The Economic Dictatorship

In the words of Pope Pius XI:

This accumulation of might and of power generates in turn three kinds of conflict. First, there is the struggle for economic supremacy itself; then there is the bitter fight to gain supremacy over the State in order to use in economic struggles its resources and authority; finally there is conflict between States themselves, not only because countries employ their power and shape their policies to promote every economic advantage of their citizens, but also because they seek to decide political controversies that arise among nations through the use of their economic supremacy and strength. 

This dictatorship is being most forcibly exercised by those who, since they hold the money and completely control it, control credit also and rule the lending of money. Hence they regulate the flow, so to speak, of the life-blood whereby the entire economic system lives, and have so firmly in their grasp the soul, as it were, of economic life that no one can breathe against their will.  (Read entire article.)

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Old Saint Joseph's

The other day I went to a jousting tournament at the oldest church in Talbot County, Maryland. Jousting is the state sport of Maryland, and the tournament blended in very well with the parish summer festival, replete with games and a huge country dinner, in the midst of broad, sweeping fields on an isolated country road. The church was  built in such an isolated area because of the laws against Catholics which once banned any public celebration of Mass. I explored the church building and was entranced by the traditional beauty of the sanctuary. Here is the history of St. Joseph's:

Old St. Joseph's Church was established in 1765 by Father Joseph Mosley as St. Joseph's Mission. Father Albert Peters was the last resident Jesuit pastor when, in 1864, the Mission was transferred to the Diocese of Wilmington.

Tuckahoe, after the Indian tribe inhabiting this area, was the original name of the district in which Father Mosley established his residence and built the church. His correspondence is inscribed, "Tuckahoe, on Wye River, and St. Joseph's Talbot County Head of Wye."

Vessels from London used to anchor in the Wye, three miles from his house, and the Captains executed commissions for him and took care of letters to and from England. But this means of communication was only occasional and uncertain, so Father Mosley directed that letters to him should be addressed in care of Father Harding, at Philadelphia, 110 miles away. When postal facilities were increased, many years later, the catalogue of the Province gave the address: "Wye Mills P.O. and Cordova P.O."

The Priest's residence was in a lonely rural spot and there was not a Catholic living within six miles of it. The Mission, in the days of Father Mosley, and for years afterwards was very extensive, embracing ten counties. In later years, it was restricted to the charge of Talbot, Caroline, and Queen Anne's Counties.

At the time of the surrender of the Mission to the Wilmington Diocese, the stations depending upon St. Joseph's were Denton and Easton. Denton, where there was a wooden church, was ten miles away, and Easton, the county town of Talbot, was a greater distance. The parish priest now resides at the latter place, from which St. Joseph's is attended as a station.

Father Joseph Moseley was a native of Lincolnshire, England, born November 16, 1731. He studied at St. Omers, and entered the Jesuit Society in 1748. Coming to Maryland in 1758, he labored for some time in Charles and St. Mary's counties and, in 1765, he founded the Mission of St. Joseph's and remained in sole charge of that "arduous station" until his death on June 3, 1787.

The letters of Father Mosley are a record of missionary tolls and privations, presenting a graphic description of the country and the conditions of the Catholics. They exhibit the fullest consecutive account of Maryland that is available from the pen of any Catholic missionary during the eighteenth century.

These letters from 1758 to 1768 were written by Father Mosley to his sister, Mrs. Dunn at New Castle on Tynes, England, and to his brother, Father Michael Mosley, S.J., who was at the time chaplain to the Acton family at Aldenham, Shropshire, England. They were published in Woodstock Letters, 1906.

Father Mosley went to Bohemia, August 11, 1764, and began immediately visiting the more remote stations depending upon that Mission, which included the whole of the Eastern Shore, or the present Diocese of Wilmington.

In the first letter to his sister, after settling at Tuckahoe, he gives the reason for founding the new mission and describes his surroundings. The letter is dated October 14, 1766. "It's a Mission that ought to have been settled above the sixty years past, by means of immense trouble and excessive rides it had given our gentlemen, that lived next to it: yet, till these days, no one would undertake it, either for want of resolution or fear of the trouble notwithstanding, it had contributed to the deaths of several of ours and had broken the constitution of everyone who went down to it although it was but twice a year, except calls to the sick." " I was deputy in August 1764, to settle a new place in the midst of this mission. Accordingly, I set off for those parts of the country. I examined the situation of every congregation within 60 miles of it and before the end of that year, I came across the very spot, as providence would have it, with land to be sold, nigh the center of the whole that was to be tended. I purchased the land and took possession the March following."

Father Lewis of White Marsh gave him eight Negroes to cut down the woods and to open a plantation. Father Manners of Bohemia contributed 260-10 pounds Sterling and Father Harding of Philadelphia, 7-10 pounds Sterling to pay for the land.

Father Mosley describes the miserable shack in which he lived for a time. "My dwelling house was nothing but a few boards driven from oak trees, not sawed plank, and these nailed together to keep out the coldest air. Not one brick or stone about it; no plastering, and no chimney, but a little hole in the roof to let out the smoke. In this I lived till the winter, when I got it plastered to keep off the cold and built a brick chimney."

