimilate into the Anglo-American melting pot…Aztlan was the legendary homeland of the Aztecas … It became synonymous with the vast territories of the Southwest, brutally stolen from a Mexican people marginalized and betrayed by the hostile custodians of the Manifest Destiny.” (Statement on University of Oregon MEChA Website, Jan. 3, 2006)

(Read more.)

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Why We Need Alpha Males

From Intellectual Takeout:

While we like to pretend things are different in the 21^st century and we’ve progressed, the truth is that we have not. Human nature is still human nature. World War II won’t be the last world war. Hitler, Tojo, Stalin, Mao, ISIS, and the rest won’t be the last bad guys. Just like in the past, as we see in the Middle East and Africa today, the wolves are often quite powerful, raping and pillaging, enslaving and conquering.

But even when we’re not confronted with these great battles of the ages, we are challenged by the wolves in our daily life. There are, of course, the temptations of the heart, but there are also those will always prey upon the weaker. If the good are not stronger than the wolves, what will stop them?

Democracy on its own certainly won’t. If we’re honest, democracy – like all societies – requires alpha males to keep order and to enforce the values of the society against those who would act on their own “wills to power”. Vote all you want, but if no one follows up the laws with force, they are meaningless.

Of course, it’s also important to note that when we talk of needing masculinity and strong men, we not only recognize biological reality, but that we also call for virtuous behavior. We need strong men who hold to their duties to their families, to support and protect their wives and children, who act with honor to those around them, who pursue truth, beauty, and goodness. (Read more.)

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Details of the Queen's Theater

The ceiling of Marie-Antoinette's private theater at Petit Trianon and other details. From Prince de Versailles via East of the Sun, West of the Moon.


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French Azilum

From Mountain Home:

As you follow Route 6 east of Towanda through the wooded hills of Bradford County, the road climbs the 1,600-foot ridge of Summer Mountain, offering far below lovely views of one of the most idyllic spots in the Keystone State: the Susquehanna River meandering in a great horseshoe bend encircling a broad terrace of gentle fields and pastures and isolated farmhouses. This peaceful place is called French Azilum (asylum). If the sight gives you a sense of pastoral bliss, imagine how the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, would have felt had she escaped the terrors of the French Revolution to inhabit a great log mansion here, fleeing the guillotine for the remote safety and bounty of Penn’s Woods in the New World.

That was the plan: In the fall of 1793 a small group of French exiles came up the Susquehanna from Wilkes-Barre in dugout canoes and boats provided by a French trader. They were citizens of France who “had fled to Philadelphia to escape the certain imprisonment and probable death for which their loyalty to Louis the XVI marked them,” according to a Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission leaflet. “A few were of the courtier circle close to the king; some were of the minor nobility, officeholders, army officers, professional men, clergymen, merchants, and few artisans.” Others fled the French colony of Santo Domino where mulatto and slave uprisings were replicating the carnage of Paris, and joined the asylum far from revolution, insurrections, and the yellow fever outbreak then sweeping Philadelphia.

The two Frenchmen who established the colony were otherwise certainties for the executioner’s blade: attorney Antoine Omer Talon, former chief justice of the criminal court of France, and Louis de Noailles, Lafayette’s brother-in-law, who had fought with distinction in the American Revolution. A member of the French National Assembly of 1789, his mother was chief maid of honor to Marie Antoinette.

Sensing a business opportunity, Philadelphians Robert Morris, who signed the Declaration of Independence and financed the American Revolution, wealthy businessman Stephen Girard, and others formed a land company and purchased sixteen hundred acres to establish Azilum. Thirty log houses went up by the next spring, including La Grand Maison, a two-story log house, eighty feet by sixty, which became the center of the social life of the sophisticated French town in the wilderness. Talleyrand and Louis Phillipe, a future King of France, stayed as guests; this was the house set aside for the queen. But Marie Antoinette was beheaded that same fall, October 16, 1793. Undeterred, the exiles in time added a schoolhouse, a chapel, a theater, dairying and sheep, gardens and orchards, a gristmill, blacksmith, a piano, a horseman who rode the mail to Philadelphia weekly, and makers of soap, gunpowder, and glass. But soon the town disappeared into the wilderness. With the bankruptcies of builders Morris and Nicholson, the émigrés left for Charleston or New Orleans, returned to Santo Domingo, or, after 1803, returned safely to France under Napoleon. A few families, such as the LaPortes, remained, and they and their descendants settled local communities. (Read more.)

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Louis Joseph Xavier de France (1781-1789)

A miniature sketch of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette's oldest son who died on June 4, 1789. Share

Christ or Celebrities?

From Mary Jo Anderson:

Pope Francis recently added a celebrity gloss to his special project, Scholas Occurrentes (Schools of Encounter), when he honored George Clooney, Salma Hayek, and Richard Gere as his arts ambassadors to help build a “culture of encounter.” The award of the Olive Medal of Peace to these actors drew surprised responses. And rightly so.

