Banned (Catholic) Books Week

Banned Book Week was last week. Did you miss it? 

For anyone who took it seriously, let me just say this: Banned Book Week is a complete fraud.

The books highlighted during Banned Book Week are the opposite of banned. If you look at any list of so-called banned books, you'll see titles that have been continuously promoted world-wide and most have sold millions of copies. They're not banned. They're everywhere. 

And given the cultural climate, you already know what kinds of books these are. Most are books that in any other era would have been correctly classified as obscenity. Worse, many of them are books specifically designed to introduce young children to deviant sex acts. 

The promotion of these so-called banned books is said to be a freedom of expression issue. It is, therefore, the ultimate irony that many of the libraries, bookstores, schools and cultural entities promoting Banned Book Week on social media last week summarily shut down their comments section. Why? Because many of people commenting have gotten wise to the fraud. They rightly point out that parents demanding that books promoted to their children be age-appropriate are not calling for book bans. But this reaction to Banned Book Week is, apparently, banned.

Let's look at some numbers, shall we? Let's see how the supposedly banned books are doing as compared to, say, popular Catholic books for the same age-range which are theoretically not banned. Catholics are, by the way, the largest religious group in the US in terms of sheer numbers, so one would think that books for and by Catholics would be well-represented in our libraries.

Get a copy here.

First, let's compare two books for children. On the one side, we'll start with Angel in the Waters by Regina Doman. This is a beautiful little book about an unborn baby and his guardian angel first published by Sophia Institute Press in 2004. The book follows the baby during his development in the womb until after his birth, and is engagingly illustrated by Ben Hatke. With a very pro-life message, Angel in the Waters has sold well over 100,000 copies since release and may be found in the collections of almost every big family. 

Checking WorldCat, which is a catalog of books in public and academic libraries, we can see that Angel in the Waters may be found in 96 libraries. Not bad, right? 

Now, let's look at another book for children: I Am Jazz by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings. This is a book for children published in 2014 about one of the culture's pathologies-du-jour: transgenderism. Of course, it is heralded as a banned book. It has, in fact, been banned so successfully that WorldCat shows this book in 1,726 libraries — That's 18 times as many libraries as Angel in the Waters.

Get a copy here.

Moving on to the young adult category, we'll start with Angels in Iron by Nicholas Prata. An intense historical novel for teens and young adults chronicling the Great Siege of Malta of 1565, Angels in Iron is Arx Publishing's bestseller, with over 10,000 copies sold. Since publication in 2005, it has received rave reviews in Catholic media which has lauded the novel as an exciting adventure that should be read by all Catholic youth. The book been included in several bookseller and homeschool curriculum provider catalogs. 

Despite the book's enduring popularity among the nation's largest religious group, Angels in Iron has found its way into only 33 libraries nationwide.

Let's compare this to the #1 "banned" book—Gender Queer by Mia Kobabe. Published in 2019 for the teen/young adult market, this book is a memoir in graphic (and I do mean graphic) novel form about a poor confused soul who uses made-up pronouns. The book's promo text boasts that it includes explorations of "bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction." You'll be surprised (or not) to find out that this profound work of literary genius, though "banned", is available in 2,259 libraries, or 68 times as many as Angels in Iron.

Finally, let's compare two books for teen and young adult readers that have been published for a long time. 

Get a copy here.

On the one hand, we have The Joyful Beggar, one of the best-known works by prolific novelist Louis de Wohl. Originally published in 1958, The Joyful Beggar tells the parallel stories of Francesco Bernadone—the man who would become Saint Francis of Assisi—and the fictional knight errant, Roger of Vandria. This brilliant historical novel would be turned into a motion picture in 1961 and the edition by Ignatius Press remains popular with Catholic audiences to this day. I reviewed it a few years back—it's a personal favorite. It's the kind of book that should be required reading in every Catholic school. The Joyful Beggar is found in 309 libraries according to WorldCat.

Let's compare this with The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison which is #6 on the "banned" book list compiled by the "Unite Against Banned Books" website. If one reads the summary of this novel, originally published in 1970, it sounds like a fairly typical exploration of racism in America. What few of the summaries reveal is that the book contains ugly and graphic depictions of sex, including a horrifying scene where a very young girl is raped. This book showed up in my house when I was a kid, and I read it as a teen, having no idea of what was in it. To this day, I wish I hadn't. And yet, amazingly, this book is regularly assigned as required reading for high school students. The Bluest Eye is found in 6,015 libraries or 19 times as many as The Joyful Beggar. 

