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From
The Catholic World Report:
One hundred years ago on October 25 (Old Style Calendar), a Marxist
political movement led by an intellectual political activist named
Vladimir Lenin mounted a successful coup d’état against Russia’s ailing
Provisional Government. Most believed the Bolsheviks would themselves be
overthrown quickly. Scarcely anyone recognized that it marked the
beginning of one of the world’s most diabolical regimes, one which
lasted until the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991.
The implications of what came to be known as the October Revolution
weren’t really grasped at the time. That’s partly because, as the
historian Richard Pipes wrote in his epic The Russian Revolution
(1990), “the West considered Russia to lie on the periphery of the
civilized world,” one which was “in the midst of a World War of
unprecedented destructiveness.” Yet it didn’t take long for Russia’s new
Communist masters to show just how far they would go to maintain and
extend their rule as they sought to realize the Marxist dream.
The toppling of Russia’s Provisional Government by Lenin and the
Bolsheviks turned out to be an exercise in pushing down a house of
cards. Contrary to later Communist myths, the Winter Palace in St.
Petersburg was never stormed. After token resistance, it was overrun by
mobs of looters. Moscow was a different matter. Fierce house-to-house
fighting lasted until November 2.
In his account of the Bolshevik coup, Pipes points out that most of
the population paid little attention to what was happening. This owed
something to Lenin and his colleague, Leon Trotsky, successfully
portraying the Bolshevik coup as a takeover by the Soviets of workers
and soldiers: organizations which had functioned as a type of parallel
government in the months leading up to the coup. That was hardly the first lie propagated by the Bolsheviks. From the
beginning, Communism has held, and Marxists have believed, that the ends
always justifies the means. By this, they mean they don’t recognize any
moral constraints whatsoever when it comes to seizing and using power
to realize their goals.
Lenin himself exemplified this. The effects of Lenin’s willingness to
lie, sanction mass theft, and authorize the execution of those deemed a
threat to the Bolshevik Revolution only differed from Stalin in terms
of scale. Like Stalin, Lenin was, to use Pipes’ expression, “A stranger
to moral qualms.”
But from where did this essential amorality arise? Lenin himself was
no sadist. He wasn’t the type of functionary which you find in all
totalitarian systems: those who take pleasure in torturing or killing
people or supervising such goings-on. Lenin was, Pipes maintains, simply
apathetic about the suffering of others; his unconcern with their pain
reflected his Communist beliefs. (Read more.)
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From
Politico:
However, Franklin’s sought-after diplomatic goals took
longer to bear fruit. Although the French had been secretly aiding the
Americans, providing military supplies since the outbreak of the
revolution, they balked at signing a formal allegiance with the United
States until they were more confident of an American victory over the
British. It was not until the U.S. victory at the Battle of Saratoga in
October 1777 that France sensed the possibility that the Americans might
win the war.
On Feb. 6, 1778, in the wake of the Battle of Saratoga,
representatives of the U.S. and France, including Franklin, signed the
Treaty of Amity and Commerce and the Treaty of Alliance. The aid sent
under these pacts proved crucial to the eventual American victory over
the British in the War for Independence. Franklin was also on hand to
sign the Treaty of Paris in 1783, which formally concluded the
seven-year struggle.
His image as the democratic folk figure from the wilds of
North America preceded him, and he exploited it brilliantly for the
American cause. His face appeared on French medallions, on snuffboxes,
on candy boxes, in rings, in statues, and in prints. Some French women
active in court circles even did their hair à la Franklin. (Read more.)
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From
The Public Discourse:
The movement in Western societies to bring abortion and euthanasia
out of the shadows and into civilized society has been driven by the
claims that these procedures are (1) acts of compassion and (2) medical
procedures, accompanied by the mistaken notion that the central focus of
healthcare is not the care of health but the elimination of all human
suffering. Abortion and euthanasia are, of course, neither medical
procedures nor acts of true compassion.
My proposal would not be made on grounds of conscience, let alone
religious freedom. It would be made on entirely medical grounds: the
purpose of the healthcare profession is to restore health and provide
compassionate care for those they cannot restore to health. These
death-dealing activities are the opposite of health restoration and
care.
The integrity of the healing professions is at stake. Thus, the
healthcare professions will have nothing to do with them. There will be
no participation; there will be no training for them. Any healthcare
professional who is involved in these activities will be unceremoniously
booted from the profession. (Read more.)