He expresses his hope of bettering things and of providing for future ease and comfort. "The Chief congregation is but ten miles off: second, 20; third, 24; fourth, 22; fifth, at home; sixth, 22 miles. All these I visited once in two months. I have two others which I visit but twice a year - the first, 30; the other 90 miles off. Notwithstanding the troubles I had to purchase the land, to improve the place, to build and tend the workmen, yet I never neglected any one of my missions on their due and set times."

The more distant stations must have been in Dorchester and Somerset Counties, perhaps Meekin's Neck, Tangier Island and Quantico.

Father Mosley was in trouble for a time, shortly after the Declaration of Independence.

The Maryland Legislature prohibited any minister of religion to preach unless he took a prescribed oath. Father Mosley neglected to do this, not through disloyalty, but from scruples of conscience. The other Priests in Maryland had freely subscribed to the oath, but in his remote position he was not aware of this and he waited until he could find out what course should be determined on by his Brethren, so that concerted and uniform action might be taken. For this delay, he fell under suspicion; as soon as he discovered what had been done by the other Catholic clergymen of the province, many of who were Englishmen like himself, he presented himself to take the oath. The objection was raised that the time had expired for compliance with the law. Father Mosley sent a petition to the Legislature, and a special act was passed to enable him to preach.

In those days a sermon at a funeral was indispensable, and Father Mosley notes in his diary, "No sermon, not having qualifies by an oath, to be taken by law, by all that would preach." On the 12th of September, 1780, he notes: "Burial of Mr. William Youngs Queen Anne's Co., Sermon, having qualified by a private Act for myself."

Writing to his sister, October 4, 1784, Father Mosley renewed the correspondence which had been long interrupted by reason of the late "tedious and calamitous war."

He dilates upon the improvements that had been made, and upon the brighter prospects for religion.

"When I first settled," he wrote, "I had not one of my own profession (Catholic) neighbor than six or seven miles; but now, through God's particular blessings. I've many families joining and all around me. The toleration here granted by the Bill of Rights has put all on the same and has been great service to us. The Methodist, who have started up chiefly since the war, have brought over to themselves chief of the former Protestants on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where I live. The Protestant ministers, having no fixed salary by as heretofore, have abandoned their flocks, which are now squandered and joined different societies. We've had some share. Since the commencement of the war, I've built on my farm a brick chapel and dwelling house. It was a difficult and bold undertaking at the time. I began it, trusting on Providence, and I've happily finished without any assistance either from our gentlemen or my congregation."

Father Mosley was so proud of what he had accomplished. As he received no contributions from the congregation and was not aided by the procurator of the missions, he must have paid for the brick house and the chapel from economies and savings in the personal expenses of living. Pew rents and collection boxes were unknown in those primitive days. The residence and chapel were under the same roof; this arrangement being adopted in several of the Maryland missions, in order to evade the operation of the law at the time, which forbade public places of worship for Catholics. The priest, as a private gentleman, attached the chapel to his residence. It was considered to be a part of his private property to which his neighbors were invited.

The zealous labors of Father Mosley were crowned with such success that he could report five or six hundred communicants in his mission in 1786. The territory dependent upon St. Joseph's had in earlier times been visited by one of the priests from Bohemia who, on his rounds lodged with some Catholic family. Records mention some priests stationed at Queen Anne, such as Father James Quinn who was killed in crossing the Choptank River, in 1745, dragged by his horse from the St. Joseph's tournament was held each year from 1868 to when Knights tried spearing the rings riding on the running board of automobiles rather than mounted on horses. The practice apparently did not prove popular because of it, and the fact that quite a few of the riders were in the Armed Services, were cited as reasons for not holding the tournament in 1918.

The 350-acre farm surrounding St. Joseph's was held until 1882, when it was sold to John P. Steele. The Church and a few acres surrounding it, were retained.

In 1848 some alterations and changes were made to the Church but to what extent is not definitely known. While searching through the records of St. Joseph's Church, papers were found asking parishioners to subscribe to the fund. The paper was hung at the rear of the church and read as follows:

"The church was built in the year 1782, by Father Joseph Mosley, of the Society of Jesus. It is now not only too small for the congregation, but also needs repairs. A record will be kept at the church in which will be inscribed names of those who contributed and the sums which they subscribed."

The cemetery adjoining the church is almost as old as the church itself. Records of Father Mosley's record that Mr. Charles Seth was the first person to be buried on these grounds on January 3, 1767.

St. Joseph's remodeled in its present design in 1900, is the oldest Catholic Church in existence on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Priests who have served St. Joseph's from Easton since it became a part of the Diocese of Wilmington in 1874 have included Fathers, Tuohy, O'Neill, Comiskey, McGoldrick, Walsh, Murphy, Daughtery, Irwin and Gegan. Right Reverend Monsignor Joseph Irwin, Father John Farrington, Father Howard T. Clark, Father John Kavanaugh, Father Paul F. Jennings, Jr..

The present pastor is Father Robert E. Coine.

Pictures of church, HERE. Share

The Hand of St. James

The history of a famous relic.

