Historia Magistra Vitae Est

Tu Es Petrus...

Many a disheartened commenter writes on soft-traditionalist blogs and vents a sense of total disorientation, veering on despair, for what is happening during this satanical Papacy. Everytime I read them, I am persuaded that at the root of this is the lack of proper historical perspective.

Those who are well rooted in History know that the Church has already gone through terrible trials: from the Arian heresy to the Great Schism and from the French Revolution to the Western Schism, the Church has looked on the brink of destruction many times already. Muslim hordes swept through Christian Africa once, and for more than a century they seemed rather unstoppable. The Heresy of Luther torn Western Europe into two, and factually obliterated Catholicism in… Poland! If we think that Francis is an epochal catastrophe, what would St Benedict think, who had to cope with the aftermath of the dissolution of the Roman Empire in Italy?

The historical perspective allows us to see the sad events we are living in their proper context. Granted, never could a Pope make so much damage than today; but never was it so easy, for all those who care for truth, to find it and become extremely adept at it no matter what the Pope says. For the first time in history, an immense number of Catholics is vastly better educated than the Pope, and can spot his lies from one mile away. The same social media which spreads Francis' heresies like wildfire also give witness of an extremely strong reaction to them. Only those who want it will be deceived.

For those well rooted in History, Francis could never be a reason to doubt the Church, Her Indefectibility, Her being protected by the Holy Spirit, Her being Mater et Magistra. Francis may think he is a great innovator, but he will be remembered as nothing more than a particularly smelly fart in the history of the Church. We have to live with the stink. But we know that seen in the historic perspective, this stinky fart will soon dissolve in the air.

There are no excuses for doubting that Our Lord made His Church indefectible. There are no excuses for believing the lies of the Protestants. Get a better historical perspective of our times if it helps you to understand, but never doubt and never instil doubts in others.

Non praevalebunt.

No matter for how long Francis keeps farting.

M

 

The Events Leading To The Battle Of Lepanto

This here is a home-made (but well-made; I would like to know whose music this is) video showing the events leading to the battle. The long siege in Cyprus, the surrender, the treason and torture which followed, and the cruel events becoming a wake-up call for Europe. Whilst it is clear that a showdown was in the cards anyway (Venice had been carefully planning the conflict on its own for years before the fall of Cyprus and wanted to counter the bigger force of the Ottoman with superior technology) it is undeniable that traumatic events do play a big role in actually precipitating planned war scenarios.

In our case, the destiny of Marcantonio Bragadino (in my time, mandatory patriotic school fare; I hope it has remained that way) and of the poor defenders of Cyprus certainly gave more than an appetiser of what would become more and more frequent along Southern Italian coasts if not checked, let alone what would have happened if Rome itself had fallen in the hands of the Ottoman.

It seems that there is a common thread linking Vienna and Lepanto. An increasing threat is perceived as such, but without this creating a generalised and compact desire to react to the enemy; until something huge happens, traumatic and life-changing, and this event impresses itself in the collective consciousness of Christianity and leads, with more or less immediacy, to individual diplomacy being cast aside and the sword of Christ taking the word.

This has happened in the 1070s, with the traumatic exclusion of Christian pilgrims from the Holy Land (an event whose extent we can barely imagine today, and of cataclysmic proportions for the contemporaries) and, after the failure of a long-winded “peace process”, the decision of a strong Pope to react with open warfare. This has happened again with Bragadino’s cruel end, and again with the sieges of Vienna. Every time, though, there has been a reaction.

We can now make a parallel with the resurgent Islamic fundamentalism (a phenomenon very similar to the one leading to the closing of Jerusalem to Christian pilgrimages in the XI century) and with Nine Eleven, an event which would be extremely stupid to analyse merely in political or sociological terms, particularly when the authors of the act don’t even dream of doing it themselves.

We can only hope that – as happened in the XI century – a traumatic event will, in time, make Christianity aware not only of the need to fight an approaching danger with due decisiveness, but also to a growing awareness of the great strenght of the Christian West and of the possibility it has to wipe out – if sufficiently cohesive and united under God – every adversary and every threat.

Battle Of Lepanto: Excerpt From An Italian Documentary

From left: Don Juan of Austria, Marcantonio Colonna and Sebastiano Venier, the victors of Lepanto.

This fragment of a documentary is in Italian [click “watch on you tube” and disable the mute if you have no audio] and will be less accessible to those not blessed with the knowledge of Dante’s Language. Still, music and reconstruction are beautiful and the product is well made.

Important elements:

1) Don Juan reports of having kneeled and asked for heavenly help in front of his soldiers, who did the same.he was the commander-in-Chief of the Holy League, but he still knew who his Commander-in-Chief was.