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From
The Week:
Spend a week in Buenos Aires and you may feel like you've seen half of Europe, said Dina Mishev at The Washington Post.
Home to "gorgeous architecture, a rich café culture, wide avenues to
stroll, and narrow cobblestone streets to bike," the Argentine capital
is for good reason known as the Paris of Latin America, though that may
be selling its cosmopolitan charms short. An acquaintance once quipped
that the residents of Buenos Aires are "Italians who think they're
French and speak Spanish." In December, a friend and I decided that
visiting a Paris that was sunny and warm beat flying that month to the
darker and colder original. Walking into the Alvear Palace, our Belle
Époque hotel, we knew we would be treated like European aristocracy —
"at least for several days."
To get ourselves in the right frame of mind, we decide to walk to our
bike-rental shop, a stroll that takes us from one of the city's "most
European-feeling" neighborhoods to San Telmo, one of its oldest.
Naturally, we run behind schedule — "because I can't stop taking
pictures of the architecture." At one cobblestoned intersection, the
buildings' styles range from Edwardian to brutalist, Beaux Arts, and art
deco. Once we meet our guide, we spend the day pedaling along leafy
avenues and one-way stone streets. Lezama Park, with its sculptures and
large esplanade, feels "decidedly" French, though its jacaranda and
rosewood trees "pull me back to South America." In La Boca, an Italian
neighborhood, "the air smells like southern Italy — anchovies and olive
oil." (Read more.)
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From
Victoria:
The living room’s tranquil color palette is grounded by an intricate
antique Lavar Kerman rug made of camel hair. Beyond, soft accents ease
the high formality of posh brocade seating upholstery and noble
decorative accessories, such as the exquisite tapestry pictured above. The home’s classic décor scheme was born from Dick and Anita Boundses’
assemblage of blue-and-white Chinese export porcelain, pictured above
right. Other distinguished finds—an oil painting titled The Battle of Mobile Bay,
above left; antique rugs; and a breathtaking wall tapestry from
Paris—bring Old-World character, depth, and patina to each pristine
room. (Read more.)
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From
The Catholic Herald:
In January, Henry bigamously married Anne Boleyn, his pregnant
mistress. In March, on Passion Sunday, the relatively unknown
Protestant-leaning Thomas Cranmer was consecrated 69th Archbishop of
Canterbury. In April, Parliament passed the Act in Restraint of Appeals,
cutting off all legal recourse to Rome. And in May, Cranmer pronounced
the long-desired annulment of Henry’s marriage to Katherine, then
presided over Anne’s coronation. Henry now had what he wanted. But his new wife had come at a high
cost. He had changed the country’s religion to get her, and now he had
to implement the new faith nationwide. What Henry needed were loyal lawyers and theologians to reshape the religion.
In Thomas Cromwell, he found the former. And in Cranmer the latter.
Cromwell began enriching himself by pillaging and razing the
monasteries. Cranmer legitimised Henry’s every move spiritually. Henry was secure in the knowledge he had ambitious fixers around him,
but what about the response of the rest of the country? It quickly
became apparent that despite passing the Act of Supremacy in 1534 making
himself head of the English Church (Ecclesia Anglicana),
legislation alone was not going to be sufficient to ensure the
cooperation of the English people. Nor were Cranmer’s sermons and those
of the other new bishops.
With little alternative, Henry resorted to the most basic tool of his power: violence. Burning people for heresy was an option, but it would raise a few
eyebrows. The problem was that Henry largely believed in the same
traditional theology that his people did. He had not changed his views
from the time of writing the Assertio. This ruled out widespread heresy
trials. The solution his circle came up with was more radical. (Read more.)
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From
Christianity.com:
On this day, August 24, 410, the city of Rome, once master of
the Mediterranean, fell to Alaric and his Visigoth armies. Someone
opened the city gate from within. The Medieval historian Procopius says
this may have been done by slaves that Alaric had treacherously given as
a token of friendship to the Senators or by the servants of an
aristocratic woman who felt the city had suffered long enough.