So in case it's not abundantly clear at this point, none of the books on the banned books lists are actually banned. In fact, a strong case could be made that books with sexually explicit content—especially deviant sexual content aimed at children, teens, and young adults—are favored in libraries and are generally ubiquitous.

At the same time, excellent works of literature which promote themes of heroism, saintliness, the sacredness of human life, moral courage, and the glorification of Almighty God are much more rarely found. Dare I say that such books are largely banned from our nation's libraries?

I leave it for the reader to ponder how this situation has come to pass, what effect it is having on children and young people, and what should be done about it.

“True and Living Friendship Can Not Thrive Amid Sin” ~ Saint Francis de Sales and the crisis of post-Christian friendship

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A lamentable feature of modern post-Christian life in the West is the inability of many people to form strong, lasting friendships. This observation has popped up with increasing frequency in the secular media, particularly as it relates to the Millennial generation. A recent poll that made the rounds last year indicated that 22% of Millennials who responded said that they had no friends at all, 27% said that they had no close friends, and 30% said that they had no best friends.

The article accompanying the poll suggests that social media usage has been a major driver of this phenomenon. Online "friends" may be myriad, but they are also distant and illusory—not really friends at all in the traditional sense. Most young people seem to understand that implicitly.

As families shrink, and young people grow up without knowing the joys of a multitude of siblings and cousins, this lack of friends means that more and more people are feeling isolated, lonely and are lacking any sort of social safety net to help them when they encounter financial, health, or emotional problems.

But this sad dilemma should not be left at the doorstep of social media alone. Rather, I posit that the problem is at least partially due to a general loss of the traditional Christian virtues as a given among most people, and the tendency to fill that void by congregating together based on vain and trivial interests or worse, outright sinful desires and activities. As St. Francis de Sales taught in his excellent work, Philothea: Introduction to the Devout Life, such trivialities can never form the basis of a true friendships. Instead, true friendship requires that we bear with the trivial, actively discourage the sinful, and encourage virtue in our friends. It should go without saying that the same should be true of married couples and family members.

In Philothea, Saint Francis explains the difference between true and false friendship in great detail:

“Friendship demands very close correspondence between those who love one another, otherwise it can never take root or continue. And together with the interchange of friendship, other things imperceptibly glide in, and a mutual giving and receiving of emotions and inclinations takes place; especially when we esteem the object of our love very highly, because then we so entirely open our heart to him, that his influence rules us altogether, whether for good or evil.”

The distorted modern concept of “love” is often rendered as being unconditional and all-accepting. That is, we are enjoined to demonstrate our love for each other by accepting, celebrating, or even adopting the faults and sins of our friends and family members. Saint Francis continues, saying, to the contrary:

“Of course we should love him notwithstanding his faults, but without loving those faults. True friendship implies an interchange of what is good, not what is evil….Saint Gregory Nazianzen tells us how certain persons who loved and admired Saint Basil were led to imitate even his external blemishes, his slow, abstracted manner of speaking, the cut of his beard, and his peculiar gait. And so we see husbands and wives, children, friends, who, by reason of their great affection for one another, acquire—either accidentally or designedly—many foolish little ways and tricks peculiar to each. This ought not to be, for everyone has enough imperfections of their own without adding those of anybody else, and friendship requires no such thing. On the contrary, it rather constrains us to help one another in getting rid of all sorts of imperfections. Of course we should bear with our friend's infirmities, but we should not encourage them, much less copy them.”

It should be pointed out that St. Francis is only talking about small flaws here—personal idiosyncrasies and imperfections. As to actual sinful behaviors and desires, he speaks without any equivocation: these should never be encouraged or tolerated in our friends. To do so renders the friendship a perverse fiction that can not be maintained without considerable self-deception:

“Of course, I am speaking of imperfections only, for, as to sins, we must neither imitate nor tolerate these in our friends. That is but a sorry friendship which would see a friend perish, and not try to save him, would watch him dying of an abscess without daring to handle the knife of correction which would save him. True and living friendship cannot thrive amid sin....Friendship will banish a casual sin by brotherly correction, but if the sin be persistent, friendship dies out—it can only live in a pure atmosphere.”