2) The documentary stresses the importance of the superior Western technology: Venice’s new type of war ship (“Galeazza”, as opposed to the typical “Galeone”) was able to fire from all sides and much more difficult to board. According to the documentary, this and the superior quality of Western cannons played an important role.

3) Don Juan promised freedom to the Holy League prisoners employed as forced oarsmen and they participated to the assault of the Ottoman vessels. In those days, naval battles were, so to speak, also traditional battles as you had foot soldiers on your ship trying to board and take enemy vessels. As far as I know, both the Royal Marines and the US Marines originate from this kind of warfare.

4) The documentary has a beautiful and powerful image starting from 2:43. The commenter says “the battle went on savagely for hours, and ended in a carnage”. As these words are pronounced, an imaginary camera goes along the blade of a sword and when the word “carnage” is pronounced the hilt of the sword is showed, forming a clear… cross.
The image of the Cross being also a Sword is a famous symbol of the middle ages, visible in countless representations of tombs with the sword held in such a way that it is clearly a sword but it forms a cross on the breast of the deceased. The creator of this documentary knows his Christian imagery.

5) A Te Deum was celebrated in Venice as the fleet was coming home. One imagines what an unforgettable moment it must have been for the Venetians. As always, Italians have a strong sense of drama.

6) Even today, every year, the Vatican celebrates the victory inviting the descendants of those brave soldiers.

Enjoy!

Mundabor

“A Cross Between a Socialite and a Socialist”: Portrait Of The Modern Clergy

This delicious snippet from the excellent “Yes, Minister/Yes, Prime Minister” TV series (possibly the best TV series ever produced, certainly the favourite of Baroness Thatcher) is, as almost every word in this series, perceptive and profound whilst always managing to be suavely entertaining.

A quarter of a century after the episode, and with two of their three main actors going to their eternal (hopefully) reward, we can reflect that on the one hand the so-called church of England was already in an advanced state of decay and – more worryingly – that there is almost no sentence coming from the wise mind of Sir Humphrey (a hero of our times, and still underestimated…..) which could not – to an extent, if not always literally – be applied to the Catholic hierarchy here in Blighty.

“The word modernist is code for non-believer”

“When they stop believing in God they call themselves modernists”

“The c of England is primarily a social organisation, not a religious one”

“….significant religious events, like the Royal Garden Party”

” the Church is trying to be more relevant”. “To God?”. “No, of course not, Prime Minister!”

One listens to this refined dialogue and understands that it is not the fruit of parody or comic exaggeration, but acute and critical reflection of everyday reality. I would love to tell you that such devastating criticism does not apply to the men currently leading the Catholic church in England and Wales but if we are honest, this just doesn’t seem to be the case.

Say a prayer, if you want, for Nigel Hawthorne, the unforgettable “Sir Humphrey”. I do hope he managed to save his soul in the end.

Mundabor

The Decline Of The American Empire

Now with mascara and foundation

There can be no doubt that the military superiority of the West (and in particular, of the Unites States) is overwhelming and few in Europe – where the press spreads so many lies that one is not even angry anymore – know that the Iraq campaign has been made without moving more than the little finger of the immense US-american war potential.

One is reminded of the Roman Empire and stands in awe in front of such supremacy.

Still, one is reminded of the Roman Empire also for another aspect: that its end could come because of internal weakness and degeneration rather than because of the objective strenght of its adversaries.

Today, a beautiful example of how this country (which many in Europe admire and continue to consider the light of the West) works against itself comes from a new example of judicial activism, a decision of a federal judge in California about the “don’t ask, don’t tell” politics used by the Army. I read here that the judge has decided, against the opinion of the army, that not to allow a soldier to discuss his sexuality is a discrimination, because heterosexual soldiers can discuss it.

To me this has the same logic as to say that as normal people can talk about their love for dogs, people with tendency to bestiality should be allowed to talk about their, ahem, love for dogs. It just doesn’t make sense in any other logic than in the logic of the pervert for whom perversion is normality, and its condemnation “oppression”.

This still extremely powerful country works on its self-destruction. It allows the corrosion of everything which has made it big, piece by piece; from the symbolic advance of Islam to the toleration of so-called same-sex marriages to the ruthless secular mentality of his abortionist “maybe even Christian but no one is so sure anymore”-President to the systematic attack to its Christian values.

It will be interesting, for us European, to see if and how the Army reacts to this in the courts, in Congress and Senate, and by taking influence on the Government. I do not know American politics so well, but I’d be extremely surprised if the Military didn’t dispose of a rather powerful lobby in Washington. I might be wrong, of course.

Still, one thing must be said clearly: it was wrong to allow homosexuals in the first place. This silent toleration was not good from day one, and it is in a sense not bad that its intrinsic absurdity is now exposed.

It is time to wake up to reality, start switching the brains on and reclaim the supremacy of reason and common sense.

Rome was not built on homos.

Mundabor