Afterward, refugees showed up all around the Mediterranean world. In
Palestine, Bible translator Jerome described formerly haughty women who
would now be happy to work for a crust of bread. He wrote letters
lamenting the fall of the imperial city. Like everyone else, he could
not avoid the symbolism of the event. "My voice sticks in my throat;
and, as I dictate, sobs choke my utterance. The city which had taken the
whole world was itself taken..."
In the sack of Rome, Christians died alongside pagans. Some Christian
women suffered rape, although the Visigoths claimed to be Christians,
too. Some of these women, following the historical example of the famous
pagan girl, Lucretia, killed themselves for shame. Others fled to North
Africa as refugees, where they were taunted by pagans, who asked them
why their God did not protect them or else accused them of cowardice for
not killing themselves.
Why had Christians suffered in the taking of Rome? According to the
Bible, God would have spared Sodom if there had been just ten righteous
souls in it. Yet here was a city with thousands of Christians--a major
church center, too--and yet God allowed it to be ravaged. Pagans blamed
Christian pacifists.
Various people put this question to the greatest living Christian
thinker of the day. Augustine of Hippo responded by writing a
masterpiece, The City of God and the City of Man. This was the
world's first "modern" history in the sense that it offered an account
of world history with a teleological explanation--that is, an
explanation showing that events have "purpose," or destination.
Augustine took a different approach than Jerome. Giving a Christian
interpretation to the events, he pointed out that the barbarian invaders
had spared most of the churches and that even pagans had taken refuge in
the Christian churches. Christians had always suffered and would always
suffer, in this world, he noted. To phrase it in modern cliche, God had
never promised the Christian a bed of roses. (Read more.)
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From
The Spectator:
The National Portrait Gallery’s new blockbuster brings together more
than 50 of Paul Cézanne’s portraits from collections across the world,
including paintings that are being displayed in Britain for the very
first time. The show, which opens on October 26 and is being staged in
conjunction with the Musée d’Orsay and Washington DC’a National Gallery
of Art, aims to shed light on the approach, ideas and development of
this extraordinarily influential 19th century French artist by focusing
on portraits created across the entire span of his 45-year career.
The exhibition includes portraits of Cézanne’s Uncle Dominique,
dating from the 1860s, all the way through to his paintings of Vallier, a
man who helped Cézanne in his garden and studio in Aix-en-Provence
shortly before the artist’s death in 1906. ‘Up until now, Cézanne’s portraiture has received surprisingly little
attention, so we are thrilled to be able to bring together so many of
his portraits for the first time to reveal arguably the most personal,
and therefore most human, aspect of Cézanne’s art,’ says Dr Nicholas
Cullinan, director of the National Portrait Gallery. (Read more.)
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From Charlotte Allen at
The Catholic Thing:
The trouble is: it’s hard to think of anything. You don’t have to subscribe to Young Man Luther-style
armchair Freudianism to conclude that Luther was a mess. He was
arrogant, self-absorbed, self-dramatizing – and thought the world
revolved around him personally because he was smarter than and
spiritually superior to everyone else.
He spent his young adulthood dithering about what to do with himself
(and wasting his father’s university tuition money) in an age – the late
Middle Ages – when young adults couldn’t afford to dither because most
of them didn’t make it much past age 40. Then, when he finally entered
an Augustinian monastery (in one of his typical melodramatic gestures:
You will “not ever” see me again), he wallowed in misery for a decade
because he couldn’t get a guarantee that his soul would be saved – a sin
against the Christian virtue of hope.
When it came to “reforming” the Church after 1517, what Luther really
wanted wasn’t, say, getting rid of selling indulgence or “not ever”
being seen again. Luther was seen. Everywhere: hobnobbing with powerful
German princes who had beefs against the Holy Roman Emperor, helping
them confiscate monasteries right and left (didn’t Luther have one
single fond memory of the Augustinians he’d lived with those many
years?), and viciously persecuting the Anabaptist ancestors of those
nice Amish ladies who sell heirloom tomatoes at my local farmers’
market.
Luther preached sola scriptura, but he freely messed around
with the Bible when it didn’t suit his theology. He inserted the word
“alone” after the word “faith” into his German translation of Paul’s
Letter to the Romans and tried to relegate the Letter of James to
second-class status because it mentioned good works. When it came to
getting married, he couldn’t just settle for a nice German burgher’s
daughter. He had to marry an ex-nun, Katharina von Bora, whom he had
personally lured out of her convent. (Read more.)
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