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As to those who attempt to lead their friends into sinful behavior, St. Francis says adamantly that we should not consider anyone who does so a friend:

“Much less can true friendship ever lead any one into sin. Our friend becomes an enemy if he seeks to do so, and deserves to lose our friendship, and there is no surer proof of the hollowness of friendship than its profession between evil-doers. If we love a vicious person, our friendship will be vicious too. It will be like those to whom it is given. Those who draw together for mere temporal profit, have no right to call their union friendship. It is not for love of one another that they unite, but for love of gain.” [de Sales: Philothea, Part III, Chapter 22]

In a previous chapter, St. Francis describes what a true friendship should look like:

“Love every one with the pure love of charity, but have friendship only with those whose interactions are good and true, and the purer the bond which unites you so much higher will your friendship be. If your relationship is based on science it is praiseworthy, still more if it arises from a participation in goodness, prudence, justice and the like. But if the bond of your mutual liking be charity, devotion and Christian perfection, God knows how very precious a friendship it is! Precious because it comes from God, because it tends to God, because God is the link that binds you, because it will last forever in Him. Truly it is a blessed thing to love on earth as we hope to love in Heaven, and to begin that friendship here which is to endure for ever there. I am not now speaking of simple charity, a love due to all mankind, but of that spiritual friendship which binds souls together, leading them to share devotions and spiritual interests, so as to have but one mind between them. Such as these may well cry out, ‘Behold, how good and joyful a thing it is, brethren, to dwell together in unity!’” [de Sales: Philothea, Part III, Chapter 22]

Today, January 29, is the feast day of St. Francis de Sales on the traditional calendar. This great saint and Doctor of the Church had many profound things to say about friendship, love, and other aspects of life that are sadly forgotten today. Click here to read more from his Philothea: Introduction to the Devout Life.

Of course, this is a book that every Catholic should have on their bookshelves, so go ye and order a copy here.

New regalia. No Knights.

I don't know who thought this was a good idea--but it's not.

Our parish concluded our beautiful 40 Hours devotion with a glorious Mass last night. It was a celebration of Christ incarnate in the Holy Eucharist and as such, it included profound reverence, gorgeous music, and zealous preaching—the perfect antidote to the secularized Catholic culture which has largely abandoned the belief in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist.

One aspect that was missing from this Mass as compared to the recent past, however, was the Knights of Columbus. In past years, we would have a dozen or so 4th degree Knights in full regalia present. This year, we had four men in tuxes only, holding the canopy over the Blessed Sacrament during the procession after Mass. Where have all our knights gone?

Well, as it happens, the KoC board of directors decided that as of July 1, 2019, the "old" regalia of the Knights of Columbus is to be discarded. Only the new regalia — which looks like something designed by Hugo Chavez, the deceased socialist dictator of Venezuela — may be worn. As a result, the representation of the Knights in full 4th degree regalia at our 40 Hours went from about 8-12 each year...

...to zero.

Back in 2017, when this controversy first erupted, Supreme Knight Carl Anderson explained the rationale for this change in an email. He said, in part:

"The new uniform is part of a comprehensive and necessary effort to keep our Order relevant and attractive to men, particularly younger men."

If causing the Knights to basically disappear from our parish ceremonies was part of this comprehensive strategy to make the Order "relevant and attractive to men, particularly younger men"...well, great job guys.

I would argue that this type of truly foolish misstep is what commonly happens when you have a group of older guys deciding what they think the younger guys might like. To my brother knight, Mr. Anderson, I would humbly suggest that as long as you are living, no decision is forever and clinging to a bad one in the face of overwhelming evidence only compounds the error. The time has come to rescind this unpopular diktat and reinstate the old regalia. Or at least give our brothers permanent permission to wear it.

Or, you can keep enforcing this bad decision until the membership goes the
way of the Sisters of Mercy or Sisters of Saint Joseph.

As for myself, a 4th Degree Knight who never joined the color guard but looked forward to doing so when the responsibilities of middle age subsided, I have no desire to dress like a South American socialist dictator. Perhaps at some point I'll inherit someone's "old" regalia which I can keep in a closet until it may be worn again without disobeying the mandates of the guys at the top.

Fulton J. Sheen ~ Santo subito?

"We become like that which we love. If we love what is base, 
we become base; but if we love what is noble, we become noble."
—Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Deo gratias! The cause of Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen appears to be moving forward again after his earthly remains were removed from Babylon-on-Hudson to Peoria, Illinois.