The relic came to there from the Empress Matilda, daughter of the founder of the abbey, King Henry I. She had been married to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V and following his death in 1125 Matilda returned to England bringing with her the relic of the hand, which hitherto had been part of the Imperial treasure.

The King had founded the abbey of the Virgin and St John in 1121 with Cluniac monks, and endowed it with a formidable collection of relics. The Empress presented the apostle's hand to Reading where it became the principal one, being that of an apostle, the brother of St John the co-patron and a link with the Cluniac inspired pilgrimage to Santiago. From the relic came the use of the shell as an heraldic symbol by the abbey and town of Reading.

The story of the relic and the unsuccessful attempts of the Emperor Frederick I to regain it from King Henry II are retold by the late Prof. Karl Leyser in a splendid essay reprinted in his Medieval Germany and her neighbours. For an excellent biography of the Empress I would recommend Marjorie Chibnell's 1991 Empress Matilda: Queen Consort, Queen Mother and Lady of the English.

The relic remained at Reading until the destruction of the abbey in 1539. There is more about the abbey on the website of the Friends of Reading Abbey. In 1786 workmen found what appears to be the holy hand in the ruins of the abbey - there is more about that here. The relic is now held at St Peter's Catholic church in Marlow. (Read entire article.)

More HERE and HERE. Share

Thisbe

Anonymous French, Studies of a Spaniel.

Red chalk on paper, 18th century. Ashmolean Museum.

Lauren discusses Marie-Antoinette's spaniel.

And how could we forget Thisbe?  This little spaniel belonged to the queen during her later years, and some revolutionary stories about the pup give him a Greyfriars Bobby-like tale!  The little spaniel, known as Thisbe, was with the queen and her family when they were imprisoned in the Temple.  When Louis XVI was guillotined, the pup stayed with the queen and her children, and still when the children were taken.  Only were they separated when Marie Antoinette was moved to the Conciergerie. (Read entire post.)

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Is Storytelling a Dying Art?

Sometimes I wonder. So does Barbara Nicolosi, who says:

What are the elements of a good story? There are many ways to answer this question. We could say with the ancient Greeks that a good story has something for the mind (logos), something for the heart (pathos) and something for the imagination (ethos). We could speak of a story in a moral sense as something that communicates a worthy truth in a way that elicits compunction. Or we could speak of it using the work of the original populist storyteller, Aesop, as a meter. His stories have lasted thousands of years because they are very economical in terms of language and events, are completely unified by necessity, have high stakes, ironic consequences and are sprinkled with creativity and humor. (Read entire article.)

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The War on Conscience

HHS and free contraceptives.

The regulations include only a narrow religious exemption that allows group health plans of “religious employers” to opt-out of coverage for contraception or sterilization. The exemption offers no protection for the personal conscience rights of individual health care providers or subscribers.

Furthermore, the HHS definition of “religious employers,” covers only organizations with the specific purpose to instill “religious values,” (i.e. not provide health care or an education) and which “primarily employ” and “serve…persons who share the religious tenets of the organization” (rather than serve all comers, as most Catholic health care and social service agencies do). The definition stands Catholic teaching on its head, according to Sr. Mary Ann Walsh of the USCCB, because it “ignores the underlying principle of Catholic charitable actions: we help people because we are Catholic, not because our clients are.”

The  result? HHS regulations, Sr. Walsh says, will “force church institutions to buy contraceptives, including drugs that can disrupt an existing pregnancy, through insurance they offer their own employees…[so] the religious order that runs a Catholic hospital has to foot the bill for surgical sterilizations. And diocesan Catholic Charities agencies have to use money that would be better spent on feeding the poor to underwrite services that violate church teachings.”(Read entire article.)

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Paper Roses

A delightful blog from Holland. Share

A Lost Moon

Did the earth ever have a second, smaller moon? (Via Lee Hamilton.)

SANTA CRUZ, CA--The mountainous region on the far side of the moon, known as the lunar farside highlands, may be the solid remains of a collision with a smaller companion moon, according to a new study by planetary scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

The striking differences between the near and far sides of the moon have been a longstanding puzzle. The near side is relatively low and flat, while the topography of the far side is high and mountainous, with a much thicker crust. The new study, published in the August 4 issue of Nature, builds on the "giant impact" model for the origin of the moon, in which a Mars-sized object collided with Earth early in the history of the solar system and ejected debris that coalesced to form the moon. The study suggests that this giant impact also created another, smaller body, initially sharing an orbit with the moon, that eventually fell back onto the moon and coated one side with an extra layer of solid crust tens of kilometers thick.

"Our model works well with models of the moon-forming giant impact, which predict there should be massive debris left in orbit about the Earth, besides the moon itself. It agrees with what is known about the dynamical stability of such a system, the timing of the cooling of the moon, and the ages of lunar rocks," said Erik Asphaug, professor of Earth and planetary sciences at UC Santa Cruz. (Read entire article.)

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Modesty and Friendship

Some interesting reflections from Jennifer Fulwiler.

For women to embrace modesty is to declare a truce with one another. They can still aim to look nice, but mutual agreement on of reasonable standards of dress draws the boundary lines so that it doesn’t break out into a distracting competition. (Read entire article.)

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