Scholas is an organization born in Argentina, whose mission is to school-aged children the world over. It operates under the authority of Archbishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, also an Argentine and chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences (PAS). It was Sorondo who arranged for the participation of Jeffrey Sachs, a global proponent of abortion and population control, at the Pontifical Academy’s climate change workshop in 2015. When the inevitable criticism of this collaboration surfaced, Sorondo defended it. Critics pointed to the use of children as “change agents,” where students are taught to embrace popular globalist agendas and policies, often contrary to the values of their own parents and sometimes even the Church.

Scholas promotes an “encounter of peace” in 430,000 member schools and educational associations in 190 countries that span religions, cultures, and ethnicities. The hope is that via shared interests in sports, arts, and technology the next generation will “encounter” each other, enjoy greater social integration, and create a more peaceful world.

Five months after Francis’ election, Scholas Occurrentes was designated as an “International Organization of Pontifical Right.” Since then, Scholas has built a very strong presence on social media – part of the technology component – as a means of connecting groups. There is a Facebook page, a busy Twitter account, and large YouTube channel featuring many encounters with Pope Francis. The Holy Father will publish a book later this year with answers to questions that teens submit to him through Scholas online platforms and Google “hangouts.”

In his remarks to the Scholas last week, Pope Francis urged his guests to “Help the world recover the language of gestures.” A handshake and a smile add to the words that we communicate. And, it might be said, so do the “leading figures” and ambassadors chosen to represent an initiative of the Catholic Church. “Important values can be transmitted by celebrities,” said Lorena Bianchetti, a representative of the event.

But what does George Clooney symbolize for a pontifical educational effort? Recently Clooney, like Pope Francis, criticized Italy for not accepting more Syrian refugees. This shared concern for refugees may be the basis of Clooney’s invitation and award. The celebrity spends part of the year in Italy in his 22-room, $50 million villa on Lake Como, where, so far, he and wife Amal have not yet transmitted the value of welcoming a refugee family.(Read more.)
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Family Demons

From the Boston Pilot:

Fr. Truqui warned that everything that is harming the family, including divorce, pleases the devil.

Speaking to the Italian weekly Tempi in 2015, the priest said that there is “a demon who specializes in the attack on the family, also cited in the story of Tobias, called 'Asmodeus.'”

In the Old Testament book, the demon is known to have killed seven of Sarah's husbands and was chained in the desert by Saint Rafael. The demon “is present” in many exorcisms, Fr. Truqui said.

The priest recalled encountering the demon “in exorcisms by Father Gabriele Amorth and Father Francisco Bamonte, whom I assisted.” The 90-year-old Fr. Amorth is a renowned exorcist in Rome who has performed an estimated 70,000 exorcisms over the course of 29 years. Carrying out an exorcism can require multiple sessions and each time the rite is administered it is counted as one instance.

“I remember a young couple, very united, who wanted to get married, however, the woman had to undergo an exorcism to be set free,” Fr. Truqi said. (Read more.)

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A Mission for Justice

In a time of civil unrest and racial tensions it is most refreshing to read a book which documents the triumph of faith over hatred and prejudice. Mary A. Ward's A Mission for Justice tells of the first African-American Catholic parish in Newark, New Jersey, called Queen of Angels. Throughout the 1920's and 30's African-American families were leaving the Deep South and migrating north in search of jobs in the cities. Many found themselves living in poverty in slums and without the community networks they had originally had. Many Christian sects stepped in to fill the gap, especially the Baptists and the African Methodist Episcopal church, which gave economic as well as moral and spiritual support to the black community. However, African-American Catholics had no place to worship, unless they became Protestant, which they chose not to do. There were Catholic churches but they were in different neighborhoods and often  blacks were marginalized in parish life. A small group of intrepid African-American women used their scant resources and boundless trust in God to plant the seeds of a Catholic parish in the inner city. They began by meeting in each others' homes and renting store fronts, where they began thrift shops, sodalities, catechism classes, and nursery schools. The ladies who did such work shine forth as truly great members of the Catholic Church in America, and I am grateful to Dr. Ward for keeping their memory alive. They insisted upon their children being respectful and well-behaved. A nun named Sr. Peter Claver helped them as did a series of priests who embraced the sacrifices that a poor parish entailed. Sadly, over the decades, Queen of Angels was often overlooked by the local diocese.

The parish thrived in the forties and fifties, providing a vibrant social life for the local black community as well as actively caring for the poor, all of which surrounded the powerhouse of prayer, devotions and the sacraments which was Queen of Angels. In the sixties, church members participated in the Civil Rights movement; in fact all the African-American churches helped to organize rallies, marches and protests. It is heartbreaking to read how in the seventies the neighborhood sank into misery as crime became more and more of a problem; parish membership declined although the beautiful church of Queen of Angels stayed open for a few more decades. It is now closed.

For an inside look at contemporary African-American history, I highly recommend A Mission for Justice. Dr. Ward's meticulously researched and documented work is a fascinating read which challenges the smug assumptions of both the left and the right.

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