With the renewed interest in Archbishop Sheen, I noticed an up-tick in folks sharing some of my oldest memes on social media, including the one above.

This quote may be found in Sheen’s book entitled, Life is Worth Living, which the same title as his celebrated TV show from the 1950s. The reason for this is not coincidental. The essays in the book were transcribed from the TV show. As Archbishop Sheen wrote in the preface with his typical good humor:

“Let it never be said again that it is difficult to write a book. It is now proven that if a person talks only half and hour a week for twenty-six weeks, he already has enough material for a book.”

Here is the context of the quote, from a section in the book entitled, Knowing and Loving:

The will, when it loves anything above it in dignity, goes out to meet the demands of whatever it loves. When the will loves anything that is below it in dignity, it degrades itself. Suppose the dominant love of man was money. Man would degrade himself by loving what is less worthy than himself. In loving it, he becomes like gold. If a man loves only lust, carnality, and the pleasure of the flesh above all things, he thereby degrades his spirit to the level of sex.

We become like that which we love. If we love what is base, we become base; but if we love what is noble, we become noble. Hence the importance of the right kind of ideals and the right kind of heroes. As Our Lord said, Where your treasure is, there is your heart also. “Hence, the least love of God is worth more than the knowledge of all created things. [Sheen: Life is Worth Living, page 47]

This passage is immediately followed by another that is eminently quotable and to which I previously gave the meme treatment as follows:

Here are a few more Sheen posts from the archives:

• Venerable Fulton Sheen: “If our will is determined by forces outside of ourselves, we no longer will make amendment for our misdeeds.” 
• Social Justice and Individual Justice 
• “Stalin must one day meet his judgment!” ~ Venerable Fulton Sheen predicts Stalin’s death nine days before it happens

"The feast ennobled by the blood of Peter and of Paul" ~ One of the oldest accounts of the martyrdom of Peter and Paul in Rome

Christ enthroned between St. Paul (left) and St. Peter (right).
4th or 5th century AD, from the Catacomb of Marcellinus in Rome.

June 29 is commemorated as the feast of Saints Peter and Paul, co-founders of the Roman Church. To celebrate this feast, here is a poem written in the late 4th century AD by the Latin poet Prudentius as part of his work, the Peristephanon or Martyr's Garland. The poem follows the way of a pilgrim visiting the shrines in Rome on the very feast of Saints Peter and Paul, and dwells a little on the details of the martyrdoms of the two Apostles.

The poem is significant as one of the earliest accounts of Saint Peter's inverted crucifixion. It also gives an indication of the types of shrines that existed in Rome (or immediately outside) to commemorate Peter and Paul's grave sites during late antiquity.

The Martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul
By Aurelius Prudentius Clemens

May, friend, what means this stir today? What summons gathers all
   These happy troops along the streets of Rome?
The feast ennobled by the blood of Peter and of Paul
   Calls forth the worshippers to leave their home. 

The self-same day with interval of one revolving year
   Beheld the pair by death triumphant crowned.
Full well doth Father Tiber know, gliding those marshes near,
   Hallowed with trophies twain that turfy ground. 

Both Cross and Sword he witnessed, twice the ghastly shower saw fall,
   The self-same herb bedewed with martyr’s blood.
A victim first fell Peter, in Nero’s judgment-hall
   Condemned to hang upon the towering wood.  

But he, in fear to emulate his Master, cannot brook
   To court the doom that our salvation earned:
And he claimeth from his murderer one boon, that he may look
   On the Tree’s nether limb with head down-turned. 

So then his hands transfixed below, the top his feet upbore:
   Greater in spirit as more vile in guise,
Remembering “Who abaseth self exalted shall he soar,”
   To give his soul to heaven, he bowed his eyes. 

Soon as the circling seasons brought the swift recurring date,
   And Orient Sun reushered in the day,
The tyrant spat on holy Paul the venom of his hate,
   Christ’s world-worn Teacher resolute to slay.  

He had seen the goal—had written “I am ready to depart
   And be with Christ,” with heaven-inspired pen.
The headsman does his office. Beats no more that noble heart;
   Nor day nor hour has failed his prescient ken.  

On either bank, nigh each to each, their ashes now repose,
   Where winds the stream between the two hallowed graves;
The gilded shrine that on the right doth Peter’s bones enclose
   ’Neath sough of olives sacred Tiber laves. 

Trickling adown the slope from brow of overhanging hill,
   There oozes a perennial source of oil.
That fountain flows through fabric now of costly marble, till
   In gleaming bath its circling eddies boil. 

Below with hollow undertone the rushing streams descend
   From sparkling basin, white as drifted snow;
Art’s many-colored hues above with amber wavelets blend
   Resplendent moss and gold’s green-tinted glow. 

Lo! where with mantling purple overshadowed lies the pool,
   The fretted roof reflected seems to swim.
Christ the true Shepherd there portrayed, to waters clean and cool,
   Is leading on His flock that thirst for Him. 

By Tiber’s current, where the turf on the left bank is grazed,
    And Ostia’s road guardeth the hallowed ground,
Our prince’s favor there to Paul a stately fane upraised,
   And pranked with golden plates the circuit round. 

With branching foil of metal blaze on high the burnished beams,
   The aisles are ruddy as the morning ray;
Of pillars white ’neath gilded vault a fourfold order gleams,
   And arches dyed as green as leas in May.  

The Father gave these pledges to the nation of the gown:
   To be revered for aye twin temples spring;
Two roads lead forth Rome’s worshippers, to feasts one light doth crown,
   To each we hasten, and at each we sing.  

Where Tiber’s spanned by Hadrian’s bridge, we reach the stream’s left side:
   From vigil and from ritual the priest
Thither hies back to offerings fresh. Thus Rome keeps holy tide:
   Now homeward wend and celebrate each feast.

This version in English is taken from Translations from Prudentius by Francis St. John Thackeray, a text that is, sadly, out of print. It is included along with other selections from Prudentius in this book: I Am A Christian: Authentic Accounts of Christian Martyrdom and Persecution from the Ancient Sources pictured at right.

Paul, Apostle of Christ ~ Telling part of the story

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With the idea of supporting religious film-making, I took the family out to see Paul the Apostle last night. Despite the PG-13 rating, I brought the whole crew, including the six year-old. As it turned out, there was really nothing in there that he couldn’t handle. The only scene of frightening violence is when one of the crucified Christians was set ablaze to become one of “Nero’s torches.”

That said, this movie wasn’t made for the six year-old crowd. Compared to most modern major market movie fare, it had a much slower pace, much more artistic use of camera work, particularly the manipulation of light and shadow and the incorporation of frequent hazy, cryptic, slow-motion flashbacks. Indeed, this was a very dark film about a dark time in human history, and I left the theater feeling contemplative but not wholly satisfied.

Here are three lauds and caveats if you are thinking of going to see this film during the Easter season:

Lauds:

1. Luke. Jim Caviezel, playing the part of Luke, dominates the screen. Indeed, a couple of my kids came out of the theater wondering why the film hadn’t been called “Luke”. Caviezel is at the top of his game in this film and the character of Saint Luke as the writer and physician is very compelling.


2. The history. The film gets several aspects of the historical situation of Rome during the reign of Nero spot-on. I particularly liked the incorporation of Nero’s Torches. This is a important because it serves to introduce our historically illiterate generation to the famous passage in Tacitus’s Annals:
   
   “And derision accompanied their end: they were covered with wild beasts' skins and torn to death by dogs; or they were fastened on crosses, and, when daylight failed were burned to serve as lamps by night.” [Tacitus, Annals, Book XV, Chapter 44]
   
   It should be recalled that Tacitus was not a Christian and had no particular sympathy for them. That the film takes place in the immediate aftermath of the great fire of Rome helps to explain some of the grimy condition of the Christian community and the dark, smoky, gritty settings within Rome itself. This was very effective, I thought.
   
   

   

   Nero's Torches by Henryk Siemiradzki, 1876.

3. The ending. I won’t spoil it for you, but the end tied things up very well for Saint Paul. It also made my wife cry which, admittedly, is not difficult. It was, however, a very poignant scene.

Caveats:

1. The accents. It’s clear that several of the main actors were not native English speakers. Normally, I find this to be a positive in that it tends to add flavor to the characters. However, in the case of Olivier Martinez, his accent occasionally descended into utter unintelligibility. This was a shame because I thought he was otherwise very engaging as Mauritius, the brutal prefect of the Mamertine prison who eventually comes to see his prisoner, Paul, in a different light.


2. The poetic license was off. The writers of the film introduced numerous fictional characters into the early Christian community in Rome. While this is not a flaw of itself, it could have been done better. For example, a Roman boy who plays a prominent role is named “Tarquin”. Given that Tarquin was the name of the last hated king of Rome, it’s fairly unlikely that such a name would be used in 1st century Imperial Rome. It would almost be like naming a kid “Adolph” today.
   
   Another mild problem was the “rebellion” of Cassius, the cousin of Tarquin. Tired of simply knuckling under to the Romans, one of the Christians decides to recruit young men and break into the Mamertine to rescue St. Paul. As far as I know, this incident is made up of whole cloth, and while it helps with the story-telling, it does not really reflect the historical attitude of the Christian community in Rome in the first century AD.
   
   The inclusion of Aquila and Pricilla as the leaders of the Roman Christian community is also problematic. Though they are historical and appear in St. Paul’s letters, there is no indication anywhere that they were leaders of the Roman church.


3. The Protestant slant on early Church history. Make no mistake, the story-telling here is a version of history that is not well-informed by the traditions of the Church Fathers. In fact, it’s almost as if the early fathers (and mothers) of the Roman church were specifically disregarded and replaced by the writers’ poetic license as mentioned above. This is evident not so much in what is presented as what is not presented. First, as we know from his Gospel and from later tradition, St. Luke was close with Mary, the mother of Jesus. Yet, the Blessed Virgin’s name is not mentioned once in the film. The other glaring omission is Saint Peter—who is only mentioned in passing twice—and his successors Linus and Clement. These men would have been the leaders of the Roman Christian community. Yet Linus and Clement warrant not even a mention. From the perspective of viewer with any knowledge of the early Church, this seemed bizarre and unnecessary. One is forced to assume that the writers were more comfortable with the idea of a married couple leading the Christian congregation like a pastor and his wife, than the successor to St. Peter. The omission of Linus is especially egregious because he is even mentioned in St. Paul’s letter to Timothy as someone who was with Paul in Rome near the end of his life [2 Timothy 4:21] while Aquila and Priscilla were not. 

Keeping these flaws in mind, I would encourage Catholics to support this film. While it is not the second coming of the Passion of the Christ, it is a well-done production with some memorable, poignant moments. It was one of those films that I will have to watch again after some time has passed in order to catch things that I missed the first time around.

That said, to echo another reviewer of this film, this is not the definitive epic about the life and works of Saint Paul that many of us were hoping for. I guess we'll have to wait a bit longer for that.

"Without morals a republic can not subsist." ~ Charles Carroll, the only Catholic Signatory of the Declaration of Independence

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"Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time; they therefore who are decrying the Christian religion...are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments."
—Charles Carroll, the only Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence

In anticipation of Independence Day, here is another quote in a continuing series on the Founding Fathers of the American Republic. This one, from Charles Carroll, demonstrates the commonly held view that the propagation of Christian concepts of morality is absolutely vital for the maintenance of liberty. This particular quote is taken from a letter of Charles Carroll, the only Catholic to sign the Declaration of Independence, as written to James McHenry on November 4, 1800.

Following is some context. In the letter, Carroll sounds a prophetic warning of the dangers posed by the rational atheism of revolutionary France which, far from enshrining liberty for the French people, instead served as a prelude to despotism:

"If the people of this country were united, it would have nothing to fear from foreign powers; but unhappily this is not the case; many of the opposers of ye present administration, I suspect want change of the federal constitution; if that should be altered, or weakened so as to be rendered a dead letter, it will not answer the purposes of its formation and will expire from mere inanity: other confederacies will start up & ye scene of ye Grecian States, after an interval of more than two thousand years, will be renewed on this continent, & some British or Buonaparte will melt the whole of them into one mass of despotism. 

"These events will be hastened by the pretended Philosophy of France: divine revelation has been scoffed at by the Philosophers of the present day, the immortality of the soul treated as the dreams of fools, or the invention of knaves, & death has been declared by public authority an eternal sleep: these opinions are gaining ground among us, & silently sapping the foundations of a religion the encouragement of ye good, the terror of evil doers, and the consolation of the poor, the miserable, and the distressed. Remove the hope and dread of future rewards & punishments, the most powerful restraint on wicked actions, & ye strongest inducement to virtuous ones is done away. Virtue may be said is its own reward; I believe it to be so and even in this life the only source of happiness; and this intimate & necessary connection between virtue & happiness here and between vice and misery is to my mind one of the surest pledges of happiness or misery in a future state of existence. 

"But how few practice virtue for its own reward! Some of happy disposition & temperament, calm reflecting men, exempt in a great degree from the turbulence of passions may be virtuous for virtue's sake: small, however, is the number who are guided by reason alone, & who can always subject their passions to its dictates? He, who can thus act, may be said to be virtuous; but reason is often inlisted on the side of the passions, or at best, when most wanted, is weakest — Hence the necessity of a superior motive for acting virtuously; now, what motive can be stronger than ye belief, founded on revelation, that a virtuous life will be rewarded by a happy immortality? 

"Without morals a republic cannot subsist any length of time. They therefore who are decrying the Christian religion, whose morality is so sublime & pure, who denounces against the wicked eternal misery, & insures to the good eternal happiness are undermining the solid foundation of morals, the best security for the duration of free governments.

"If there be force in this reasoning, what judgment ought we to form of our pretended republicans, who admire & applaud the proceedings of revolutionary France! 

"These declaimers in favor of freedom & equality act in such a questionable shape that I cannot help suspecting their sincerity." 

As to this last sentence, I have often asked myself this same question regarding those who profess to the common libertarian viewpoints—who find talk of virtue tedious, but never tire of demanding that the law be loosened as regards to common vices of the most destructive sort.

Click here to read Charles Carroll's whole letter in The Life and Correspondence of James McHenry, Secretary of War under Washington and Adams by Bernard Christian Steiner.

Late Medieval and Renaissance Art at the Gardner Museum in Boston

During a recent trip to Boston, I visited the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. I had been there once over 20 years, and had a vague recollection of the place--enough to remind me that a return trip was necessary.

Though unassuming from the outside, once you enter the Gardner Museum, you are basically stepping into an Italian villa from the 17th century, complete with central courtyard and cloisters. Beyond the gorgeous architecture, the museum houses a first-class collection of artworks from around the world. Frankly, I had forgotten how stunning the collections are, particularly the impressive holdings of Catholic religious works from the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance.

Here are a few photos I took, representing a tiny fraction of the museum's works on display. Please forgive the quality--I went in the evening, so the lighting wasn't great. While these photos don't convey the full experience of visiting this utterly gorgeous edifice, tucked neatly in among some fairly ordinary-looking buildings less than half a mile from Fenway Park, they should be tantalizing enough to entice a visit, no?

Click to enlarge any of these.

Effigy of a knight, tomb sculpture from Salamanca, Spain, ca. 1500.

French altarpiece showing scenes from the Passion of Jesus, ca. 1425.

German statue of St. George
slaying the dragon, ca. 1500.

Risen Christ. Date unknown
(to me, anyway).

The Virgin and Child by Bernardino Pinturicchio, Italian, 1494.

Flemish tapestry from the story of Abraham,
late 16th century.

Saint Engracia, Bartolomé Bermejo, Cordova,
Spain, 1474.

The Resurrection, German or Austrian, 16th century.

Though not Medieval or Renaissance,
here is Ms. Gardner as portrayed by
John Singer Sargent in 1888. She was
48 years old at the time.

Halloween is the vigil of the Catholic feast of All Saints

Remember, Halloween is the vigil of the Catholic holy days of  All Saints (November 1) and All Souls (November 2) which follow immediately after. These feasts are remembrances of our beloved dead—those who are among the saints in heaven and those who remain in the cleansing fire, awaiting admittance to paradise.

These are purely Catholic holidays with no connection to ancient pagan practices, as many ill-informed modern folks like to claim. Read more about the Catholic origins of Halloween here, and about the ancient origins of the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory, Part I: "I knew my brother was suffering", here and Part II: "I beseech you to pray unto the Lord for me, here.

The church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini is famous for its ossuary crypt which displays the remains of over 4,000 Capuchin monks who went to their eternal reward between AD 1500 and 1870. Among the remains is a plaque which reads: “What you are now, we used to be; what we are now, you will be.” This is a reminder to the faithful of their mortality and the capricious nature of death, recalling the words of Christ in the parable: “Thou fool! This very night your life shall be required of you.”

The Man Fully Alive blog offers a brief but poignant description of a visit to the crypt of Santa Maria Concezione dei Cappuccini.

An excellent summary of the origins of All Saints Day and All Hallows Eve may be found at The Catholic Home and Garden site.

Wishing you a blessed and contemplative All Hallows Eve, All Saints Day and All Souls Day.

*Note, this image isn't anything officially sent out from the church or from the Capuchins. I created it myself.